Why discard good ammo

D

deerslayer303

New member
While at my gun club on more than one occasion I've noticed a fair amount of ammo in the "Live ammunition" bucket. So when I was there last I saw 12 .40 S&W FMJ FP rounds in the bucket. They looked brand new. So I reached in the bucket and dug a few out to inspect. The primers were not dented and they had just a little nick on the nose of the bullet. So I guess these rounds were getting hung on someone's feed ramp and thus they discarded them. There were some .22 LR in there too with the same issue. So I guess these folks blame the ammo, Chuck it and keep going. For me ammo in this situation gets chambered again and fired. Even 22 rounds that hang up, I'll reload them and fire them. Heck I've even rechambered a rimfire round that didn't go off with a firm strike on the rim and fired them. I just make sure the pin hits a different side of the rim. I just thought I would share. I see this alot at the range and I can't help but think some have more money than sense. I guess another way of thinking would be maybe the shooter thinks the OAL of the round is too long and discards them.
 
Sometimes the casing, or the projectile itself, will be damaged. Some folks are not willing to chance damage to their guns with unknown ammo.

I'm sure there are other reasons, too.
 
Live rounds on the ground are common after matches. When clearing guns shooters have to eject the chambered rounds, drop hammer, and holster weapons.

Live rounds get mixed with others live rounds, and as a general rule of not wanting to risk others handloads or unk origin rounds in your gun, they are left.

Where i shoot spent brass is often picked up and live rounds left with people not wanting to soend the time to dis assemble rounds....
 
Every Tuesday morning at the range where I am a member, there are some guys that show up to run their weekly "tactical exercise" at 10 am.

Usually, it involves some kind of mall ninja rolling, advancing on multiple targets, weapon clearing drills, malfunction drills, and speed shooting. (It's fun to watch. :D)

Generally, each shooter gets a called malfunction for every single magazine. (Another member of the party will yell "STOPPAGE!" ... just to make the shooter react and run a malfunction/clearing drill.)
For each 'malfunction' there are at least one, sometimes two live cartridges ejected from the firearm. Nine times out of ten, they don't save it. They either leave it where it falls, or police it back up and dump it in the trash. --Whether they're 9mm, .40 S&W, .223, .308, 12 ga, or even .357 Mag from the one guy that sometimes shoots a S&W 686.

And these guys seem to go through 300+ rounds apiece, each Tuesday. Sometimes I just watch them as I'm packing up to leave. Sometimes I show up after them. Sometimes I wait around to pick up their brass when they're finished (they don't pick that up, either).
So, I'd say there's anywhere from 20-30 malfunction drills per shooter, for 30-40 rounds each. With 5-7 shooters, there's a crap-ton of live ammo on the range when they're done.

Whomever is there right after them is pretty much guaranteed to see 100-150 live rounds (often closer to 200) - either scattered across the range, or piled in the trash.


The only three theories that make sense to me are:
1. They don't care. "It's just money and ammo is cheap."
2. They don't want to shoot "dirty" ammo that has hit the ground.
3. They need to keep up the appearance of being a 'B-A operator' with tons of toys and undrainable bank accounts; and don't want to make themselves appear to be common folk...
 
I would never discard good ammo. But I would never fire a live round I picked up off the ground unless I was the one who dropped it. No telling why it's on the ground or how it's loaded.

Maybe the rounds got dropped when the one ahead of them in the magazine blew someone's gun. Admittedly that's not terribly likely, but I'm not going to risk it just to fire a few free rounds.
 
I've shot at indoor ranges where if the round goes in front of the line...well that's it, you aren't getting it back.

The rule of course makes sense and it's my fault if I drop a round and it rolls in front of the line or if I eject a round and it goes in front of the line. I am, for sure, cheap enough to be bothered by this but it's one of the rules of the range.
 
I would never discard good ammo. But I would never fire a live round I picked up off the ground unless I was the one who dropped it. No telling why it's on the ground or how it's loaded.
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+1000.
 
Some people won't rechamber a round that has been, assuming it could have set back and the resulting detonation would be risky.

Just any round out of the box or off the press - the risk was assumed the minute it was included in the range session. It's extremely low, but setback rounds do have an incremental increase and more people are becoming aware of it.

As for the tac drills the "Stoppage!" call is a poor way to do it. Nobody is going to be calling it out in an actual confrontation. The shooter is being trained to react to a verbal command - not "click." Better to have dummy rounds loaded by a third party - and not in every mag. The shooter then learns to react to equipment malfunction and pays more attention to it.

Seeing a large collection of bent rounds is something that varies by socio-economic region. Nobody does that around here much. They get shot. When your cost of living is 20% lower than the national average it's not really ok compared to pay being 25% below the average. Discretionary income is a constant shortfall and you shoot every round you get.

Needless to say, steel cased is a popular seller. I'm breaking in a carry gun on it precisely because it can create stoppages - which promotes being aware of the gun and then dealing with it. There is a good reason for cheap junk ammo and it's great for training purposes in that light.
 
.357 Mag from the one guy that sometimes shoots a S&W 686.
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Ok I want to see the malfunction drill on a revolver that ends with dumping live rounds on the floor. Just because it would be interesting to watch.
 
I wouldn't worry so much about shooting a dropped .22 LR.

Very low probability it was reloaded. I'd wipe it off first, inspect, see if it chambers easily. Usually they get ejected after a mis-strike (or a strike into a bubble in the primer of the rim)
 
As for the tac drills the "Stoppage!" call is a poor way to do it. Nobody is going to be calling it out in an actual confrontation. The shooter is being trained to react to a verbal command - not "click." Better to have dummy rounds loaded by a third party - and not in every mag. The shooter then learns to react to equipment malfunction and pays more attention to it.
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Trust me, those guys aren't learning anything from their weekly drills, except how to look like clowns. :D

I always leave my dash cam running while I'm at the range. Maybe I'll try to get some video next time our paths cross. (Probably the 17th. I have some testing to do.)
I could probably even dig out the otherwise useless "zoom lens" dash cam, so the video isn't fish-eyed and seemingly filmed from 2 miles away.
 
Some folks have become so spooked by the mostly nonsense about bullet set-back and the millions of blown up gun littering the ranges that they will discard any round that has been chambered and not fired or which failed to feed.

Jim
 
I don't even shoot ammo someone else reloads. The idea of picking up a random unfired round and using it... nope.

What if the "45" you identify and fire through your old Colt is actually a 45 Super?
 
I agree bad idea. What if you pick up a reload and it has no powder in it? Not worth the risk to me any ways.
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I pick them up all the time.
Reload? Factory ammo? Intentionally sabotaged load? Water-soaked powder? Full of black widows?

I have no idea, and don't really care.

...But I don't try to fire them.

Live rounds of unknown origin go into a bowl by my range brass collection point, and sit until I feel like cleaning them and pulling everything apart (every 2-3 years).

Bullets go into the 'range lead' collection.
Powder goes into one of the 'scrap powder' jugs.
Primers get punched out with a universal decapping die.
And the cases go in with all of the other range brass.


Last year, I came across a handful of very-lightly-struck .375 RUM live rounds, two cases that suffered catastrophic case head separations, and the original ammo box. (Altogether indicating dangerously excessive headspace in the rifle.)
While fun to play with and compare to other cartridges, they're just waiting for their time to meet the same fate as everything else: Pull-down and recycle.
 
Well FrankenMauser I guess there is many ways to reload an to each their own. To me I am not hard up enough for the casings and I have better things to do with my time. let alone getting rid of someone else's powder. The main thing to reloading is to be safe.
 
Like FrankenMauser, I take the stuff home and recycle the brass. Not because I need the brass but I have something of an obsession of live rounds just laying around. I prefer to deactivate questionable ammo. I use or sell the brass, discard the powder, and maybe keep the more unusual bullets for conversation pieces with non-loading friends or chunk them. I don't spend a great deal of time doing this because I don't find much center-fire ammo and don't usually mess with rimfire rejects.
 
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