Spent primers still have some energy?

coyoteking

coyoteking

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Just a weird observation.

I always thought that after you touched off a primer it was done, that it would burn up all of the compound in the cup upon ignition. Apparently this isn’t the case.

I live on a farm and we burn our household garbage in an incinerator. A few months ago I took the garbage bag from my gun room out and burned it. While it was burning I could hear primers popping off and my immediate reaction was one of horror- I thought I must’ve somehow threw a sleeve of new primers in that garbage can at some point.

Today I emptied my primer catcher into the nearly full garbage, hauled it out to the incinerator and lit it up. Again, there was multiple primers popping off, but this time I know with certainty that all the primers in that garbage bag were spent.

I had no idea there would still be enough energy in a spent primer to pop like that.
 
yup..I was surprised as well.
My buddy was melting brass and I gave him some 9mm spent cases for free.
He called me back a few days later and was not impressed.

seems while he was melting the brass,..It was popping and splattering hot brass all over the place.

so I did my own experiment,....I grabbed a few 9mm cases and heated them up with my propane torch,..it only took seconds to hear a POP !
 
Interesting! Some years ago, when primers very "cheap" - I had bought someone's hand loads for the unique brass. I pulled the bullets, dumped the powder and then could not identify the primers - so pushed them out with decapping pin on the sizing die - perhaps 30 or so - I put them in a small tin "salmon" can, and filled with motor oil - under the impression that "oil" would kill the "stuff" in there. One thing led to another and that tin got pushed out of sight and I forgot about it - found that perhaps a year later - so a good long soak in oil. I got rambunctious and set up a checker plate on a metal saw horse - spread out some unknown-to-me powder and burned it off with plumbers propane torch. I poured out that oil from the tin and directed torch flame in there - all primers "popped" from the fire - I never did try to use impact on any - just the flame from the torch. I found most of the primer cups and tripod anvils that went flying. Based on that, next batch I just popped off the primers by chambering and firing the cases in the rifle in my garage. - those fired primers went into household garbage. I find it interesting that after firing them, you still got them to "pop" - I would not have expected that.
 
Well that is interesting. I’ve been putting my spent and decaped primers in an old powder can when I resize brass and now have a mostly full 1 lb can of them, there must be tens of thousands in there. I didn’t put them in there for any reason other than it was convenient at the time and just got in the habit of doing so. Think I’ll go get them out of my reloading room and out of the house!
 
lone ranger said:
yup..I was surprised as well.
My buddy was melting brass and I gave him some 9mm spent cases for free.
He called me back a few days later and was not impressed.

seems while he was melting the brass,..It was popping and splattering hot brass all over the place.

so I did my own experiment,....I grabbed a few 9mm cases and heated them up with my propane torch,..it only took seconds to hear a POP !
Click to expand...

That could get exciting! What does he do with the melted brass?
 
coyoteking said:
That could get exciting! What does he do with the melted brass?
Click to expand...

He was playing around making Ingots with brass, copper, aluminum.

100_7121.jpg
 
Falconflyer said:
Well that is interesting. I’ve been putting my spent and decaped primers in an old powder can when I resize brass and now have a mostly full 1 lb can of them, there must be tens of thousands in there. I didn’t put them in there for any reason other than it was convenient at the time and just got in the habit of doing so. Think I’ll go get them out of my reloading room and out of the house!
Click to expand...
Take them to the scrap yard. Primers are mainly brass so you'll probably get $2.30-$2.50/pound for them.
 
I throw my spent primers and unusable brass cases in with the lathe cuttings that I save in a coffee can and take to a scrap dealer every now and again and they never seem to get excited over the primers. They just check the mix with a magnet to ensure it is all brass. I guess it really would not be noticed in an industrial melting pot even if there was the odd unfired one which I keep in a separate can not really knowing what I will do with them.

Bill
 
billbmcleod said:
I throw my spent primers and unusable brass cases in with the lathe cuttings that I save in a coffee can and take to a scrap dealer every now and again and they never seem to get excited over the primers. They just check the mix with a magnet to ensure it is all brass. I guess it really would not be noticed in an industrial melting pot even if there was the odd unfired one which I keep in a separate can not really knowing what I will do with them.

Bill
Click to expand...

well the odd sideways crushed primer or live primer that I have for the scrap pile, I just set it on my metal plate (1/2" thick 6"x8") and wack it with a hammer. Oh safety glasses :)
 
ted_dent said:
Take them to the scrap yard. Primers are mainly brass so you'll probably get $2.30-$2.50/pound for them.
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Well I dropped off some spent cartridges last year for brass scrap and lucky for me the cartridges were separate from my other brass.

The guy that was weighing the brass said that they had to separate all spent cartridges from other brass and price per lb was a little less. Now I know why.
 
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