Sir,
I want to thank you for your advice to obtain a 308 battle rifle. Last year I held off on buying one until December as I felt my AR-15s were “good enough”. I paid around $1,600 for an Armalite AR-10. That same rifle model now sells for more that $2,000 (if you can find it). I have also acquired another AR-10 lower that I am building for a “longer range” 308 rifle. I have also been purchasing a lot of Lake City once fired brass and 147 grain FMJ components and slowly reloading my ammo supply. Here is my question: Is it better that keep powder, primers, cases, and bullets separated or just load everything up and store it that way? I am worried about powder/primer long term storage and wonder if its easier to keep powder and primers in original packaging for really long term storage. I recently went to the range and shot off some ammo I reloaded back in 1993. I had about 10 rounds with primer failure . My previous house basement was flooded in 1998 and I think this ammo was in the basement at that time. So now I am pulling those older bullets and am having to reload them as I suspect more primers will fail.
Another question: Is there a way to quickly and cheaply waterproof loaded cases at the primer and case mouth? I have thought about clear nail polish. Regards, – Eric
JWR Replies: I advise that you go ahead and assemble those components, whenever you have time available. A lot of things can go wrong (fire, broken pipes, flood, etc), so loaded ammo will be much safer than storing components. Store all of your ammo only in military surplus ammo cans that still have nice soft seals. Include a small bag of silica gel desiccant in each can. (It doesn’t take much to suck up the atmospheric moisture in a space that small.)
Don’t attempt to seal case necks with lacquer, or you will cause erratic velocities and possibly cause failures to completely chamber rounds. (The same effect as improperly trimmed brass.)The US military arsenals have actually used tar to seal their bullets, but I don’t recommend doing so. (Not unless you want to set up a hot tar bullet-seating assembly-line, and do the requisite pressure tests!)
For the primer pockets: Use an tiny extra fine tip brush and red lacquer paint–available from any hobby shop. Don’t use clear lacquer. It is important to use a colored lacquer, so that you don’t lose track of which primer pockets have already been sealed. Some folks recommend using just a single cat’s whisker type brush. One ring around the edge of the primer is all that you need. It takes just a tiny bit for each primer. Just one ounce of lacquer will last you through years of primer sealing if your are careful to keep the bottle tightly sealed.
OBTW I recommend that you stock up on magazines for both your current AR-10 and your planned AR-10 “build”. Those magazines are already scarce–now up to around $80 each–and they may be $200+ in just a year.
If you want to have a dozen or magazines per rifle, then it might very well be worthwhile to order two replacement AR-10 lowers from Sonju International in Kalispel, Montana. They make an excellent machined-billet lower receiver variant that the dubbed the “SI-AR-HK” that can accept HK-G3 alloy magazines (that are available as military surplus for as little as $2.20 each!) Then, after those lowers (and a box of 100 magazines from a vendor such as Scorpion Arms arrive), you can then sell off your current Armalite-made lower receivers and magazines for an obscene profit that will infuriate Chuck Schumer.