I’ve accumulated 3lb coffee can. Was thinking about melting them into ingot but kind of afraid, I know for sure a few live one made it there.
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I’ve accumulated 3lb coffee can. Was thinking about melting them into ingot but kind of afraid, I know for sure a few live one made it there.
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You could do what folks do with berm scrap that might have missed live rounds: put them in an EMPTY cast iron pot with a weighted lid and heat over open flame until they're good and hot. I'd think any live primer would ignite well below brass melting temp, and the pot and lid would contain any kicked up debris. On you to decide how much of a risk to life and limb that represents.
Where I take my scrap metal, they won't take the shell cases with primers still in them. I guess I never asked or tried the spent primers by themselves, I have been just dumping them in with scrap steel. At the recycler, with CORVID going on, they don't let you inside where the sort/weigh it. I took to pile of copper and a few odds and ends in a couple months a ago and they only gave me lead price for my zinc WWs, better that steel (.14/lb), didn't have a lot, I recently sold about 50# here. The last time they only paid lead price from my misc brass (cases and copper jackets recovered from the reclaiming from my shooting back-stop) and the same type of copper they paid well for before, they called something different now and paid a fraction of the price. They have you pick-up your check after everything is gone and you have no idea what they are paying/calling your metal, until you read the check stub...tough to argue anything at that point. Not taking anything back there until things straighten out a little.
Throw the spent primers in your recycle or scrap steel, not the landfill....too much going there already.
Take a kid to the range, you'll both be glad you did.
I save mine for shotshell reloading when TSHTF. Don't have that much anyway but will be fun to mess with.
Slim
JUST GOTTA LOVE THIS JOINT.
If not sorted well the local yard gives lowest price of what they think is in there.
Example is wheel weights with steel clips get steel scrap price. The amount you bring in by weight is also a price changer.
By the Ton price is always higher. Bring in 50# expect less.
Depending who is working in the small "more precious" area of my local yard your haul will go through the magnet conveyor .
I bring my jackets in separate and always get a decent price. They call it "dirty" copper and it gets about 1/2 to 2/3 the price of clean copper wire.
Like others, spent primers go in with my scrap brass. I accumulate the scrap until I have another occasion to go to the metals recycler. The scrap is tested thoroughly for anything magnetic, and spent primers haven't been an issue in that regard.
It is just as easy to dump spent primers into the box of recyclable brass as it is the trash, so why not?
"There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something."
~Thorin Oakenshield
Actually the shotshell primer cup is made from brass on quality primers such as REM.209, WW209, and fed. 209...all other shotshell primers have a steel cup. This has become a problem with some expensive guns having failed firing pins from the hard steel cups, which in some cases fracture, damaging the primers as well. Note that this is not the outside cup but the inner cup that the firing pin contacts.
My scrap yard takes decapped primers along with brass cases as well.
But unfortunately scrap yards are not allowed to sell the lead in Wisconsin.
I keep a small bucket under the bench for spent primers and damaged/berdan primed brass. I currently have 3 1/2, 5 gallon buckets waiting to go to the yard. I take how range brass so I end up with a fair amount of .22's also. It adds up!
I get around 80c/ lb for empty cases. A couple yrs ago they called my primers, virgin brass and gave double. Now they are kinda sucky and might go the unprimed case route, cause they can, being huge.
when I worked at the scrap yard primers would get poured into the yellow brass bin, back then they paid right around $1.lb for clean yellow brass.
price fluctuates almost daily with the current market value. if you have ever seen the huge electric smelting pots used at the large mills it would not matter too much if there were live primers in there or not. they melt tons of materials down at a time and the popping and splatter from the electric probes that go into the giant melting pots create an explosive atmosphere all by themselves, alloy engineers sample the alloy and add elements to make whatever the customers want for their applications.
I just over 100 lb of spent primers and scrap brass for $1.90 per lb and my copper bullet jackets for $3.05 per lb.
Now is a good time to sell.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |