Some years back I was given several thousand .223 / (M-193 “equivalent) factory loads that had been involved in a flood event and had stayed in the remains of their original packets fr a couple of weeks afterwards.

I did a trial run using my trusty collet puller and found that almost every round still had fresh, free-flowing powder in it.

Away we went! Each round was pulled and the bullet stored for cleaning and recovery.

EACH powder load was first tipped onto a small tray to endure it still smelled and f”flowed” OK.

From nearly three thousand rounds I found about twenty that had suffered water ingress. The resulting “sludge” was not “dumped” but collected for later dispersal on the garden; Nitrates are Nitrates.

Quite a few powder loads were weighed to establish the nominal loading for “re-use”.

The bullets were given a general “wash” then tossed in batches into my rotary tumbler with the usual stainless-steel pins / citric acid mix and left to rumble away for a while.

Next, the primed cases. I decided that the primers would have to go, not just because they were possibly contaminated, but because they were not likely to be much good after the cases were wet-tumbled.

Out with the trusty Lee “universal” de-capper die. NOT ONE primer “popped”, possibly because I was driving the press REALLY slowly; safety glasses and ear-muffs definitely worn, just in case.

Several hours later, I had a swag of de-primed brass that was ready for the tumbler. I did “short” time runs to first clean off the “crud”. The presence of the “crud’ was why I did NOT de-prime them using a “conventional” die.

Being “ball” type ammo, the primer pockets were crimped; another job for the mighty Dillon 600!.

So, now I have air-tight boxes of shiny, factory-“new” brass and bullets. Test loads using CCI Small Rifle Magnum primers and the original powder load seem to clock about right and work fine in a .223 Wylde chambered Remington.

A lot of work? Beggars can’t be choosers, especially now with ammo and component prices being silly.