Safely dispose of messed up primers in brass

B

BondoBob

New member
I had a couple of 38 spl primers seat a little sideways and got flattened. I'm not sure if I can just load and shoot them or should dispose of them. I was going to just bring them to the range, load the empty primed cases in my cylinder and fire them off. Is this acceptable/safe way to dispose of suspect primers? Or, is there a better way. I suppose I could do the same with auto rounds, if I placed them in the chamber by hand one at a time. Any better ideas?
 
Deprime, place in a small/tiny container and spray/saturate with most any petroleum based lubricant (WD-40) and then toss them in the trash. The lubricant will stay in there and continue to neutralize the components.

I promise a water/detergent soak will not reliably kill a primer, even after days of soaking. They are remarkably resistant to water.
 
WD-40 won't reliably kill them either but It's a lot better than anything else we've found.

I just throw them in the trash anymore, or if there is a fire in the fire pit, I throw them in there and run.

I know, you said safely.
 
The primer flips sideways just as you go to seat it. It is easily remedied by simply pushing it out with the decapping pin and throwing it in the trash.
 
I have a bazillion empty Hodgdon powder bottles. One is used for brass with a live primer that I don't feel like knocking out. The other is for primers as described here that didn't seat correctly. Both are filled with water because I recall Unclenick mentioning water would cause their eventual deterioration. I don't know how long that would take but both bottles have been sitting on my reloading area for at least 3 years and not yet full enough to discard. Any guesses on what would happen if a trash truck would squash a bottle full of water with previously live, but damaged, primers in it?
They didn't go off by being squashed in the primer tool. I'm willing to bet they won't go off if the trash truck crushes the bottle of water.
 
We had someone test primer submersion a few years back using different solvents. IIRC, he had one in Kerosene for two weeks that still fired. So I don't know of any guarantees. You could probably drop them off with the local fire department for disposal if one is convenient to your location. But if it is only a couple and they aren't too deformed to seat, you could drill out a spare case's flash hole with a 1/8 inch drill and shoot wax bullets with them. Just firing them will be fine, too (though be aware that if you use a revolver and don't drill the flash hole out, they can back up hard and jam cylinder rotation, as there is no powder pressure backing the case up to reseat the spent primer).
 
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