Spent primers . . .

P

Prof Young

New member
It occurred to me today that if I'd kept all the spent primers I've "harvested" over the years I'd have pounds and pounds of them. Has anyone ever tired to sell them as scrap or do any other useful thing with them?

Live well, be safe
Prof Young
 
They can be sold as brass. I don't like the priming compound residue, so I seal them in plastic bag and dump it in trash immediately after decapping.

-TL
 
Many decades ago, when I first started reloading, reading through a Dean Grenell edition of "ABC's of Reloading", Dean showed his coffee can of spent primers and mused about what to do with them.

So....I started keeping mine. Was easy to accumulate the first coffee can as I was shooting a lot of trap and shotgun primers are large! Haven't shot trap for years and the second coffee can is taking decades to complete.

I look at this two ways: the first is look at all the reloading I've done and boy, was it worth it to spend all this money on all of this equipment. The second is look at all the reloading I've done and was it worth it to spend all this money on all this equipment! Yes, it was!
 
You may get less money for the spent primers because they will be needed to be treated differently by a smelter than you would for pure brass cases.

I just trash them, if you really shoot a lot, it might be worth it to keep them separate and then sell them, just not worth the bother for me since I don't sell my cases for their brass content but just reuse them till they are no longer usable.

To each their own.
Stay safe.
Jim
 
Yep, just throw them in with your bad brass and take them to the re-cycle center. No need to keep them separate. In my area, cartridge brass is worth a bit less than cast brass, but cases and primers are treated alike.
 
I keep my spent primers and load 12 gage shot shells with them. The load works well for shooting tree limbs from power lines of for shooting small varmits since the spent primers keyhole. You also do not have to worry about the shot traveling very far so the loads work well for in close shots.
 
Back in the dim & distant days back on the other side of the pond you had to turn them in to account for fired rounds so you could buy more components on your FAC. (permit):eek: You were permitted by round count to posses & to buy if you reloaded (which was the minority) it was the only way to confirm your round count(s) For example you could possess 550 but buy 500 otherwise (big beginner's mistake) you had to run out to buy more,

I think the cops used to weigh them to get a head count.:rolleyes:
 
I've got a 4 gallon pail on the floor near my press that's 1/2 full of spent primers, rimfire cases and junk cases/brass. My local recycler takes them all as brass (ferget which number designation, but not pure but "clean") and no need to sort out to be "special handled". Smelters handle tons of brass at a time, melting in huge crucibles so even a handful of live primers won't be noticed popping in the tons of the other brass being processed...
 
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