Incident with surplus ammo (before I was casting)

[Digger]

Had a slam fire or double fire a couple years back shooting surplus in my 308 Garand ,checked every thing out to specs but it stayed in the closet till recently with my cast loads.
So far it loves the 311299 and am ongoing with the right load .....
The Mystery back when has come to light I believe .. the surplus rounds I was using is the Israeli TZ 80 .
Reading on some other forums lately I came across some that stated that that particular batch was bad with head splitting or such , bottom line ... brittle brass !
Went out to the shed/mancave and looked in my ammo box (haven't opened in a long time) and sure enough .... I have about a 160 rds ! left.
When it happened , it did a double fire when my friend was shooting and a shell ejecting caught him in the fore head , broke a little skin .
Looked closer and about three quarters of the shell was left in the chamber ! , the head had disappeared .

Was it possible that the second round made it in to the existing shell at the time , jammed and did a out of battery ?
Any how , was able to get it out of the chamber with very careful easy out surgery ...broken shell extractor did not work.

Now would it be a good Idea to save the bullets from these ? .... extract and trash the brass and if so , what is a good extractor to use from the different manufacturers out there.
or maybe it's not worth it ...
also have about 200 rds of RG in the box that will collect dust for a while ....

digger

[zuke]

You could alway's use that ammo in a bolt gun,But worse get's to worse the bullet and powder can be re-used.
You know the bullet weight so just weigh a couple bullet's worth of powder and you'll know the charge weight.

[Gtek]

In a case of same volume, military/commercial thickness- never hurts to check and recheck. I heard enough that it would not be fired in my bolt gun with my eyebrow over it. Gtek

[Blammer]

get a collet puller, save the projectiles, and the powder and take the Primer only cases and fire them then take the brass and recycle it. That's what I'd do.

[madsenshooter]

I bought some of that brass as components. The cases developed small vertical splits in the side, just above the web when shot in my M1A. Not all, but many. I swaged the ones I had left down to 6.5 Japanese, then remembered the splits. I'll use them for roundball (#2 buck) plinking loads in my Type 38. I figure if one lets go in the Arisaka, the area where the splits were developing will be pretty deeply into the chamber.

[Digger]

Yeah , scary stuff ... will pick up a collet puller and work them when I can ..
Be kind of a pain in the "**&^" to fire off the the empty shells in a Garand tho .... maybe have a beer and put on the Ear muffs and put them in a row in a vise and .. tap , tap , tap, ...:not listening:... :bigsmyl2:

Then tell the neighbors to calm down ....
digger

[uscra112]

Put on a full faceshield and leather everything if you do that. The primer will exit the pocket at 300 fps or so. I dare you to ask me how I know.

[nicholst55]

That TZ80 Israeli 7.62mm NATO ammo is suitable only to break down and reuse the components - less the brass. Crush the case mouths and sell the brass for scrap. Don't even risk shooting it in a bolt gun - at least I wouldn't. IIRC, there have been several kaBooms! blamed on that ****.

[koehn,jim]

Before you break it down, use your seating die to push the bullet in a thousand or two makes pulling the bullet much easier.

[Frank46]

Remember the Israeli Samson brand 308 ammo?. Was responsible for at least a couple kabooms at our local range. M1A's were involved. From what I remember it was loaded way too hot. Frank

[leadman]

You can use a kinetic (hammer) type puller if you do push the bullet down a little to break the sealant and loosen the crimp. Put a piece of a foam ear plug in the bottom of the puller and the bullets will not be damaged. You may have to change the foam if it gets torn up.

[zuke]

Couldn't you just punch out the primer's instead of poping them?

[I'll Make Mine]

Couldn't you just punch out the primer's instead of poping them?

Do that with live primers, and you're virtually certain to pop a significant fraction of them. It's safer to do it in a controlled way, where the primer cup is captive and the gas produced is channeled away from body parts.

[zuke]

I just punched out about 75 large rifle primer's about 3 hour's ago.
Not a single one popped,and I recovered them all in the bottom of my press.
But they wern't crimped in place either.

[Digger]

I Know ! .... I will do it like this .... (another member had this link available )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlOXowwC4c
[smilie=b: all that ammo ...:cry::

[pilot]

You shouldn't have to fire them to recycle them. Take them to a gun range that recycles brass and donate them. The range I frequent recycles all the brass that is left behind, and that includes all misfires and duds.

[WRideout]

I had some rifle cases that I had pulled the bullets, and wanted to kill the primers. I decided that I could burn them in a propane torch flame, and pop them that way. Problem being that the pressure generated by the priming compound will blow the primer out as a high speed projectile; in my case, breaking a garage window. After that I tried vise, nail and hammer with better results.

Wayne

[Gtek]

"Problem being that the pressure generated by the priming compound will blow the primer out as a high speed projectile; in my case, breaking a garage window. After that I tried vise, nail and hammer with better results" Is it just me! Kid's PLEASE do not try this at home. Chamber fire, locked breech is as safe as you are going to get. Gtek

[I'll Make Mine]

Gtek, I presume some folks don't want to do it that way because they don't want to have to go through the whole corrosive primer cleaning routine just to make some pulled steel cases safe; can't say I blame them. Definitely not a good idea to cook 'em off with a torch; as noted, the primer cup becomes a projectile (wouldn't kill you, but could cost you an eye or make a pretty odd looking scar). The simplest way to pop Berdan primers in pulled cases without firing them in the chamber is the vise, hammer and punch method. There's still some slight hazard of cup ejection, but it's less than with a torch. The safest way that doesn't involve cleaning your rifle is to find a 3/8" NPT iron pipe nipple and matching cap; drill a centered hole in the cap large enough to pass a punch but too small for the primer. Mount the nipple in the vise, drop a case in, screw on the cap, put the punch in the hole and tap with a hammer. Takes longer than the simple vise method, but is almost as safe as firing in the chamber (appropriate precautions against the flash igniting anything strongly advised).

Edit to add: if you have more than a couple dozen cases to safe, it's probably actually a time saver to chamber and fire them in the rifle, and clean the rifle, compared to the time to screw the cap on and off once for every case.

[zuke]

Gtek, I presume some folks don't want to do it that way because they don't want to have to go through the whole corrosive primer cleaning routine just to make some pulled steel cases safe; can't say I blame them. Definitely not a good idea to cook 'em off with a torch; as noted, the primer cup becomes a projectile (wouldn't kill you, but could cost you an eye or make a pretty odd looking scar). The simplest way to pop Berdan primers in pulled cases without firing them in the chamber is the vise, hammer and punch method. There's still some slight hazard of cup ejection, but it's less than with a torch. The safest way that doesn't involve cleaning your rifle is to find a 3/8" NPT iron pipe nipple and matching cap; drill a centered hole in the cap large enough to pass a punch but too small for the primer. Mount the nipple in the vise, drop a case in, screw on the cap, put the punch in the hole and tap with a hammer. Takes longer than the simple vise method, but is almost as safe as firing in the chamber (appropriate precautions against the flash igniting anything strongly advised).

Edit to add: if you have more than a couple dozen cases to safe, it's probably actually a time saver to chamber and fire them in the rifle, and clean the rifle, compared to the time to screw the cap on and off once for every case.

I layed a whole bunch on the bar-b-que grill,put the lid down,fired it up then walked off for a bit. When the popping stopped I went back turned,off the bar-b-que and let it cool then picked up the brass and tossed it all in the scrap bucket

[jblee10]

If you "fire" off the primers in your rifle you stand a chance of moving the shoulder back and increasing headspace. I'm not sure it is worth all the problems for a common caliber. Trade the surplus ammo for some empty brass.

[I'll Make Mine]

I layed a whole bunch on the bar-b-que grill,put the lid down,fired it up then walked off for a bit. When the popping stopped I went back turned,off the bar-b-que and let it cool then picked up the brass and tossed it all in the scrap bucket

This may seem like blasphemy, but not all of us have a grill in the back yard. SWMBO would be very, very upset with me if I did that in the oven...

[zuke]

This may seem like blasphemy, but not all of us have a grill in the back yard. SWMBO would be very, very upset with me if I did that in the oven...

Now THAT would be a kodak moment!

[dg31872]

Why not just kill the primers first by soaking the brass in oil? Then you can safely dispose of the brass, or if you would like to, deprime without worrying about poping the primers.

[762sultan]

Today is my lucky day. I had some free time so I clicked on Cast Boolits and started to read my unread posts. This thread looked interesting so I started to read it. Several years ago I bought a used Springfield M1A from an individual and along with it came an ammo box with 500 rounds.For some reason I never fired any of them. Just dumb luck I guess but now I plan to make components of them. Thanks for stopping a possible disaster. That is one of the reasons I first came to this web site...there is a wealth of information available here. And great fellows that are willing to share their expertise with the less experienced shooters like me. Thanks again!

[Wolfer]

Why not just kill the primers first by soaking the brass in oil? Then you can safely dispose of the brass, or if you would like to, deprime without worrying about poping the primers.
Read thru this whole thread and wondered why no one suggested this. A drop or two of oil in a case is death to a primer. I don't think water will work though.

[zuke]

Same with wd-40. But when you take it to the scrap yard and they see "intact" primer's they could refuse it all.

[HABCAN]

Maybe off topic here, but FWIW, three of my experienced match/target shooting acquaintances bought M1's years ago. Each one had to learn to be a little firmer with their trigger-pulls.........they ALL experienced 'two-shot doubles' with the first few clips from very gently squeezing the trigger. Anybody else had this experience??

[I'll Make Mine]

they ALL experienced 'two-shot doubles' with the first few clips from very gently squeezing the trigger. Anybody else had this experience??

Never fired an M1, but I can easily see how this could happen. With a very gentle pull, the sear will reset when the rifle recoils; when the rifle settles again, the finger is still on the trigger and may fire the rifle a second time. At Appleseed, they teach holding the trigger back during recovery (the time after the shot breaks when you hold position and call the shot) before deliberately releasing until you hear the sear reset. This may be why...

[Gtek]

"The condition depicted in this example (less than .025" trigger lug/front hammer hook overlap prior to hammer hand-off) also can be caused by any of the following; (a) short front and/or rear hammer hook engagement ledges; (b) short trigger lug engagement surfaces; (c) a short sear engagement surface; (d) rearward sear location caused by engagemenr surface wear, upset,or alteration; sear rest position; or a damaged or incorrect sear pin and/oroversize pin holes." Per Mr. Jerry Kuhnhausen. Some of the best money ever spent yeeeeears ago. I bet somebody took a wee-bit to much has been my experience. Feels great on bench and two weeks later getting the CALL! Ask me how I know. Gtek

[nicholst55]

Read thru this whole thread and wondered why no one suggested this. A drop or two of oil in a case is death to a primer. I don't think water will work though.


Same with wd-40. But when you take it to the scrap yard and they see "intact" primer's they could refuse it all.

Not always. I have liberally applied various oils to primed brass before, and let them soak over the weekend. All at least 'popped', some actually fired. FWIW, I used CLP and WD-40. Others have reported similar experiences. Never say never.

[I'll Make Mine]

Oil will only kill a primer, for certain, if you don't know it's there or don't want it to. That is to say, oil will make misfires, but it doesn't make safe.