Seal A Meal ammo

[Mephistopheles]

I was loading some 7.62x39 Tulammo onto stripper clips when I noticed some corrosion on a round. A few other rounds had what appeared to be rust under the coating of the steel case. I ended up unwrapping my SHTF supply and looked at each round. We are talking about a sizable amount. Found around 10 rounds that had corrosion and culled those. There were several others with underlying rust that didn't look bad. All of this unwrapped ammo ended up in a plastic ammo box like you find at Bi-Mart. I want to protect this from any further problems and have been thinking of dividing it into lots of 250 and using my Seal A Meal to suck the air out and seal the bag. Anyone see a problem with this idea, like sucking out primers or something like that? Don't want to start a thread about Tulammo sucks. Will probably look at Wolf or Golden Tiger in the future. $5.47 for Tulammo at Walmart was hard to ignore. Thanks in advance.

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[erudne]

go for it

 

[Joe13]

Buy some dessicants and put them in your bulk storage to soak up any moisture.

Or put on in each bag as you seal them. Should have any issues vacumepacking them.

 

[ConcreteJungle]

Buy some dessicants and put them in your bulk storage to soak up any moisture.

Or put on in each bag as you seal them. Should have any issues vacumepacking them.

That's how i store all my ammo. Each ammo can gets a few of those packets.
All of my ammo cans have a tight seal on the top...i always test them prior to purchase to make sure they seal tightly.
...and i always rotate through my ammo. when i buy new ammo i will go through the process of unloading my ammo boxes, pulling out the oldest of that caliber and replace it with newer stuff. i always try to shoot the oldest ammo i have first.

 

[ZA_Survivalist]

Yeah that works, ammo containers with desiccants work we too.

When a few of my stashes had rust (poly coating) I was pissed and only bought lacquer coated stuff because it is more corrosion resistant.. However we had a dry spell of lacquer coated stuff for quite a while, so I was forced to buy brass ca$ed and polymer coated steel cased stuff.

The main thing:
Wash your hands before touching the rounds.. Sounds silly but that salt from your sweat does rub off on firearms and this type of ammo, next I take it out of those boxes, they are made of paper, paper absorbs variant levels of moisture if exposed and semi traps it in.
I dumped ALL polymer coated rounds into plastic ammo containers with small desiccants thrown in and have left them stored in my safes and in my closet (in some cases 2-3 years) without issue.

For smaller lots that you know are going to be exposed to more moisture yes the food saver bags work great. Little stripper clip packs of 10-20 or just loose I have a few a buddy made for me thrown in my little PVC cache.

Best of luck!

 

[MrNatural]

When vacuum sealing anything with sharp points, edges or corners, it's important to protect the plastic bag from puncture. It just takes one extremely (!) small puncture to defeat the entire package.

The glaring flaw in most vacuum-sealed stuff is the bag itself. Most are way too thin at around 2 mills and very expensive, plus they are not mylar, which is needed to prevent oxygen infiltration. Most non-mylar plastic bags are porous, even if at a microscopic level.

The answer for me came from Sorbent Systems in Los Angeles.
https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/emergency_supplies/mylar_food_storage_bags.htm
They sell a large selection of heavy duty 6 mil mylar bags and a very cheap vacuum machine that uses a snorkel to suck out the air. You cannot use this vacuum on wet foods without putting a piece of paper towel along the inside of the edge to be sealed to absorb any liquid. They periodically have specials. They will once in a while discount overrun items that were special ordered by a large customer.

Another source for the commercial grade bags and oxygen absorbers is USA Emergency Supply.
https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/emergency_supplies/mylar_food_storage_bags.htm
They have great prices and a flat $4.99 shipping fee no matter how big the order is.

Putting rifle ammo ammo, loose or in the factory 20-rd boxes, into a relatively thick plastic freezer bag before putting it in the vacuum-seal bag usually works.

While you're doing your ammo, consider doing:

Medical supplies: bandages, sterile instruments,and long-life medications. Make pouches containing baby aspirin, Pepto Bismol chewable tablets, chloraseptic cough lozenges (the heavy duty ones that really numb your throat), over the counter allergy pills like generic claritin, sinus pain and pressure pills, Lanacane or Neosporin cream for insect bites and scrapes, insect repellant wipes, tooth and gum numbing gel for toothaches, moisturizing eyewash to help with dust, soot and gunpowder grit, small jars of Vicks and Noxema and aloe sunburn gel, and advil or tylenol.

Emergency clothing: wool shirts and socks, gloves, thermal underwear, cotton underwear and a watch cap or two. Sleeping bags too if you have big enough bags.

Hygiene: towels, paper towels, handkerchiefs, kleenex, wash cloths, soap

Food: Sugar, Salt, Pepper, Garlic powder and other seasoning packets, tea bags, cocoa, koolaide, instant coffee and creamer, packets, instant milk.

Rehydration mix: Per sealed packet: 8 level teaspoons of sugar, 1 level teaspoon of salt. Dissolve into 1 quart of clean water. Do lots of these - they'll be a GREAT barter item. Life-threatening dehydration due to dysentery will be rampant after breakdown.

Emergency toilet paper (flatten the roll)

Laundry detergent powder - pre-measure one load's worth in a packet and make about a dozen.

Cigarettes, or loose tobacco and rolling papers - even if you don't smoke, cigarettes will be like gold after an emergency. Even if they're old.

LOTS of matches - both cheap and more expensive, better kinds - buy 'em cheap now. Pack 'em away

Those are all things you (very much!) want to keep dry in case you need them for emergencies. Add to that anything cloth will usually pack down to a fraction of it inflated size and is more convenient to store and carry.

Yer welcome

 

[Mephistopheles]

Thank you again. How about the zinc plated MPS they have at Cabellas? Zinc is used to control electrolysis on marine engines. Any good on ammo?

 

[Joe13]

+1 to clean hands.

I use rubber gloves whenever handling ammo that will be stored for more then the trip out to shoot it.

Makes the difference between a box (Emptied into a ziplock) of .22 looking like it came off the ocean floor or keeping it looking factory new.

 

[Medic!]

Be mindful. Don't make the mistake I made.
I had a ammo can with a bad seal. [I closed it on a ziplock bag]. And had desiccant inside.

Some desiccant will continue to draw moisture and drip a wet chemical mix all over your ammo if you don't make sure the can is sealed completely. If it can continue to pull moisture it will get messy!

So make sure you don't, or cant, loose the seal. Also don't use to little desiccant for too much moisture. Like in a safe or large lock box.

I cleaned the ammo up. But lost my desiccant rights. [I'm a desiccant abuser]! I just use 50 cal. ammo cans now.

 

[ZA_Survivalist]

Thank you again. How about the zinc plated MPS they have at Cabellas? Zinc is used to control electrolysis on marine engines. Any good on ammo?

YES! Much better than the polymer coated stuff

 

[fredball]

use desicant

 

[DuneHopper]

Hmmmm, I was wondering it putting a air valve on my steel rubber sealed ammo boxes and then sucked the air out would it stay sealed ? Hmm my inventive mind in thinking of airless ammo boxes. hmmm maybe after another cup of coffee.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

Consider using an electric dehumidifier in your storage area. I use a large, powerful one for my tools and store most of my ammo there too. I don't use dessicants yet I have no moisture problems.

 

[Member 34319]

Another thing I've learned over the years is to apply some petroleum jelly to the seal every so many years. Those seals dry out over time.

If you do your do diligence, once sealed, the little amount of moisture in that air that gets sealed in with the ammo should not cause any real problems. If your worried. Through some rice in there, loose with the ammo.

 

[gearsource]

I recently opened up some long term storage ammunition I sealed inside silver mylar foil pouches about 18 years ago. Some of the pouches had oxygen absorbers in them and some didn't.

It didn't seem to matter, as the rounds in both pouch types were bone dry and looked as good as the day I bought the ammunition.

I don't know how long regular plastic type bags will last, but it will be a lot longer than no protection at all.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

This is a touch off thread, but does anyone have any experience doing something like this double, Seal a Meal, bagged?

 

[U201491]

This is a touch off thread, but does anyone have any experience doing something like this double, Seal a Meal, bagged?

Keep the primers opposite end to the sealing area gets hot there.

 

[Stomper]

I heard you can seriously increase your corrosion protection if you half fill your ammo cans with urine before you pack ammo into them. You should try it
and let us know how it does!

 

[U201491]

Well assembled ammo, if kept dry will last for Many decades.
Other than keeping it in a dry environment there is not much else that needs to be done.
I have fired ammof from back in the 20's and 30's and 40's that functioned just fine.

 

[The Heretic]

Haven't read the whole thread yet, so maybe someone already suggested this:

Bulk coffee bean bags are fairly heavy mylar, and often come with a pressure release valve. They are a bit of a pain to wash to get the oil removed, but it can be done. I don't drink coffee, but I used to work at a tech startup that drank several bags of the stuff a week.

Also, toner cartridges for laser printers usually come in some kind of mylar, and the mylar usually has some kind of stinky preservative embedded in it. Don't store food in those as they are NOT food safe. But they work for ammo.

You can cut these up into smaller bags by sealing the edges with something hot. Before I got a Food Saver I used a clothes iron. I also have a hand vacuum pump - the kind you can buy for bleeding brake lines - in case the power goes out and I need to vacuum store food in a bag.