How to Safely Discharge Primer

Sheesh! did we ever get a lot of mileage out of this thread!!! But, to reinforce the statements made by several........a live round loaded with smokeless powder is not much of a hazard outside of the rifles' chamber. As youths, we often dropped a cartridge or two in the campfire just to see someone else jump. No one ever was harmed by brass cases or particularly by bullets flying around. I hate to admit this, but I once took a loaded 30-30 round, and put it base down on the muzzle of my Daisy pump BB gun, raised the BB gun straight up carefully and pulled the trigger. Muffled whump!, recovered both the brass and the bullet, which had flown about 4 feet up before landing back on the driveway. Primer was missing, of course, brass slightly bulged, but not much. I was probably taking a bit of a chance on some small shrapnel from the primer hitting me, but came out of it unscathed. [Note; this practice is NOT recommended!]Regards, Eagleye.
 
joe-nwt said:
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.;)
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I found a pack of what i think were black powder primers when i was like 10, drilled a hole in a pice of wood with a friend, put the primer in it and held a candle to the primer. we were in a garden shed and when it went off it was so loud my friend thought he was gona go deff and started crying lol
 
At CIL we burned ammo that had to be destroyed. Some was perfect ammo with the wrong headstamp. Usually there was an error in the powder charge. I shovled the ammo from a pallet into a 50 gal oil drum and threw in some paper, wood and a railway flare. It souned like I was making popcorn.

Depending on the caliber, the bullet popped out or the case side split. very little debris came out of the drum.

The primers all popped out. Recently I had an accident with a large pistol primer ging off in a Lee Autoprime. Impressive bang and blew tool apart. I respect the primers. I got curious about how much a power a primer develops when it blows out the back of a case.

I took a crimped, Berdan primed empty 308 case and cooked the primer off with a torch. Case was aimed to fire the primer across a Chrony. 300 fps. A bit less than a BB gun.

If you cook off a 22 LR round on an aluminum frying pan it leaves a big dent. I know....
 
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first off, Boomer, you're wrong. plain and simply wrong. Bullet setback is one of the most dangerous things you can have happen during reloading. read the links provided in previous posts and learn. if that doesn't work, contact each and every manufacturer of ammo you can and ask the same question. Ask Winchester or Federal why they tell training officers to make sure people don't unload and load the same round into their duty pistols, especially with .40, as that round will eventually become setback and blow the gun apart. If you've been reloading for 30+ years and haven't learned about the dangers of setback then you've been blind to the reams of information available to you. In rifles you go from a simple, often not dangerous, destruction of a handgun, to a very dangerous longarm explosion. Numbers of us here have seen the damage from such things, or even witnessed them first hand. I can't even count the number of guns I've seen that have destructed from this very problem. Working at Dlask I probably saw one every couple of weeks. Your "opinion" on the subject is not based on fact or scientific evidence and will get someone hurt, badly, if you continue to express it as such.
as for the original post. Buy a Quinetics bullet puller and yank the round next time, refill and reseat the bullet. Decapping live primers, while not recommended in the manuals, is not dangerous. At worst you'll have a small flame pop up inside your die. no issue. cutting a live round with a hacksaw = bad move. If you are really worried and don't have a puller just toss the round in the garbage, or in a fire bin. again, as mentioned before, burning a live round is about as dangerous as blinking. There is no need to make the primer inert, even after pulling the bullet. Toss it, burn it, bury it, re-use it, whatever. Just don't eat it. although that probably wouldn't be a big deal if you only did it a few times.
 
Andy said:
There are just too many people who don't experiment, and too many people who are afraid, to get through to everyone.
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As for experimenting, I even did it as a school project (a long time ago). I made a "primer testing machine" I set off primers from cut down cases that were clamped into the machine. The "blast" then pushed a weighted block of wood. The farther it pushed the block the "stronger" the primer was. The cases were reloaded a number of times for more "data". Used all sizes of primers alone and then added a bit of different powders to the cases and even black powder.

It was a science project for grade 7 or 8. The teacher asked me not do the experiments at school, but I did get a great mark on the project.

Also made black powder, but it didn't burn very well. But the teacher drew the line at getting concentrated nitric acid for me so I could make guncotton and nitroglycerin. :evil: But the teacher did make up a few drops of nitroglycerin. :eek: :D Had some great teachers back then, and in Toronto too....
 
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Wow! You used the word primer in school?:eek:

Your lucky the school wasn't locked down and the swat team didn't shoot your ass back to kindergarten.;)
 
fun with #### and jane was a PRIMER- so was more fun with #### and jane, and the adventures of spot, ( it was pronounced primmer at that time) and most of the american elementray reading texts are primers
 
This thread has been very educational for me and I appreciate the comments made by everyone. I would not have thought very minor changes in OAL would make a drastic differences in pressure, but having conducted a 2 part test this morning proved my error.

My test gun is a 5" 1911 Charles Daley .45 ACP. The components used throughout this test were once fired Federal .45 cases, bullets were Hornady 230 gr falt point encapsulated, the primers were Federal LP Magnum, and the powder used throughout was Unique. Each round would be fired sans magazine.

Stage 1
This involved loading 5 cases with 5.5 grs of powder. The first round was to be used as the control to measure the web dimensions and compare primer indents to, and was loaded to 1.2" OAL. Each subsequent round would be shortened by one complete turn of the seating plug. The first round was fired normally, the second was a bit of a surprise. It fired normally, but the web had already shown expansion to .475" from .470". That ended the first stage of the test.

Stage 2
In this stage I seated the bullets until refusal, which in each case resulted in an OAL of .897". Begining with 1.5 grs of powder each subsequent round would increase by a full grain of powder. At 1.5 grs, the bullet exited the barrel but the action did not unlock. There was no change in the dimension of the case. At 2.5 grs the slide cycled, and again there was no change in the dimensions of the case. At 3.5 grs the action cycled sharply and the case showed expansion at the web from .470" to .475" which again concluded the test.
 
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Slavex said:
Ask Winchester or Federal why they tell training officers to make sure people don't unload and load the same round into their duty pistols, especially with .40, as that round will eventually become setback and blow the gun apart.
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Could you clarify this please? Are you saying that loading and unloading the same rounds into a magazine will eventually cause the bullet to set back, or that chambering and ejecting the same rounds over and over will eventually cause the bullet to set back?
 
Boomer,

I am very impressed you took the time to experiment. So I took the time to run some numbers for you.

Stage 1
Your base load is under SAAMI max specs, at a calculated pressure of about 18,600 psi, using the proper Hornady bullet spec, but only a standard primer is assumed.

Shortening the OAL by 1 turn @ 20TPI = 0.05" to an OAL of 1.15"

Resulting pressure increase is approx 6,400 psi to 25,000 psi. SAAMI spec for 45 ACP is 21,000 psi and 45+P is 23,000 psi.

This generally seems to correspond to the relative pressure increase you encountered.

Safe shooting. :) :wave:
 
Cerdan said:
loading and unloading the same rounds into a magazine will eventually cause the bullet to set back, or that chambering and ejecting the same rounds over and over will eventually cause the bullet to set back?
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Chambering. When the round hits the feedramp (bullet-first), it experiences a force that tends to push the bullet into the case. Over many repetitions, the bullet may move.
 
sorry I meant chamber. for instance. cops show up for practice day. Unload duty ammo from gun, put round from chamber back in top position in mag. after training load duty ammo back into gun. first round is again chambered. do this repeatedly over the course of a year or two (or more), and that round will keep getting bumped. that's why good trainers get officers to unload their mags completely, and periodically get them to shoot their duty ammo and load new stuff.
 
On a similar vein, it is not uncommon to find that the round on the bottom in my .375s magazine is recoil compressed, as the tendency is to keep feeding fresh rounds over it. Even though the 380 gr bullet is crimped, the neck shows some set back into the shoulder after having perhaps 50 rounds fired over it. I've never given this much thought, and I've never experienced any pressure signs from such a load, but it would probably be better to swap out the ammo a little more often.
 
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