Basement just flooded with several feet of water. According to neighbors this is the first time in over 40 years they flooded. I'm in a bit of shock that several thousands of dollars of ammo, thousands in firearms, and not to mention appliances are all soaked (appliances broken).

I am going to do a good thorough job of cleaning/lubing/oiling the guns in the morning. Not too sure what to think of the ammo. Haven't checked, I had a lot in mil ammo cans, maybe just maybe the seals were still good enough to keep the water out. A footlocker full of ammo is now a small water feature with submerged ammo... I'm a bit sick to my stomach.

Got several thousand primers that got wet... wonder if they will still go bang?

Sad day in my household.... going to probably be 10k in damages to clean up (thanks homeowners for not covering this).

Sorry to hear it. I was raised in the Great Lakes area and recall the summer storms.

My guess is that if the primers are soaked, they would be unreliable at best.

Ammo in Mil Spec GI Ammo cans will probably be okay depending on the conditions of the cans and the depth of the water.

Hang in there and we will keep a good thought for you. I have hopes that your ammo cans will be okay.

6 inches of rain in 1 hour wasn't very good.... and it just kept raining and raining and raining... almost biblical.

Damn. How did the water enter? I just bought house with a basement and have the water main coming in the basement, always concerning.

Get it out of the water right now.  Open it up and let the drying begin.  If you can get some sun on it, that would be better.  A fan will help.

This is high value stuff that is not likely covered by insurance.  

Do you have flood insurance?  Appliances are usually covered by flood insurance.


My bet would be the primers will be okay once they dry thoroughly.  The key is to get them out of the paper and plastic wrappers.

main sewer backup... looked like a gd fountain. sump and a 110v 1/2 hp pump was no where close to keeping up.... though it did keep me from getting 4+ ft of water like my neighbors.

Why wouldn't your stuff be covered? It's not like a fire where your stuff is gone, it's all there for them to value. Big plus is later on you say it wasn't flood water but rather a sewer back up. It's still water damage but at least it's not "flood" damage so standard homeowners should cover it I would think. Good luck!
Just did a search, no one covers this in standard coverage.

Sorry about your flooding problem.  Good luck with the clean-up.

Insurance covers what the policy says it covers; no more, no less.  I've seen numerous cases where someone thought something was covered by their insurance only to find out the hard way that it wasn't.  One common misunderstanding is that "My homeowner's insurance will cover my xxxxx if stolen or damaged."  Firearms, jewelry, electronics, tools - these things will quickly exceed the amount covered by the policy.  Take some time to add up the value of these things, you will probably be surprised at the totals you come up with.  Get with your insurance company and get a rider to cover these things.  It will cost a few dollars more but your property will be covered.  Flood damage gets into a completely different discussion.  It pays to read and understand your policies.

I've found this to be practically impossible.  When lawyers write code for underwriters, the result is usually indecipherable to laymen.



OP, I hope you can recover your losses.





 

Why is your ammo ruined? It is my understanding that even ammo stored for months in water are OK even without primer/bullet sealer.

I've seen people prove this point time and time again with respect to the fact that primer sealers are not really that necessary.

Get the ammo out and opened to air dry asap. Any steel cased ammo that was exposed to water should be dried on a towel and then sprayed/rolled with case lube to protect it. The seals on most ammo are pretty solid vs water for short term, as well as the seals on ammo cans, but you still want to get that stuff out of the water and drying quickly.



The primers should be fine if left to dry in the open air at low temperatures (high temp drying at 100degrees+ will cause the paper that holds the priming compound to shrivel and stop containing the compound). Priming compound is not water soluble and the only danger water poses is that it can degrade the compression of the compound if the paper cover is lost/damaged (see: primer dust everywhere).



As far as the guns, you will want to slowly dry them (use a fan on low/medium, not a blow dryer) to prevent the wood from warping and cracking as it dries. Also get some Howard's Feed & Wax to rub onto the stocks as they dry. The wax and orange oil will help to push water out and will limit or stop cracking.



Your appliances might also still be fine. Dehumidifiers and fans to keep the air moving are your best option, as well as waiting until the appliance is completely dry before testing it. I'd also suggest pouring or mopping a 25/75 bleach+water mix on the floor to help prevent any mold spore formation, as this kind of event is what lets black mold get a foothold in basements.



Sorry to hear about the insurance not helping, they all seem to be pretty rotten here in the mitten state anymore If your sewer line backed up you might have an option to have the city charged for cleanup, as they failed to provide storm surge protection and thus are at fault for some of the damage.

Ammo is more resilient than you think. Hell, we would wade through all kinds of rain, nasty water, and mud in Ranger school and I have no idea how many unit training missions with mags of blanks and linked blank and it all still went bang.

Laying it all out of the packages, sun drying if its hot enough, or cookie sheets in the oven on the lowest setting are all good ideas. Crack the oven door so it doesnt get too hot as well.

Your guns will likely be fine. Just get them disassembled, dry, and oiled immediatly.

If you're an NRA member and have activated your Armscare insurance, you may have some coverage for what you can't salvage.

Standard NRA Armscare insurance is included in your NRA membership.



For future reference, ArmsCare Plus is available to cover firearms and accessories up to $1,000,000



I'm an NRA member and I have ArmsCare insurance for my guns, accessories and reloading equipment. I am not affiliated in any other way to the "NRA Endorsed Property & Casualty Insurance Program administered by Lockton Affinity, LLC."

On the bright side you still have your family and your house isn't completely gone. Stuff can be replaced, family members cannot.

Hope everything works our for you.

Absolutely sucks to hear that!!!!  Glad you and the family are safe.  I hope you can get things dried out and fixed fast and with not too much of a hassle.

I'm really sorry to hear about this. I was watching my basement like a hawk last night. Nothing but a few wet spots on the walls from rod holes. Nevertheless, I pulled all my reloading stuff and guns from the cabinets and got them to higher ground. I hope you recover everything.

Priming compounds are wet when the company puts it in the cup and when they seat the anvil iirc. They should be good. Dry them asap.   Someone correct me if I'm wrong

No, I've had non-sealed ammo leak just wading through a river.
Crap shoot.

Sorry OP, that sucks.

First I'd like to say I really feel for you. I've been there.

No way Home Owners INS nor a Home Warrenteewould cover this. I learned the hard way. A tropical storm stalled over our area one year dropping 10"of rain in 24 hours and we were out of town. We had just installed new Furnace/Air handler. The A/C system was trying to cope with the added humidity but the installers screwed up the install. The condensate pan was installed unlevel and condensate pump sensor on the pan was installed on the high side. So the A/C was pulling out the humidity only to have it flood our downstairs for 3 days.

We had a home warrentee at the time and the adjuster said it was flooded from the storm. We had the service manager there because the A/C was acting up and he heard the adjuster and said "Bullshit." He said he would sign an affidavit stating that it was a bad installation. That is when we found out Homeowners wouldn't touch it either. It got fixed but it was a PITA.

Home owners Ins. said If the storm would have removed the roof it would have been covered but not the stuff that got wet as it would be considard flood damage.

Our new house is just out of the 100 year flood plain (1 in 100 of a chance of flooding) and I keep flood insurance on the house. I think it is 340.00 annually covering 158k house + 60k contents. We were told to walk around the house and look at everything on our floors up to 10" and calculate the replacement cost. That is pretty much everything we own.

We had a tropical storm dump a bunch of rain on our house and the water rose feet within an hour. My son's swingset was submerged to the top bar and the water was an inch from entering our dryer vent. I was worried but we have Flood insurance. My neighbor didn't and he was freeking out. My other neighbor didn't either and his house flooded. It wasn't good for him but he was a general contractor so he fixed it on the cheap, but they moved shorly afterwards.

I will never be without flood Ins.

This ^

Sorry to hear that OP.

It was absolute nuts driving home yesterday from work, thankfully we didn't get flooded.

I've washed ammo my accident (left mag in pocket, or loose round) and it fired.  I'm guessing the stuff in the cans will be okay.

This is commonly known as insurance fraud.

Well the easiest way to see is to just shake the ammo..

One of my best friend's barn was flooded and every bit of the ammo was fine. Feel free to throw away a few thousand dollars worth of ammo, but I might pull a bullet or two first before I throw away money...

The Viet Cong would hide their guns AND ammo in rivers and swamps.  Military ammo of course.  The only problems they had was some crazy Seals finding it and substituting some rather HOT ammo in it's place.  If YOUR reloads got soaked, maybe a no-go.  Factory ammo is pretty waterproof, unless soaked for years.  You should be good.

Don't wait on oiling if you have to stay up.  I'd hate to see them rust, and as said before, you may not be as bad off as you expect. There have been some threads about the water tightness of ammo. open packaging and get your stuff dry is key.  Also if your sump pump failed insurance may not consider it flood damage.

I accidently ran a hand loaded 9mm round through the washing machine one time. When I found it in the bottom of the washing machine, I decided to fire it right away to see if it was going to fire. It fired completely normally after going through a 20 minute wash cycle.

Dry the ammo as soon as possible. I bet it will be fine. As far as the guns, get them out of the stocks and separate metal from wood, including metal buttplates. I had the some rifles get wet when I got water in my basement and the only issue I had was some darkening where the metal buttplates met the wood stocks.

i have been through the great flood of 1997 in Grand Forks, ND. Rode into my neighborhood on the back of a wet bike and could touch electrical wires over head. It was that much water!

Lost my house, 80% of the contents, my ass...etc. When I say I feel your pain...it is not a matter of speech.

All of thousands of rounds of ammo in tupperware died...Everything inside of a GI ammo can stayed dry and survived to be shot at a later date.

I too learned the hard way that home owners and flood insurance are two very different subjects. And flood insurance on the dwelling does not cover the contents.

Prayers sent

duplicate post...

I had a similar situation back in the late 90's.  16" of rain in one night.  Our power went out, and we didn't have a generator.  We were lucky, we only ended up with about 4" of water, but I had a bunch of ammo in factory cardboard boxes that got wet.  The good news is that I had added a rider to our home insurance for "sump pump failure and sewage backup" that covered everything.  It cost me a whole $25/year.  Damages to our finished basement totaled aroud $7,000.  One of the luckiest buys I've ever made.



The adjusters were so busy with all the damages in the city, that he didn't want any details from me.  He told me to just make a list with values.  So, the insurance replaced all the ammo.  Later, when I actually tried shooting the flooded ammo, I discovered it was fine.



When I built my next house, I added a similar rider (it costed a little more, but still under $100).  I also put in a battery backup to the sump pump, a backup pump, and a generator.



Good luck, but I'll bet the ammo is fine.

Sorry to see this, I understand completely. In 94 we had 2 hurricanes sit over central Ga the July 4th holiday, 18" in 24 hours... I'll add, thoroughly wash out all electrical appliances with fresh water, Dry the internals completely before starting up. Then plug them in , might be wide to plug into a GFI circuit of course