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My basement flooded a couple weeks back, its finally drying out and I discovered that one of my ammo cans was not sealed and got water in it. I have 223 stored in it, steel casing FMJ Wolf brand and some of them are rusted a bit. What can I clean them with that won't damage them? The vast majority of them will feed without any jamming in my Rugar, but a few will need to be cleaned up. Turns out the can was from China, and not a US made one that I got from "army surplus". All my other surplus cans sealed tight and didn't get wet, and no I did not have them sitting on the floor, they were on a shelf 6" off the floor. I had 10" of water come up through running sump pits, 6 pumps going constantly could not keep up with the amount of rain that came down and the entire basement flooded for the first time in the 25 years we lived here. A bathroom and 4 other rooms that have their floors raised 3" got flooded and all have to be removed now.
What number are we talking about with “some” are rusted. I would pull a few and see if that ammo made it through the flood. If you reload, it’s easy. If not, you can clean them up with a basic scouring pad (magic eraser) and put them back in storage or take them to the range.
Thanks for the suggestions, I will give the cloth a try. Figured I would use gun oil to wipe them with when done. They didn't soak submerged thankfully, but enough water got in to soak the boxes they were in. About 420 rounds were affected but I would say maybe 60 rounds are rusted, the rest are just discolored. Think I will stick with the plastic cans from now on, at least I know those wont leak like this Chinese made one did. The US Army ones I have were water tight.
About 30-40 look like the middle one, the rest look like the one on the right and a few look like the left one. Powder is still dry as I can shake and feel it moving like the ones from another case.
