How to Safely Discharge Primer

What do you think would happen to your hands, face and chest if the round did go off?????

Not that much as long as your safety glasses were on (although it's still a bad idea in principle to have a small fire on your workbench). See if you can find a copy of the SAAMI video "Sporting Ammunition and the Firefighter".
 
I've found rounds that were tossed in a campfire where the sides were blown out with the bullet still in the neck. Might not be a bunch of shrapnel, but there would definately be some nasty burns/cuts on your finners...and possibly face, depending how close it were at the time.

The part that amazes me the most, is it's so cheap and easy to avoid the issue all together...
 
I've found rounds that were tossed in a campfire where the sides were blown out with the bullet still in the neck. Might not be a bunch of shrapnel, but there would definately be some nasty burns/cuts on your finners...and possibly face, depending how close it were at the time.

Those ruptured cases you found in a campfire would have ruptured because the brass got hot and that weakened it.
I have seen many live rounds of various ammunition, including 30-06, set on a stove in a cabin. With the base held by the stove, the bullet flies out and rattles around the roof. Hitting wood a few feet above, the bullet makes virtually no mark, in soft wood.
The cases always look like they came out of a rifle.
As a point of interest, a 22 long rifle makes a far louder report in going off that way, than does a 30-30, or a 30-06. Also, as I remember, the 22 case ruptures.
CAUTION-- Don't ever try this, or, if someone else tries it, make sure everyone around is properly protected from flying objects.
 
Interesting, I wasn't aware that brass would heat enough to weaken, before the powder/primer reached flash point.....lol

Funny, but I've never put a live round(s) on a stove in a cabin(or anywhere else), nor hang around with anyone who would/does....

This thread gets better by the minute, I'm still awaiting a poster to expound that the best way to difuse a primed brass/round is to tap the primer with a center punch and hammer, while securing said round in a bench vice......

Step up to the podium, you know you want to.........(grin)
 
Funny, but I've never put a live round(s) on a stove in a cabin(or anywhere else), nor hang around with anyone who would/does....

What, were you born 18years old? Didn't you do anything exciting as a kid? I thought all kids experimented with live ammo.

I know I did, and I'm still here with all my digits.;)
 
What, were you born 18years old? Didn't you do anything exciting as a kid? I thought all kids experimented with live ammo.

I know I did, and I'm still here with all my digits.;)

salt peter from the pharmacy, charcoal from the barbeque and sulphur from the train tracks- dip a string into a solution of salt peter and water to make a fuse- el toro cigar tubes were made of aluminum back then- and salt peter was supposed to "calm you down"
 
What, were you born 18years old? Didn't you do anything exciting as a kid? I thought all kids experimented with live ammo.

I know I did, and I'm still here with all my digits.;)

Check out my Avatar - It's amazing that I'm still here:

- I shoot a milsurp guns without having the headspace checked and being magnafluxed by a certified gunsmith;
- I have shot Spanish and Italian guns (and we all know they're unsafe);
- I dare to shoot smokeless powder in antiques;
- once (at Band Camp), I shot a gun using corrosive ammo and didn't clean it with Industrial Strength Windex in the prescribed 10 minutes;
- I cast (enough said - as Lead is deadly); and
- I have used Lee products!
 
With the primer of the live round sitting right on a hot stove, it takes quite a while for the round to go off. Plenty of time to get outside the cabin.
I can only think of heat on the brass from the fire to weaken it, as to why it would rupture. As I stated, with those set off on a stove, the brass ended up perfect.
The reason there is such varried opinions and experiences on these threads, has to do with the age and background of the various writers. I gew up at a time and place, so different from todays world, that 90% of the readers here wouldn't have the foggiest idea of what I was talking about, if I told them.
For starters, think of no electricity, no phone, no piped in water, in any house, anywhere and all travel by horses! Most kids had never seen a flush toilet, but every kid had to carry wood in the house for the stoves, and often cut the wood. A rifle hung on the wall of every house, and every magazine, at least, would be full of shells. Kids were left alone in the house with the loaded guns, but we all knew not to touch them. At ten years of age, I was not yet allowed to take the 22 out in the bush by myself. But I visited a 9 year old friend. His mother didn't know how to keep us amused, so she gave us a single shot 22 and some shells to, "go out and shoot something,"
A neighbor was a batchelor, who carried loose 22 shorts in the same shirt pocket as his pipe tobacco. One evening he was enjoying his pipe, took an extra large suck, and BANG, a 22 short went off in his pipe!
He lived 1½ miles away, but next morning he came to our place to tell us of it. He said he heard something rattling around the roof of the cabin, burnt tobacco and ashes flew all over, but nothing touched his face.
 
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What, were you born 18years old? Didn't you do anything exciting as a kid? I thought all kids experimented with live ammo.

I know I did, and I'm still here with all my digits.;)

Oh I did plenty as a kid...matter of fact I was about 20 meters away when the neighbor kid blew his thumb and two fingers off while tapping a fuse hole in the side of an eddy light filled copper pipe.....I was about 9 1/2 at the time and the afore mentioned kid was just shy of 12.

I guess I'm just not one of the people who had to piss on the electric fence to know it weren't a good idea.....but I hung around plenty of kids who did.
 
i am just sitting here shaking my head. as H4831 and Joe has said if a bullet is not contained in a breech it has very little power (note i am talking smokeless here not Black Powder.) we use to regularly through rounds into the oil furnace at school. about the only thing that would make a noise is a 12 gauge. we never ever did puncture a hole in the furnace.

In earlier days i have set off a primer with a torch for a friend that wanted to make a necklace out of a round. a big bang but that was it.

as for the comment of drilling into the side of a pipe bomb, not really. if it went off the noise would be scarcely loud enough to wake a puppy up. the bullet would leave the end of the brass maybe, depending on the shell. the case would not rupture.

way to many myths here around i see. perhaps a suggestion for a future myth busters segment.
 
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He lived 1½ miles away, but next morning he came to our place to tell us of it. He said he heard something rattling around the roof of the cabin, burnt tobacco and ashes flew all over, but nothing touched his face.

He probably came to check up on you knowing 22ammo is dangerous to 1½ miles.;)
 
...way to may myths here around i see. perhaps a suggestion for a future myth busters segment.

This is cynical, but I've done that before for Milsurps (had its own thread) and countless times other myths have been busted here to no apparent avail.

The Fudds cling to their myths as part of their dogma, and the young guys (at least the ones who can't yet think for themselves) buy into it hook line and sinker. Facts are not welcome with some people, for them it's good enough that "I once heard a guy say that his gunsmith told him of a guy who.....". There are just too many people who don't experiment, and too many people who are afraid, to get through to everyone.
 
So, I will...

1. Never saw a live a live round of ammo.

2. Buy a bullet puller.

3. Soak the primed case in oil, let sit overnight and then deprime in the press.

For the record I was developing a load and starting with 5.4 grains of Titegroup using 155 grain Hornandy HP/XTP bullets and CCI brass. I estimate the overall length of the cartridge was .975 inch.

Or like I mentioned, after you pull the bullet, drop the case and primer in your dud box at the gun club. Soak it with oil if you wish, but really no need if you have a dud box. Cheers
 
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