How to dispose of oxidized .22 ammo

[Patrick L]

How would one best do this? In my bullseye pistol box I came across a box of .22 ammo I must have put in there 15 years ago. The plain lead bullets have oxidized with a fine whitish coating that is thick enough that the ammo won't chamber.

I was thinking pull the bullets with pliers and just dump the powder on the lawn. Should I bother snapping the priming compound, or just douse the casing with a shot of WD40 or Hoppes or something of that nature?

[Jim]

Bury it.

[Trey45]

I've heard of people taking bad ammo to gun ranges and using their dud box to dispose of it. Personally, I'd pull the bullets, dump the powder on the grass, and drop the brass in water to neutralize the primer compound.

[firefly1957]

First I will probably start trouble here but black powder will fertilize your lawn smokeless powder has the same ingredient as lacquer paint it will not readily break down it is better to burn it then dump it on the ground.
Second I have just wiped the oxide with a oily cloth and fired the 22 ammo never had any problems or unusually hard to clean bore. When my son was young (14) I gave him about a hundred OLD 22 long and long rifle lead copper plated all brands and set him down to shoot 50 yd groups. I wiped those oxide covered bullets before going to range. Try as he could he could only get about 3 inch groups I would take the rifle( Winchester mod.77 thumb buster) and fill the clip with CCI minimags and shoot a half inch group and tell him he had to try harder. When he got though all that assorted ammo I explained it to him and he shot a nice small group with a single brand of Remington ammo. Some of those rounds were my grandfather I do not know how old they were and every one fired fine if we had sorted as to type I think we might of even shot some nice groups. My son learned to look at what he the ammo he is shooting and to ask questions when he notices something does not look the same.

[buck1]

I would just cut the cases with tin snips to break the seal of the cases so the powder/ primers will degrade, then burry them like jim said.

[Blammer]

I'd toss them in my tumbler and clean them till I could shoot them.

[home in oz]

Wipe the oxidation off, and use them for plinking....

[buck1]

If you do shoot them put a bit of lube on the bullets first.

[btroj]

Is there any danger to shooting them? If not, that is the best way. Pulling bullets would scare me.

I would just shoot em up.

[CLAYPOOL]

If you don't shoot them, just throw them in the sewage lagoon...
SEE YUW
CLAYPOOL

[Echo]

+1 for wiping and shooting. But pulling bullets is no challenge. Poke the bullet into a hole in the bench, or into a crack between two boards on a picnic table, or... and push the brass off the bullet. No challenge...

[azcruiser]

wipe with a little oil/ solvent then brush and shoot . Here AZ you can always just take it to the local PD they will take it off your hands .They will even send someone to pick it up .

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
Wipe it, shoot it .
I have done so w/ no problem.:Fire::Fire:

[troy_mclure]

shoot away!

[Charlie Sometimes]

Wipe & Shoot.
I had some the was underwater for 5 hours, had a little oxidization on them by the time I got around to cleaning them off-they shot fine after drying out, no worries.

[mroliver77]

Clean and shoot or throw them in the burnin barrel.
Call me a tightwad but I have ruined .22 ammo by running it through the washer and dryer. I pulled the boolits, saved the powder in a pill bottle an scrapped the cases. Boollits went into the scrounged lead can and powder was fired in .223 cast wimp loads. The amount of powder in one 22 case in my reduced capacity .223 cases worked about like shootin a 22rf. Imagine that!
Jay

[fatelk]

I pick up duds and dropped .22 ammo where I shoot all the time. If they are nice and clean I'll use them for plinking, but otherwise I just grab the bullet with pliers, yank it out and throw it in the melting pot. Never had a problem pulling .22 bullets, just grab them and twist. They come out real easy. The powder gets tossed or burned, and if I'm concerned about the priming compound I smack them with a hammer before tossing them in the scrap brass bucket. Makes a little pop, no big deal.

I have a can full of ancient .22 ammo I need to take the time to deal with one of these days, must be 1,000 of them in there. Someone gave them to me years ago. The bullets are a bit oxidized, and many of the cases seem to be corroded inside. I tried firing a few, but most of them split at the base and blow gunk back into the gun and my face, so they will just be a few pounds of scrap lead and brass when I get time.

[Bret4207]

I'd just wipe the bullet with steel wool and plink away.

[jcwit]

Go out and purchase a new custom made .22 rimfire benchrest rifle and use this ammo to break in the barrel quickly.

[WickedGoodOutdoors]

depending on how bad the oxidization is.

I have used 50 year old .22s in my break action over/under savage with no problem. Yea Green & Black Brass. Most go pop and a few even hit the target.

dont try it in an autoloader


And Seaking of junk .22s, I bought a few boxes of the Cheapo remington green box 500 round packs that only half the rounds fired. We tried them in 2 differnt autos, a lever action and a revolver. all they did was hang fire and get lost in the grass in my back yard.

I found them a couple weeks later when the Lawn Tractor detonated them. YEO!



Soak it in wd 40 and throw it in the trash.

The WD renders ammo harmless as it penetrates the powder and the primer

[MtGun44]

WD40 TEMPORARILY duds the primer. When it dries out, it works just fine. I know this
as a stone cold fact.

Bill

[cumminsnut76]

wipe clean and shoot

[evan price]

I wind up with handsfull of .22 LR ammo from the brass I buy from shooting ranges. I literally have a 1-gallon paint can full of mixed 22LR ammo, and that's just the ones that didn't have a primer strike and looked brand new. People drop it and don't bother picking it up.

Anyway, the ones that are obviously duds (multiple primer strikes, damaged cases from a misfeed, squished or split bullet from a jam, etc) I just use a pair of slipjoint Craftsman pliers that has a large and a small curved part of the jaws- the small one fits perfectly- and use another pair of pliers to twist the bullet sideways to extract it. The bullet goes in the lead can, the powder goes in the scrap powder jar (old pill bottle) to be used at bonfires, and the case goes in scrap brass.

I've got 5 boxes of Remington Thunderbolts in the green & yellow matchboxes that are oxidized exactly like the OPs, they won't chamber in a 22LR. I figure I'll either scrap them or else try them in the 22WMR cylinder in my Single-Six. I know, they will probably split, but what the heck. I have no plans to do anything until I need to, and since I have many many bricks of new factory fresh 22LR I bet that that moldy Thunderbolt gets passed to my grandchildren.

Or, I may just toss it into a bonfire and let it go off like firecrackers. Done this before I salvaged lead, and it just goes pop and the brass case splits and flies away a few feet. NO worse than black cat firecrackers.

[gnoahhh]

In similar situations I wiped the bullets clean and then dipped them in hot melted bullet lube, and shot them with no ill effects. Heck I knew serious target shooters who did that as a matter of course. They believed that replacing the factory lube with their own secret blend gave them an edge accuracy-wise. (Personally I thought they were only kidding themselves but they turned in impressive scores nonetheless. Probably a placebo effect.)

[Bad Water Bill]

I had several K of 22LRs that were oxidized and miked several thousandths over sized. Being from the generation that said waste not and the bricks having price tags reading $3.99 I had to do something. Took a Lee 22 sizing setup in the top of the press and a bolt where the primers fall thru. I drilled a hole in a piece of sheet metal then inserted the 22 in the hole. Put the 22 on the bolt head and run the ram up. You will need to use the sheet metal to get the 22 out of the sizing die. Coat them with LLA and take them to the range and enjoy.

All of them were at least 40 years old and all of them I have taken to the range have fired. I can not say that about anyones new stuff.

There were no BANGS while working on this project. Yes it worked for me BUT try it at your own risk. It saved me money and gave me something to do on cold winter nights.

[Rockydog]

Be very careful shooting 22 ammo with green or black brass. Years ago, like 40 years ago, I found a box in the garage that had corroded brass. I was shooting them in an old 33 Remington single shot. The case rim split on one of these and sprayed brass pieces back in my face hard enough, and enough of them, to leave a half dozen bloody freckles on my face, luckily not in my eye. Also suffered from a ringing right ear for about 24 hours. The bolt design on the 33 wasn't designed for containment of pieces or noise. RD

[luvtn]

California burns their explosives. I'd burn them in an old 55 gal metal drum and stand a fer piece away. As a fireman I've been to house fires with ammo going off. You never know when one of those will have enough of a brace(concrete floor)to actually throw the bullet at you.
luvtn