I get my ammo cans from Cheaper Than Dirt...  Good condition (one on the outside is pretty beat up, but perfect on the inside) except for the side = g0d awful smell...  I've tried White Vinegar and even some shampoo.  It seems hot water and soap/Oxyclean works the best, but that takes time and there's 3 or 4 I want to do...

Suggestions/Findings?   Thanks.  

Gasoline and Fabreeze!
Just kidding....

O-man...I cant help myself, but here go's

When I was in the Army, I was a Medic in a Armor'd Mort. Plt..We used to use the Ammo cans for shitters!(I am not kidding) We would be stuck in a Fighting position (fox hole) for a couple days...Well you get the picture..I really hope you did not get one of my old cans..And even sometimes for fun, when we would take all the brass to DRMO for credit, We would put any dead animal we could find in them!..The guys that work at DRMO are crooks and deserve what they get anyway!...But if you are talking about the Puke smell that you get sometimes in ammo cans...I think it is the paint that they use...just scrup it out and leave it to the air for a while...Sorry But you opened the "can" so to speak!

Quoted: I bought a bunch from a surplus store that looked brand new, but they weren't. They'd been outside on pallets in the rain. The lady said they were filthy & had surface rust. She said they used WD-40, and they look great.I've done it with other cans & it works. It takes a little of the old oxidized paint off, but that's O.K. Leaves a slightly oily film.

Careful with that slightly oily film.  WD40 penetrates primers and can cause FTF's.  

Quoted: Careful with that slightly oily film.  WD40 penetrates primers and can cause FTF's.

I would really like to see some proof of this.  Maybe the ammo faq folks could test this out for us.