Video – Digging up ammo cans from the bottom of a pond after a year

This is one of those ‘nice to know’ things. You’d be seven types of crazy to willingly store your ammo underwater for a long period of time, but any container that would (apparently) let you do that will certainly do a bang-up job of keeping your ammo dry when its sitting in the back of your truck as you drive through the night to your alpha site, or leave it sitting hidden under some forest debris for a while.

I would be extremely interested to see this sort of test performed using the Chinese knockoff ammo cans. Maybe they’d hold up, maybe not. But on this admittedly statistically small sample, it appears that good condition US ammo cans with good gaskets are capable of doing some amazing work keeping your ammo dry.

As an aside, I’m a belt-and-suspenders kinda guy…if it absolutely needs to be waterproof, put it int a water tight container…then put that in another waterproof container. And maybe vacuum seal the goodies inside in a nice thick plastic pouch.

10 thoughts on “Video – Digging up ammo cans from the bottom of a pond after a year

  1. Testing? Good
    Testing using expensive supplies as unnecessary test subjects?

    Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and call ‘Not-To-Bright’ on that one. The test would have run just fine with rocks in the ammo cans, along with a moisture sensing tab.

    • Au contraire.
      1) The ammo isn’t that expensive.
      2) You gain real-world no-B.S. data, not “simulated” data, based on S.W.A.G.s and “computer modeling”.
      3) No matter how fool-proof the test, the Internet will always provide n+12 Internet Idiots who’ll claim that if you’d used real ammo, that somehow the result would have been different.
      Because Dunning-Kruger, and stupidity.
      4) This test was therefore the gold standard, and it was successful, thus the data is 100% useful.

      The tester risked his own supplies, to prove to everyone that real G.I. ammo cans will protect real ammo from the depredation of water despite being sunk for one year, with no additional precautions or treatment.
      Therefore, any lesser test, and any additional precautions, should also work with flying colors.

      None of us is smarter than all of us, and this guy just took the group IQ up 5 points, at a cost to everyone else measured only in minutes and electrons.

      That’s a total win across the board. Science marches on.

  2. Thanks for the original post…this has me rethinking some of my ammo storage…I have been using MTM 30 Cal boxes and I like them…I tried searching for you tube videos regarding MTM boxes and water with minimal results…there was one with an empty can submerged only a few feet for a couple of minutes….it was dry but the test was not rigorous…I know Plano will leak like a sieve…so where can a guy buy new milspec USA made metal cans? Please no amazon….thanks…

  3. Most any gunshow will have US mil-surp ammo can vendors. .30, .50 as well as 20mm and up.

  4. I was in Costco yesterday, and based on the video took a look at the made in China cans they’re selling.

    The seal at least was fully contiguous, and appeared to fill the channel for it in the lid. This is better than some of the plastic cans I’ve seen. I’ve used an MTM plastic can for pyrotechnic signals on a boat for years with no leaking – but the box is not under water.

    Whatever cans you choose (steel or plastic, USGI or aftermarket) I’d check the seal for integrity – continuity, lack of nicks, etc. The plastic can in the video clearly didn’t have an intact seal, I wonder if the seal deteriorated or was poor to start with (in which case, the test results are “No Shit? A bad seal leaked?”

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