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Vacuum packing ammo??

8K views 28 replies 19 participants last post by  Crowman 
#1 ·
Got a new toy (a food saver vacuum unit) and been looking to use it any chance i get, that will wear out soon enough im sure. I store most of my ammo in ammo tins and all is inside my house and AC is on so i dont really have to worry about humity. But started thinking about hurricane season is here or a broken water pipe or something like that and was wondering if it would be worth it to seal it up. Ive bought some ammo bulk over the past 2 years and know i wont shoot it all up anytime soon.
So it came to mind maybe using my new toy to seal up some ammo, has anyone ever used one of these for this purpose?
Does anyone have a reason why i shouldn’t do it, something i haven’t thought of??
 
#3 ·
A great use for a food saver! We seem to seal anything BUT food with ours :)
Might think about dropping a silica-gel packet in with each bag... a lot of larger aspirin bottles include a few small cylindrical desiccants that are ideal :)
 
#6 ·
We've done it and it works very well, laying the ammo flat and not just bulking it all up in a ball though.
 
#7 ·
...So it came to mind maybe using my new toy to seal up some ammo, has anyone ever used one of these for this purpose?
Does anyone have a reason why i shouldn’t do it, something i haven’t thought of??
Glad you brought this up. I was wondering along the same lines myself. I've seen some TulAmmo in the 'sardine can' packaging, though I don't know if it's actually vacuum-packed.

One thought comes to mind, though, and maybe someone can shed some light on this. If the ammo (each individual round) is hermetically sealed, then vacuum-packing it wouldn't really accomplish much. If each round is not sealed, then I wonder if vacuum-packing the ammo might draw the air out of the cartridges, effectively 'leaning out the mixture' and resulting in reduced performance.

I have no idea if this could or would really happen - just pondering. My inclination would be to seal up the ammo, but not draw much of a vacuum on it in the process.

Regards,
Jim
 
#8 ·
Seal up your medical supplies. A bunch of gauze shrinks down like 75-80%. You can shrink a whole "blowout kit" into something that will fit in your back pocket.

As for ammo, it won't hurt to vacuum pack it.
 
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#10 ·
So not trying to hijack the thread but do alot of you store your ammo in your house? I read somewhere that fire fighters would not come inside your house during a fire if there was ammo stored inside. I've been storing mine out in a shed since then.
 
#23 ·
Well i am a full time professional firefighter and i can speak from my personal experience that i have never not entered a building due to someone in the front yard saying there’s ammo inside. Or had command pull us out due to info of ammo being inside. i personally store my ammo inside.

Every call I've ever been on or heard on the radio that involved a fire and ammo resulted in the command ordering "defensive operations". That means pulling out firefighters and keeping the neighbor's houses from catching fire while yours burns.

Yes, we know there's no risk of explosion or of getting shot, but it happens every time I hear it on a fire.

May I suggest residential sprinklers? You will save on your insurance, maybe even get a rebate or tax break or something to help pay for them.
I completely agree with you that is a command decision and above my pay grade to make that decision. personally i have never been pulled out due to this info but then again i think there is a big difference of someone saying there’s a few hundred or even thousands of rounds in the back room vs. someone saying i have a home based reloading business set up in the back room and i can only tell you how much is in their by the weight. Haven’t ran across that yet personally LOL
 
#11 ·
Every call I've ever been on or heard on the radio that involved a fire and ammo resulted in the command ordering "defensive operations". That means pulling out firefighters and keeping the neighbor's houses from catching fire while yours burns.

Yes, we know there's no risk of explosion or of getting shot, but it happens every time I hear it on a fire.

May I suggest residential sprinklers? You will save on your insurance, maybe even get a rebate or tax break or something to help pay for them.
 
#17 ·
Agreed! Any moron knows that you've got to have an oxidizer to get combustion. :yup:

Brings up an interesting point, though - black powder might actually work in a vacuum, since the oxidizing agent (saltpeter) is solid, and wouldn't be removed by drawing a vacuum on it.

Regards,
Jim
 
#15 ·
This is a joke, no?

Unless you live under Niagara Falls (I mean directly under), waste of time. Best to control humidity levels.

Now, if you plan on putting some extra stash in the dirt in the back 40, that might not be a bad idea.

Your time, your money, you decide. In a controlled environment, leave it in its origional containers = will outlast you.
 
#19 ·
Will work fine for ammo, now if you have a few safe queens that you want to preserve just vacuum pack them with some VPI paper and they will last almost indefinitely. No air/moisture = no corrosion.
 
#20 ·
Rounds can be fired underwater, no oxygen. You can have hypergolic or other chemical explosions.

Unless the vacuum is made using something really special it will only drop the pressure by a few PSI.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#29 ·
#21 ·
I have "heard" that if you vacuum pack garden seeds they will be good for a long (years) time. Something to think about if you are doing long term planing. In the "bunker" vacuum pack seeds of corn, green beans, carrots, watermelon or any garden produce for future need.
 
#24 ·
I have a bunch of ammo that I bought vacuum sealed from Cabelas. It's nice to know that long lasting ammo should last even longer and be well protected from the elements.
 
#25 ·
We don't vacuum seal the ammo stored in the house, but it is stored in a solid steel, fire resistant safe.
 
#26 ·
Even if oxidizers weren't present in the powder's composition, and even if you were able to create a huge enough vacuum to suck out all of the oxygen from the interior of the casings, the second you break that vacuum to access the rounds, atmospheric air/oxygen would immediately fill the void inside the casing again. You can't expect that if you can suck the air OUT of a case, that it would magically become hermetically sealed and not let oxygen back INTO the case once the surrounding vacuum was released. It's not a one-way valve. Air out, air back in.

The only plausible issue would be if you tried to fire the round while it was still in a oxygen depleted state, and that would only happen in space or in a huge vacuum chamber with you and your gun in there with it.
 
#27 ·
Never vacuum sealed ammo, but I have all kinds of vacuum sealed things in my bag.
One thing I do is vacuum seal clothing sets and have them in my kit.

To keep my bulk ammo dry, I put it in zip-lock bags with a couple desiccant packs.

Boxed ammo is stored in watertight boxes, also with desiccant packs.
 
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