I got ripped off at a Gunshow and I don't know what to do with this Crap!

J

Jamie Young

New member
I bought 600rds of .308 ammo from Chile yesterday. If I could take it back I would have but the gunshow is over. I opened up a couple boxes of the stuff when I bought it but once I got it home I opened it all up. There was about 180rds out of the 600rds I bought that were orange or yellow. Yes thats right Brass that was orange and yellow. Looks like somebody Wee Weed on my brass! I'm use to seeing ammo with slight discoloration and its obvious that some of this ammo looks dangerous to shoot. I was thinking about pulling the bullets out of the bad ammo and reloading them at a later date. But what should I do with the brass and the powder I have. Should I just dump all the powder into a bucket of water and pour it down the drain? I guess I should be calling in the bomb squad to dispose of this crap.
 
couldnt you put 50 or so rd.s at a time into a brass tumbler w/ corncobb media?
i would do it outside just in case.
 
I threw one in last night for about 20 minutes Maybe I should try that for a longer time. I'm just not sure if I have brass with slight water marks or I have brittle brass ready to blow up. Maybe Tumbling a few for little while will give me a better idea. I'm glad you brought that up.
 
Just don't go over board with the tumbling. Powder in loaded cases can wear down into finer bits that will burn faster that the original stuff, which will increase pressures. How fast this will occur depends on several factors like how solid the grains are and how much room is left in the case for the powder to move around in. I don't think that 1/2 hour will hurt any military powder a bit but I wouldn't care to leave the tumbler running for much longer. Some loading firm routinely tumble thier ammo to dress it up before boxing it so I'd say that a short tumble is safe.

Don in Ohio
 
Soda, why don't you "wee-wee" on some yourself, give it a few days and see if the colors match. :) That way you will know if it's the wee-wee or not.
 
Hmmm.... Just a thought....

Maybe you could pull a bullet from one of the worst looking cartridges and then cut the brass casing in half in several places to get an idea of the level of corrosion as well as the brittleness of the brass.

If you do decide to shoot it, wear shooting safety glasses and shoot it in a gun that handles split casings well.

Did you get a business card or any information on a receipt that you might be able to use to contact the ammunition seller?
 
Sweat!

I opened up a can of 30.06 and found that whomever loaded it in the can before it was sealed obviously dropped sweat onto the top enblocs. There were not usable at all. I tried cleaning the cases but it was black and wouldn't clean off so I must have really eaten into the case. I ended up throwing out 250 rounds, total, because of FTF or delayed fire. (That's were you hear the 'click' of the hammer than a few seconds later, kaboom. Neat! Especially if you've already lowered the muzzle! So I yanked all that ammo out of that stash and dropped it off at a company what will dispose of it for me (S&W as a matter of fact). What else do you do with a bunch of bad ammo?

This experience has left me a little leary of milsurp ammo. Whenever I buy it again, I always make sure the dealer will take it back if it's no good. With a gun show, however, the only thing I'd do is challenge the credit card, if you used one.

Good luck.

R
 
Tumbling loaded ammo

Perhaps you don't value your home and/or life as much as I value mine, but why in the world would you tumble loaded ammo???
Either leave home while it's tumbling to avoid the blast or name me as next-of-kin on the life insurance policy.
 
Tumbling loaded ammo, especially in a vibratory tumbler properly loaded with media, is about as dangerous as carrying a few loaded rounds in your hunting coat pocket.
 
Badly stained??

If the brass is just badly stained and not metallurgically altered, might try cleaning WITHOUT tumbling.

Take a 3/8 inch electric drill and chuck the bullet end into the jaws. Glove one hand and use that to hold 4-0 steel wool as you spin the cartridge. Do not apply for more than three or four seconds or heat could become a problem.

This won't bring a high polish to the brass but it will be clean enough to let you inspect closely. If it looks okay, the cartridges should be clean enough to function in your rifle.

Best,
Johnny
 
on both the venezuelan as well as the portugese .308 i have a good majority of the cases look like that. however it all fires feeds as well as ejects with no problem.
 
Its not just the discoloration its also what looks like little orange rust marks. I'm only going to tumble ONE loaded round and see how deep the marks go. I will only buy the stuff in Sealed Battle packs from now on. I got this ammo for my DSArms STG58 FAL rifle and I'm not too sure if I want to know how well it handles Split cases!
 
Oh by the way Q-Man I didn't get a receipt but If I see the same guys again I'm going to say something to them. The other problem I have is when I asked for 500rds of the stuff they guy pointed to a bag they had on the floor and said "How About 600rds I already have these Packed" I'm starting to wonder If somebody brought the ammo back already and he just sold it back to me. They one guy working there was a total Putz. I told him I was going to get my FAL in a week or so and he had to go ask on of the guys what Caliber the FAL was (YIKES) (BAD SIGN). Then the guy looked me in the eye and said "YOU WANT .308 AMMO". I was like umm I think I already knew that SHEESSH!!!!!!!!!

If I do decide to pull this stuff and chuck the powder how should I get rid of it. No Bomb making recipes I don't want powder laying around here especially since I don't know what kind it is.
 
well It looks more blotched and hazed the rust marks that is, but Its a possibility on some of the stuff. 180rds is a lot to waste especially because I haven't even gotten my rifle yet. I can't experiment any more tonight but hopefully tomorrow I'll do some more evalutations.
I'll post my results................
 
I bought 1000 rounds of 1983 .308 Argentine from Century International Arms (http://www.centuryarms.com/) a while back for $135 delivered. I'm still enjoying shooting it in my M1A. It was also discolored and had rusty looking spots, maybe not as much as yours, but maybe our opinions on what is "unshootable" differ. The rusty looking spots were only on the surface. None of the rounds have failed in any way. The brass is Berdan primed, so I'm not worried about reloading.

I was once shooting my stainless M70 Pre-64 Winchester using some 1955 U.S. surplus 30-06 ammo that my friend and I got from his grandpa. The brass looked to be in perfect condition and very clean. However, one of the cartridge casings split when I fired it and let some gasses and specks of powder spew from around the bolt and into my face. Luckily I had not yet gotten contacts and was wearing my eyeglasses. My 1st thought was ", HOLY FLYING MONKEYS!!! I JUST BLEW MY FACE OFF!!!" But after about a second I realized that I was in no pain and the worse thing that happened was a few little chunks of gunpowder were stuck to my slightly sooty face. I still have the split cartridge case. It's split about a half inch from the primer up around pointing to the mouth of the case.

The moral of this story it that it’s not always what’s on the outside of a cartridge case that counts.
 
Soda Pop,I had a similar experience with some milsurp ammo
I picked up at a local show.Probably if you bide your time the guy will be back at that same show the next time and you can ask for a refund or exchange.
 
Sodapop,

If you decide to pull the ammo apart for components, take the powder outside to your lawn and spread it around. It makes a great source of nitrogen for the grass.
 
Ditto what BobR says. I dumped a couple of 1 pound cannisters of some old powder (Win 231 and Bullseye) on the front yard. It won't kill weeds, but it does add nitrogen to the soil.
 
Learn from your mistake and don't buy any more crappy surplus ammo. Is it really worth trying to shoot this crap to see if it blows your gun as well as yourself? Put the bad ammo aside and confront the jerk that sold it to you when he comes back to town.
 
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