Old Ammo Disposal
 

My father passed, and I got to inherit all his old hand reloading stuff. Included in the mess are a bunch of primed cartridges, no powder, no bullets. Can I just soak 'em in water overnight and dispose of them in the trash?

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

Heck, I'm sure someone here that reloads may be interested in them and covering shipping costs too !

:ok:

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

Gawd, offer them up to friends! Waste not want not.

p.s. Are you nuts?:tongue_ma:

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

Actually, I remember helping the old man reload some of this stuff when I was in 6th grade - that was about 1970 ... The lead is corroding on the bullets of the complete cartridges - I'd be afraid to evn shoot some of this stuff.

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

Chucky,
IF you feel you MUST destroy them, then soak them in OIL, not water. The water doused primers COULD dry out. An oil soaked primer is pretty much ruined.

On the OTHER HAND, if you choose to sell them. Tell me how many and how much. I WILL COVER EXPENSES and we can talk about the rest of it. Also, what are you going to do with his reloading stuff?

Let me know. Drop me an email and I'll give you several options.

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

Wallew- A lot of this stuff is junk - cartridges corroded, split, etc. Dad was a pistol shooter and he was experimenting with different weights and types of bullets to see what worked best - got all kinds of .38 dies mostly, some for .45, .44. Not too much interest in this area - mostly shotgun reloaders - goose and deer I'll have to dig up the list. I helped the old man reload a couple of times - way too much like work for me; I just want to get rid of the stuff.

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

Chucky,
Let me know.

I occasionally still set up at the gun shows. I'm pretty confident that I can sell the reloading stuff. Might even be able to sell the cartridges, depending on what they are.

But yeah, if it's split, drop it into a container of oil and I PROMISE it won't go boom any more. To make sure, let it set overnight.

Drop me an email, I'd love to see what you have available.

Sorry about your dad. Mine's 85 and I'm dreading that phone call from my Mom. Worse would be to get that call about my Mom (who is 82), from my Dad, because he will be lost without my Mom.

My best. jw

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

In 6 days, all that stuff will be "precious metal." Offer to sell it at low cost to GIM members or the members of just about any serious gun site.

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

I agree that OP should take some pictures and make some use of our Buy&Sell arena.
He's gonna need about 44 more posts to do it, though.

Re: Old Ammo Disposal
 

I was told that to "ruin" ammo, the best thing to do is soak it in some used motor oil. The hazardous part of the ammo is that the primer might get crushed and go off, and the oil will render it dead.
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I had this problem too at one point--I used to have a 223 rifle but got rid of it (no place to shoot outdoors where I live) and ended up with a few hundred rounds of 223 and nothing to shoot it in. I didn't know anybody locally who reloaded, or regularly shot any 223.

The reason I got rid of the 223 was because there's no rifle hunting allowed in IL, and there's also no public outdoor rifle ranges within at least three hours' drive of where I live. Most people I know who have long-arms have shotguns, because they are hunters. For years, there was some state land nearby where people would go to shoot, but the Conservation officers began taking down names and threatening people with trespassing tickets, so that came to and end. If you don't own or know someone who owns a farm, there's nowhere to shoot a rifle except one local 25-yard indoor range.

When I asked how to get rid of it on some gun forums, people online said they wanted it, but of course none were nearby and they didn't want to pay shipping. And I wasn't going to pay shipping. ......I went to the local gun shop/range and offered it for free and they said they'd have to pay to dispose of it, and nobody there wanted it. It was commercial reloads, and it's nearing 20-years old now; I was told (by the local gun shop/indoor range that sold it to me) that they didn't consider it reliable enough to shoot any more.

I ended up just throwing most of it out in the regular trash bit by bit. It's considered hazardous waste so you can't toss a lot at once or the trash men will bust you. I didn't bother to do the oil-soak thing--because that just would have made another hazardous-waste mess I'd have to get rid of somehow. There's still a couple hundred rounds left around here somewhere I think.

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