Disposing of Live Primers

I do the same as Butch with the burn pile toward the back of the property and behind the 100 yard berm, putting that at about 250 yards from the back fence. I throw primers, live and spent, in the brush pile there. I’ve never had any incidents. And when I was a Detroit Fire Fighter I never heard of or saw anyone turning in primers. In Detroit they shoot’em.
While at Engine 60 we had a midnight run to a place where someone had perform an asbestos removal but the problem was thy left the bags of asbestos behind. No one knew the procedure so the Chief said put it on the engine and take back to the fire house. Huh?? We set the bags back of the firehouse. The next day the old pass the buck started. Public Works didn’t want it. EPA didn’t want them. No one knew what to do. So I put them in the dumpster and that morning the garbage truck took it. Two weeks later denials took place. No one knew nothing. EPA had comeback to dispose of the stuff with an air tight truck. The Chief didn’t know where they were. The Captain didn’t know where they went. The Lieutenant didn’t know and I sure as hell knew nothing. I guess I live recklessly.
 
Was it Hatcher claimed a woman was killed when the primer of a live round exited a furnace when she had the door open?
 
Not Hatcher. We duplicated his testing of live rounds in a fire, remotely set off a 7.62mm M80 round and had nothing penetrate a cardboard surround. Caught it all on High Speed video.
 
old primers

Put me in the burn column. I live out in the country. Burn my trash in a fencerow. Ive burnt old powder,primers. Sometimes it makes a little thud but it aint compressed enough to bang. Doug
 
alinwa said:
LISSEN to Asa..... man speaks truth.... primers are H A R D to kill!!

(except when you don't want to.... the tiniest trace of residual wax in a case neck will cause a misfire in the middle of a Match)
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I just have to ask the question; How does the tiniest trace of residual wax about an inch and a half away from the primer cause the misfire?
 
Excavate a small hole in Mother Earth.
Dump primers into hole w/ a small amount of accelerator.
Ignite safely.
When smoke subsides.
Back fill hole in Mother Earth.

Walk away
 
John Kielly said:
Was it Hatcher claimed a woman was killed when the primer of a live round exited a furnace when she had the door open?
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My 1st cousin was hit by a primer.

Early '70's, guys had been in and out hunting, somehow a box of "7MM Mauser" (7×57, .275 Rigby) got set too close to the wood cookstove, probably on the rack over the warming oven

She was wearing a dress. the primer "stuck" to/into her leg but IIRC was removed with fingers, no jackknife surgery required (and the boys were always ready)
 
There is a lesson for all of us!

alinwa said:
My 1st cousin was hit by a primer.

Early '70's, guys had been in and out hunting, somehow a box of "7MM Mauser" (7×57, .275 Rigby) got set too close to the wood cookstove, probably on the rack over the warming oven

She was wearing a dress. the primer "stuck" to/into her leg but IIRC was removed with fingers, no jackknife surgery required (and the boys were always ready)
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I am sorry to hear that. It should be a lesson to us not to put loaded cartridges on top of a wooden stove.

Concho Bill
 
and that might have been more than just the primer powering that ? as in burning powder

alinwa said:
My 1st cousin was hit by a primer.

Early '70's, guys had been in and out hunting, somehow a box of "7MM Mauser" (7×57, .275 Rigby) got set too close to the wood cookstove, probably on the rack over the warming oven

She was wearing a dress. the primer "stuck" to/into her leg but IIRC was removed with fingers, no jackknife surgery required (and the boys were always ready)
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ok al
test time
put a primer in a case, no powder
put a fired primer in a case with bullet and powder
put both on a stove.
lets document what happens
alinwa said:
Of course the powder did initiate but for it to have stuck in her leg the primer had to have ignited first IME
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Well

a former business client used to keep a loaded factory 30-30 round on his desk. He had a habit of spinning it in his fingers and tapping each end on his desk as it rotated...blowing off excess energy I guess. Well his excess energy wasn't the only thing that blew off...the round did and took his right hand middle and ring fingers off right to the palm. Nothing to fool with.
 
In regards to the rounds which cooked off on the wood stove.... all the principals are still around, including Karla, the girl that got the primer stuck in her leg. I'll set one of them down next time I see them and ask for the story, but here's the way I "remember" the reconstruction of events. (I've heard it from several of the brothers and sisters)

The guys came in from hunting and one of them took a box of shells out of their pocket and stood them on the edge of the stove... STOOD, as in the box was on it's edge because it was set there "just for a minnit"

It got forgotten.....

I believe the first 3-5 rounds were the culprits. They were setting primer down, in the box, and when one went off it made a lot of smoke and scattered stuff all around. In the confusion one of the adjacent rounds spun over and was setting on the stove, on it's side, WITH a pre-heated primer just ready to pop. As heat leached up into the round, the primer went 'pop' and shot out and into Karla's leg.

And of course MORE smoke and cornfusion....



Regarding the 30-30rd blowing the guys fingers off I have no comment.


For myself, I've tried a lot of stuff...... I grew up in an environment where my parents encouraged L E A R N I N G versus just setting around and gobbling on about it. We/I had no rules except "be safe." We made pipe bombs, we made matchhead bombs, "spoke guns" home-cooked blackpowder and C4 Rocket fuel....we set off blasting caps, rifle and shotgun rounds outside the guns etc etc, basically if we thunk it, we tried it.... Safely...... We STILL DO.... I've got one of them defective "Rock Island Arsenal" guns in 30-06 down in the shop waiting to be blown up... Another friend did some hellacious work trying to blow up Carcano's and Krags using everything from over-sized bullets, undersized bores (7.7 chamber in a 6.5 barrel w/steel jackets) to pistol and shotgun powder

Now my acquaintances??? Not so much. I can state as repeatable fact that if you stuff a loaded 22LR round into a hole in the wooden target backing and shoot it with a BB gun it can come back and hit you with enough force to blind you. Cuz a friend did it. I was not present, but we did test it later.... I have another friend with a hole through his thigh where he got too close to a CO2 cartridge filled with matchheads..... another who nearly lost a hand hammer-packing homemade BP.... another who was setting astraddle a 30gallon garbage bag filling it with oxy-acet..... but other than minor singes from things like out-of-control speed wicks and rockets we, as in when I was present, have never gotten anyone injured.

We learned BY TESTING IT that uncontained rounds are fairly innocuous. My brother-in-law had a 12ga round hangfire and go off right in front of his face as he ejected it from an 870..... as in RIGHT in front of his face....... and he turned to me and said "Ohhh, so THIS is why you require safety glasses when we shoot at your house??"




In the movie 'Hope and Glory' there's a scene where a kid threatens another kid with a loaded round in a vise. Sets the perp in front of the bullet and offers to hit the primer with a hammer and nail. This idea has been around for as long as I've been alive. We tried it many years before that movie came out and knew it was harmless.

We also knew full well that blackpowder doesn't "blow up"..... nor does smokeless powder. That in fact gasoline is more dangerous than gunpowder. We've made fireballs for our shows where you could feel the heat 100ft away.... good fireballs are hard.
 
Fun stuff

Al, If you did the kinda stuff we did when we were kids you be in jail for plotting to blow something up. Heck, we had dynamite we set off. I cant imagine what they would do to ya now. If you were on a levee board you could walk in and buy dynamite. The good ole days. Doug
 
Doug Casner said:
Al, If you did the kinda stuff we did when we were kids you be in jail for plotting to blow something up. Heck, we had dynamite we set off. I cant imagine what they would do to ya now. If you were on a levee board you could walk in and buy dynamite. The good ole days. Doug
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Then you'll like this story, and understand it.

Some good friends of mine took in a teenaged foster child, kid had grown up in the streets, no sense of proportion. They were very careful to keep him from guns, farm machinery etc.... but he was out on the back 80 and pried open the trunk of an old car. He found some drippy icky road flares...... and when he threw the oily yellow stuff on the ground it popped and crackled......

I picked up the story from his foster mom, as how he walked into the house with 3 sticks in his left hand and said "hey watch this Mom!!!" and flicked his crackly nitro drops on the kitchen floor.....
 
Doug Casner said:
Al, If you did the kinda stuff we did when we were kids you be in jail for plotting to blow something up. Heck, we had dynamite we set off. I cant imagine what they would do to ya now. If you were on a levee board you could walk in and buy dynamite. The good ole days. Doug
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BTW, you can still walk in and buy it over the counter .... from the ATF's standpoint, anyone in good standing can walk in, fill out the paperwork, I forget the name, kinda' like buying a gun with a 4473

The sticking point is STORAGE.... you buy it,

You take it out to the job and USE IT.....

and at the end of day it best be all gone, or you have to show it's in an approved storage facility or you are in violation of federal law.


I happen to feel that this is fair and reasonable.


And you can always buy a little exter and at end of day you set them out at 3-400yds and target practice. Just remember the rule "If you can see it, it can see you"
 
alinwa said:
And you can always buy a little exter and at end of day you set them out at 3-400yds and target practice. Just remember the rule "If you can see it, it can see you"
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My father & a bunch of his mates were deer shooting. Come lunch, somebody pulled out a rimfire & set some 12 gauge rounds on a fence at a challenging distance. The guy who just missed the primer wore the scar from it above his left eye forever.
 
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