Old Bullet Disposal?

My suggestion: look up a local gunsmith in your area and take them to him.

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:06:41 -0800, larry g put forth the notion that...

Why not give them to a gun dealer?

Give them to someone _in_ the gun community. I don't know why (and I have no bad feelings towards the law at all), but I really don't like it when folks take various things to the police for disposal.

GTO(John)

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 01:27:56 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking, "eli" was alleged to have written:

Make sure you call them and ask first; do not just take any questionable item into the police station.

GTO69RA4 wrote: Give them to someone _in_ the gun community. ^^^^^^^^^ I think the perfect person in the gun community to give them to is the retired gunsmith/constable you got them from. If he can't/won't take them off your hands, he should at least advise you how to get rid of them.

You COULD put them in your luggage, and take a plane somewhere. I'll bet THEY will take them from you.

I'd first figure out exactly what they are. Would be disappointing to give away something that might be rare and valuable. mike

Drop them in the airtight and go for a walk?

You make it sound like they are nuclear material. Cartridges (not bullets, that's just the bit that goes down the barrel) are not particularly dangerous sitting on a shelf for 100 years. Just don't stab the primer with anything sharp on purpose or throw them in a fire.

Put an ad in a newsgroup local to your area "Cartridge collectors, free ammunition, call 555-1234". If you happen to know how to read the headstamp to identify the specifics on each, that'd be useful information as well.

If that doesn't work out, get a bullet puller and yank the bullets, drain the powder out of the case, and soak it in water. Game over.

Grown men afraid of ammunition that isn't even loaded in a weapon and pointed at you. What is this world coming to?

Now now... He's not afraid; he's just responsible enough to get the info he needs to keep from going off half-cocked. Can't blame a guy for that.

If they are not collectors items, simply dumping them in the trash is no big deal. Even if placed directly in a fire, a loaded cartridge is pretty tame if it pops, the largest noise being the primer popping off. Ive incinerated thousands of rounds of ammo and its not as load as a kid with a cap gun. If for some reason you wish to keep the cartridges but make them inert, pull the bullet with a collet, home made inertia bullet puller etc. Dump the gun powder on your garden (the plants love it), spritz a bit of WD-40 inside the case to kill the primer and put the bullet back in. Blank cartridges are a bit more problematic. The gun powder is closer to an explosive than a propellent but the fix is easy. Most have a red wax or cardboard plug in the end. Simply push it in with a nail, dump the powder and spritz the inside of the case with some WD-40. What you do with the powder, I really dont want to know about..but it can be used rather successfully in combination with various bits from the scrap pile as anti-gopher devises, all the usual warning associated with low explosives to be understood of course.

But really, if it bugs you, simply take the cartridges to a hand loader, or the original seller and let them deal with them. Gunner

The methodology of the left has always been:

1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie

Bullets - bit that flies out.

Cartridge - the bit left behind

Primer - Little doohickey that goes in the back of the cartridge to start the whole thing up

Powder - Powdery stuff that lives in the cartridge.

Round - The whole thing.

Only thing that's really going to hurt you here is a primer. A live round will have a primer in the back, and that primer will have a flat top. If there's a pin-shaped dent in it, then it's a fired cartridge.

Primers can be rendered ineffective by squirting them with WD40, so long as you can get to the inside of the cartridge case.

Some cases don't have primers. These are usually .22 rimfires (little tiny things) and the primer lives inside the rim of the cartridge. Treat the cartridge as a primer.

Powder (in cartridge quantities) may be taken out into the garden, spread out into a shallow pile or line and burned. It's a bit sparky (light it with something long, and don't do it on a dry prairie), but it won't explode.

A live round is tricky. Needs to be opened up and emptied before you can get to that primer. You might like to hand these over to someone else instead. I'd expect discarded rounds to be fired rather than unfired, as it's damned sloppy work to leave unfired rounds rolling about.

Bullets and cartridge cases with fired or no primers are inert scrap metal. lead, propellant and primer residues are a bit toxic though, so wash your hands.

Anything over 1/2" diameter is worrying. Have someone knowledgeable look at it. Anything that claims to be a "flare" is really hazardous close up, even the tiny ones.

Any range or gunshop should happily dispose of this sort of item.

YMMV - If you're really worried, then ask someone who can actually see these things.

To be honest (as has been demonstrated in many reputable experiments) even _burning_ live small arms ammunition is of fairly low hazard. The stuff just isn't that scary, until it's loaded into a chamber to confine it.

Shouldnt the below be renamed as The methodology of GW Bush and T Blair

The if the OP decides to go this route, he may want investigate look into the WD40 Primer a little further. Searching rec.guns for "WD40 primers" will turn up some interesting threads. IIRC, one poster immersed some primers in WD40 for several weeks and found that they still worked afterward.

R, Tom Q.

Never ceases to amaze me how the left can actually call the present Prez a liar when he's a complete novice at it compared to their champion, Slick Willy :o). Greg Sefton

Yeah, like they took the empty .44 magnum casing/bullet which had been hanging on my keyring since long before 911. I'd forgotten it was there. Cripes, the thing had a short piece of bead chain coming out its empty primer hole, but it was, "Give it up or miss the plane."

I felt real stupid for not remembering it was there, As it had no important sentimental value, I shut up and did the smart thing.

Jeff

-- Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"If you can keep smiling when things go wrong, you've thought of someone to place the blame on."

For single cartriges, the easiest way is to pull the bullet by pushing the bullet sideways to the casing and it will quickly loosen in the brass. Then you can easily pull the bullet out of the case with your fingers and dump the powder out. The powder makes a nice little flash when burned with a match in the free air. I've used this method with cartrigers from .22cal. shorts to .50cal. MG rounds. Do the whole job with your fingers so that there is no banging of the cartrige to make the primer go off. The bending of the bullet sideways expands the joint between the bullet and the casing.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works evevery time it is tried!

Don't forget the Clintons.

Greg H.