I'm on a full series re-read at the minute, and was reading the start of Drawing yesterday.
It just struck me, and I don't know why I never questioned this before, but is it really a realistic scenario that one single wetting of all the shells in Roland's belt (+ those already chambered in the guns) would result in such drastic effect on them?
From the moment when Roland felt the first wave hit his boots he was desperate to protect the bullets. HE was immediately convinced it could be a catastrophe. The rounds in both guns he discarded right there on the beach - after attempting to fire 3 of them from one gun, all of which failed.
He then kept the 20-odd 'dry' bullets, and put the rest from the loops (37 or so?) in his purse as 'probable' duds.
Now my question is (and I don't know if anyone here would have a reasonably definitive answer on it):-
Would one wetting REALLY do that?
I know these were presumably hand-loaded shells, but even then I'm sure they'd be crimped pretty tight on the bullet and 'reasonably' watertight?
I would have thought if they were wet like that & left wet it would be a big issue - but if they were wiped right away I'd have thought very few of them would be duds in real life?