Clean primers

[fatelk]

I pulled down some live ammo recently. It was someone else's 50 year old reloads. I decapped all the brass, and somehow a couple of the old live primers ended up in with some other brass for a 3 hour ride in the wet tumbler.

So, I find these two half-century old primers in with the steel pins after soaking and tumbling in dirty, soapy, acidic (lemishine) water for hours. I was going to throw them in the garbage but instead set then aside out of curiosity. After a few days I seated them in a couple pieces of 30-06 brass and pulled the trigger on them (no powder or bullet). BANG! Both made a sharp crack just like new primers.

Primers are hard to kill, aren't they?

[David2011]

Yes, they are. From all the tests I’ve read WD-40 and oil are no better for deactivating primers. I’ve mixed them in with leftover batches of epoxy which helps isolate them from impacts but that doesn’t make them inert.

[RED BEAR]

I drop them in a jar of water and let them soak until compound dissolves then pour water outside and throw primers away.

[lightman]

Yeah, they are pretty tough. I've done similar things to them and they all still fired.

[Mytmousemalibu]

If they were that old, clean your bore just in case they were corrosive. You never know, they could have been on some fellas shelf for a couple decades too and thus old enough to be corrosive. Those old corrosive primers are quite reliable which is why they were used.

[Johnch]

LOL
I add then to the trash and burn them

If they are corrosive , my burning barrel dose not care
I just here "POP" when the heat gets to them
But I hate to chance harming my gun barrels

John

[fatelk]

Yeah I cleaned the rifle; don't think they were corrosive but not taking any chances.

The ironic thing is that I also just started using some other old primers that came with some other junk I bought at a gun show, several boxes of Winchester 6 1/2. The boxes had a little water damage and some of the primers had some corrosion on them (tossed those). I figured the ones that looked good should work for plinking loads.

I loaded a handful of .223 moderate FMJ rounds, and had click-bangs and duds. I pulled apart the duds to find that the primers had fired and the powder was clumped up. I put a couple primed cases in the rifle and they went bang. Sounded maybe a bit weak but they popped pretty good. I tried some different powder with the same result.

I don't know what happened to them. They look fine but they're sure no good. I'm glad I didn't go loading up a bunch of them before trying them out.