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Posted: 10/18/2015 6:28:17 PM EDT
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Have any of you had concerns with ambient humidity or temperature when reloading? For example, indoors in air conditioning vs. out side in a shed or workshop in the summer. Is this something to take into consideration or be concerned about? Way back when I was a kid, it seemed like all my friends dads had their reloading setups in their garages or basements/ cellars.
Curious what your experiences and opinions are.. 1DD |
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I load indoors, and not just because of humidity. It gets HOT here in South Texas, and that's bad for me, and bad for my loading processes.
A well ventilated garage is fine for a lot of stuff, but keeping the airflow going while it's hot and humid becomes a huge problem in summer. Overheated people make more mistakes than comfortable people. |
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I load in an insulated shop that is vented. No heat unless I have the wood stove going. Humidity runs 50%, goes down to 40% when wood stove is running during the winter. Powder in sealed containers and primers do just fine. They only suffer in extreme conditions. |
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I'm in Central Florida. And It's HOOOT here. Humidity is often near 100% in the summer when it's burning hot and pouring rain. My reloading setup is in my garage. There are several things I do to combat it.
1. I don't reload a lot in the summer months. 2. I have an old fridge that isn't plugged in, but I keep all my power/primers in there with some de-humidity devices in there. 3. I always empty out the extra power from my powder drop once I'm done. 4. Keep the dies and various parts of the machine lightly oiled to keep off the surface rust. I still store all my loaded ammo in the garage. I'm using the .50 cal ammo cans that have the air-tight lock. I haven't noticed any issues with ammo using my methods. |
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Basement. So humid paper doesn't crinkle.
No ammo issues. Equipment rusts like crazy. Got a dehumidifier finally, I don't have it set where it runs constant, not sure actual levels, still worse than the A/Ced house. Much less rust. Bench shrank so much I had to tighten my presses. |
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I reload in an un-conditioned "storage" room attached to the house. The washer/dryer are in there too. I am in central texas... Hot and humid summers.
Metal reloading parts tend to tarnish in these conditions. Especially cheaper die and presses (Lee, Lyman, etc)....Keep in mind smaller parts tumble fine in a dry tumbler. I learned to keep parts well oiled or covered. Exterior parts that don't get contact with brass/powder, primers get something like WD40.... One day I was moving the Dryer vent... told wife not to run it. Of course she did. Everything in the room that was visible was completely tarnished.... Anything even a little covered was relatively protected. I have nearly finished remodeling the area. I have sealed and insulated. I also installed a split-mini AC/heat pump. Haven't reloaded in over a month while I have been renovating. In any case, take it from me, humidity and heat sucks. Mostly for the reloader! |
| I live in southern Arizona. We hit triple digits in May and this year had our last 100+ day earlier this month. I was reloading in my garage and sweating my balls off for a good portion of the year, but recently started getting setup to load in a spare bedroom. Humidity is also very high in the latter part of the summer during monsoon season for us. I kept primers and powder inside and brought them out to the garage when it was time to load. I then stored all finished ammo inside and didn't keep any powder in my hopper. Overall, I wasn't too concerned about the conditions during the short duration of my actual loading but I do have to take into consideration that when I actually shoot it's highly likely it will be 100+ degrees and try to use non-temperature sensitive powders and keep my charges lower than max because pressures might spike. |
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Insulated detached 3 car garage (Pole Bar / Metal building) a few quartz heaters on the rafters. My primary heat source is a 28K propane heater. Have 2 ceiling fans on each end of shop. IN 20 - 0 deg weather 20-35 minutes after firing up the propane it's 55 deg t-shirt weather. The summer it's just hot. Don't reload after 1 in the p.m. Mostly between 8-lunch time. I don't like it to dry (humidity) wise. The shop seems to hover between 15 - 40% humidity.
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| In my garage, year around. Winter, I run a small heater pointed at me, and wear a sweatshirt. Summer, I wait until later at night, the temp drops, and I point a fan at me. Spring and Fall, good to go nearly anytime. Obviously, in extreme temps, I just dont reload. I make ammo when the weather is good, so I dont have to deal with freezing or sweating my ass off. :) |
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Live in New England. I reload in the basement of my 110 year old house. Dehumidifier keeps the humidity at 55% in the warmer months. In the winter the humidity in the basement is around 40%. I have no issues.
Powder is in sealed containers. Bulk bullets are stored in ammo cans. I store ammo in ammo cans in the basement. No issues. |
| I reload in my attached garage in South Carolina, outside of Charleston. We get plenty of heat and humidity. I try not to reload as much in the summer, because it is irritating having sweat drop on anything. I have never noticed any performance issues with reloads done in the summer vs. the winter. |
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