Unknown primers

G

Geezerbiker

New member
I have about a hundred rounds of .223 ammo that was loaded by who the hell knows and I'm not going to shoot them... It came out of an estate from a friend of mine that would shoot unknown reloads.

Anyway the plan is to at a minimum pull them down and salvage the bullets. However in these lean times, I'm thinking of refilling the cases with a minimum load of 3031 since I have plenty of it. The problem in my mind at least is the primers are unknown. I could just pop them out and replace them with the CCI primers I have on hand...

How many of you guys would just refill the cases with a known quantity of power and reseat the bullets?

Tony
 
Refilling them with a "minimum load of 3031" to make some range fodder isn't outside what I would consider safe. Assuming 3031 is a proper propellant for the application (I'm not familiar with it), I think you're good to go.
 
No expert but I would use the primers and projectiles. Dump the powder of course.

Question would you reuse the powder if it was marked? The box had the recipe so you knew (or thought you knew) it was say 3031?
 
The rounds are loos in a box with no markings. The cases are various years Lake City. I already pulled one of the bullets to weigh it and it's 55g so that's an easy one to get a load for but the odd thing is they are FMJ round nose or better to say semi pointed but still rounded.

I'm going to get these pulled and reloaded over the next week.

My adult daughter has requested a rage trip for her birthday and I need to have some blasting ammo and I don't care if I loose the brass from this batch. I'll also need to load up some .45acp but that's never a problem...

BTW, I have a can I dump unknown and weird salvaged powder in. Once in a great while, I take it outside after a rain, and burn it off. It's usually mildly entertaining. Even more so if I dump some aluminum filings out of my sander in with it...

Tony
 
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BTW, I counted and including the one I pulled down, I have 114 rounds.

I didn't have the digital scale when I pulled the bullet so I weighed it on my new digital scale and it's 55.12 grains. I got the idea to try the scale in metric mode to see if that weight would come out even but it has an even longer decimal in grams....

Tony
 
I would be willing to at least test a few and see how they do with mild charges of forgiving powder - like 3031, 4895, etc.
Free primers for plinking are better than using up the good stuff.

...but the odd thing is they are FMJ round nose or better to say semi pointed but still rounded.
Click to expand...
Sounds like the Winchester bulk FMJ, or the old Hornady FMJ.
The Winchesters are very inconsistent; the Hornadys, pretty good.
So, it is probably something in between and totally different.
 
I have seen primer difference documented to make up to 10% pressure difference in 223 with that bullet weight, so I would run a starting load. That's fine for plinking, anyway.
 
If your gonna just load up something to pop them, why not just pop them without loading them. Don't know what the primer's are so can not reproduce the load. Just load plinker's and you'll not only waste the primer's but also maybe bullet's and powder. Of course bullet's, primers and powder are replaceable,,,, sort of!
 
These are just going to be range fodder for shooting with my daughter and grandkids so I'm not at all concerned about about reproducing the load and I never planned to use more than the starting load of 3031. I might not even pick up the cases...

If the accuracy with them is only so-so, I don't think it'll make the range trip any less fun...

Tony
 
Well I have them all pulled down now. It was sad dumping all that powder. I considered weighing it to see if it was consistent from round to round but since I don't know what it is, I didn't bother.

It turns out I have a lot more 4895 than 3031 so I'm going to use it instead. I was hoping maybe I could use Reloader 15 since I have a lot more of that, but it's a bit to slow for a 55g bullet in a .223 Rem load...

Tony
 
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