de-priming many live primers - exercise in patience?

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Morpheus256

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Hey,

I came into about 400pcs of 223 that were someone elses loads, no load data on them other than it was h4895. they were stored poorly,green growing on the outsides, white crust around some of the primers etc, since they're unknown reloads I decided to pull them down for components. Pulled 250 projectiles last night using the collet puller, they looked like garbage, 15 minutes in the stainless tumbler with a fist full of lemishine and two squeezes of dawn, they look brand new off the showroom floor. Perfect I'll use them for plinking no problem. Dumped the power (over 1# so far) 75% came out easily, 25% required some encouragement with a poking stick. the powder looks fine for the most part, the occasional orange kernel, I have a have a hard time throwing it away, but since it's roughly 30+ years old (based on a slip of paper) i'm not trusting it. all thats left to save is brass and perhaps primers? How would one go about depriming this many cases with live primers, it's painful to do each one slow and steady without setting them off. Or should i try and keep the cases primed, have a buddy tumble in corncob walnut (dont have a media tumbler) pull the expanding ball and just reuse them? or is there a guaranteed way to neutralize them to punch them out like a spent primer?
 
I have deprimed hundreds of live primers of various unknown origin in my rock chucker single stage press
with lee universal decaping die.
Used the same speed and force as regular spent primer depriming and have had no issues at all.
 
I have only had primers go off twice going in (both federals), but never coming out. You should be fine, as already suggested wear your safety eye wear.
 
tomknotts said:
Wet tumbling should kill the primmer. Stow steady with saftey gear is always a good idea. failing that a little oil on them from the inside and they shouldnt go off.
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Probably not, the primers of old were easy to neutralize but anything in the last few decades are very resistant to liquids including penetrating oil and wd-40. I would just do as others have said and deprime normally wearing safety glasses, they're primers not a-bombs.
 
Thanks Guys, I'll increase the speed i'm trying to push them out at, I guess as long as i dont "impact" them they should come out fairly easily. a few were heavily corroded and take a significant amount of pressure to remove. That said, if they come out easy and look like they're good, would you save them for plinking rounds? i suppose the worst that would happen with a bad primer is a hangfire? Or is it simply not worth the effort to save $8-10 dollars?
 
Because a squib load can spoil your day, I would deprime and toss the primers.

I deprime live primers the same way I deprime dead ones. Never had an issue. I doubt you could fire one if you tried.
 
There was a small ammo company in Florida that was depriming cases and had a big kaboom causing serious injury to one of the staff.
They were depriming all the cases into the same bucket and something ignited the lot.

So do not dump all 400 primers into the same container as you deprime.
Either keep them separated in small lots or just dump them into oil as you go to neutralize them.
The factories package them a certain way for a good reason.
You don't want to accidentally build yourself a bomb.
 
Ganderite said:
Because a squib load can spoil your day, I would deprime and toss the primers.

I deprime live primers the same way I deprime dead ones. Never had an issue. I doubt you could fire one if you tried.
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Really...I didn't know that about depriming live primers...that's good to know, thanks
 
I wouldn't bother soaking them. If you are concerned, the safest way to neutralize them is with a firing pin strike inside of a chamber. Whether they go off or not, you can be pretty confident they are safe to handle.

If they are really old, they could be corrosive. Unlikely, but possible. Don't shoot them in your favorite barrel and clean it afterwards to be safe.

Also, before depriming the normal way, it would help to determine if the primer pockets were crimped. If they were crimped they will need an excessive amount of force to remove. Should still be fine, but good to know that going into it.
 
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OldDude said:
I would consider this route..... How would you otherwise dispose of a substantial quantity of live primers?
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Sounds like too much work to me.
You can always soak the primers after depriming and then throw them in your scrap brass bin. The metal recycler will pay you money for them :)
 
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