OK guys,
I've heard all the old wives tales as well, BUT we are talking a stone, hard enough to peel metal off a hardened piece of steel.
I don't know, but I have a REALLY hard time believing that soaking them in water will make them shatterproof, and less likely to break?!?!?!?!?!
I've used black English, French Amber, and White Missouri. On a well set up lock, I can get easily 75 to 100 shots out of each one. SOMETIMES, other times, you get a softer one, and it shatters, or blunts out really quick, or has a hard nodule in it, and you don't get the same mileage.
I think it's more a natural characteristic of the stone, rather than how much water it has soaked up......... IMHO!!!!