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View Poll Results: Do you save your spent primers?

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  • Yes

    226 58.55%
  • No

    160 41.45%
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Results 81 to 100 of 142

Thread: Spent Primers

  1. #81
    Boolit Master

    Join Date
    Feb 2012
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    Foothills, NC
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    2,223
    I'm saving mine to turn into a nice "gold" brick someday.

  2. #82
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    NC
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    2,862
    I just some 20lbs to a guy that wants to prepare to reload them. Suggested that he find this place for some first hand experience.

  3. #83
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Location
    Wilmington NC
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    1,441
    I have traded in "junk brass", bullet jackets & spent primers at the scrap yard to help fund buying lead in the past.

    Also, I am just getting into re-loading primers. I will be using the slightly more involved non-corrosive approach. Between being retired and Covid keeping me home, I have ample time to play with this.

    If you are saving back spent primers with the thought that they might get used for this purpose, do not mix them all together (like I did and just about every one else does). Rifle primers and pistol primers should be kept separate as a minimum (different cup thickness, different dimensions for LPP and LRP). Even better is to collect them in "all one brand batches". Some brands are easy to get the anvils out, others are very very difficult. Trying to sort after the fact is a PITA and of limited potential. I was lucky to have used a lot of RP 5-1/2 (SPPM) that I can visually sort out.

    My preliminary estimate for cost is that even including the one time costs of equipment, I will get enough materials for 30K SPP primers for less than the cost of 1K new SPP primers (no local sources, best web based source I have spotted is $110 for 1K to my door). For more info check out:

    https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...st-100-primers

  4. #84
    Boolit Master
    Outer Rondacker's Avatar
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    Mar 2014
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    My scrap yard will not accept primers. I have always saved everything by nature. One day I loaded up some shot shells with them. Works well got a bunch of 24/25s with them. Need to be fast as they do not really reach out and touch anything. I have even made wax slugs with them. Once again, they are light but still fun.

    Sorry I didn't read all five pages worth of comments.
    Stop being blinded by your own ignorance.

  5. #85
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Dec 2021
    Posts
    546
    I do have one small sandwich bag with a few hundred in it but other than that I've always just dumped them in the garbage. I've read about the various methods of reloading primers but that's not something I really want to do. Thankfully I had plenty when the shortage started. My basic mindset is to always have a big stash of everything put away.

  6. #86
    Boolit Man
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Posts
    78
    Just as things started looking bad I started to collect Reloading dies, Bullet molds, and then just as I started collecting powder and primers, they went scarce.

  7. #87
    Boolit Bub
    Join Date
    Nov 2021
    Location
    Edge of the Atlantic, Northeast MA
    Posts
    73
    My bucket isn't full yet so I have not thought about what to do with them. Happy to donate to someone interested in reloading them.

  8. #88
    Boolit Master scattershot's Avatar
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    Sep 2011
    Location
    Denver, CO
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    1,532
    I just pitch ‘em.
    "Experience is a series of non-fatal mistakes"


    Disarming is a mistake free people only get to make once...

  9. #89
    Boolit Buddy
    Join Date
    Mar 2019
    Location
    SE Missouri
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    315
    So a question to others who are “reloading” their own primers: If someone hands you a container of mixed spent primers do you bother sorting them out and reloading them and if so, can you actually distinguish between small rifle and small pistol primers?

  10. #90
    Boolit Master Sasquatch-1's Avatar
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    Jan 2012
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    Martinsburg, WV
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    Quote Originally Posted by TyGuy View Post
    So a question to others who are “reloading” their own primers: If someone hands you a container of mixed spent primers do you bother sorting them out and reloading them and if so, can you actually distinguish between small rifle and small pistol primers?
    On this same line of thought, sorting the primers by size would not be overly hard. But I have found that a lot of the anvils fall out. Sorting these would truly be a task for the Gods.
    A vote for anyone other then the conservative candidates is a vote for the liberal candidates.

  11. #91
    Boolit Man
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Posts
    78
    The thing is at one time people thought reloading spent brass was too much trouble and just recycled the brass, but if the day ever comes that everything is no longer available, an old tub of gunpowder on the bottom shelf and those spent primers will look much more useful, especially to someone eager to repurpose them.
    The few I have are mixed together, but any I gather in the future will be segregated as to pistol and rifle, small and large.

  12. #92
    Boolit Bub
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Posts
    71
    I do now.

  13. #93
    Boolit Bub
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Vancouver Island
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    40
    I save all brass primers and sell them to the scrap yard along with .22 cases. It helps pay for my reloading.

  14. #94
    Moderator
    Texas by God's Avatar
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    They are a poor substitute for shot- based on this 30ft pattern aiming at the post it note
    The wad was headed for the tree tops I guess.

    Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

  15. #95
    Boolit Mold BobCat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    East Bernard, TX
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    5
    I save them because I save everything that might potentially be useful in the future. They go in the cat-litter bucket with cracked or head-separated cases.

    Local scrap dealer does not want them, he claims that the nickel-plated primers are worth almost nothing because the nickel contaminates the brass. This is even though the plating is very thin compared to the brass.

  16. #96
    Boolit Man
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Posts
    78
    When I melt Copper and there is either Tin or Nickle contamination, it makes a sort of Golden Bronze.

  17. #97
    Boolit Mold BobCat's Avatar
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    Nov 2006
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    East Bernard, TX
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    That makes good sense, and if you are counting on getting properties based on composition it is best to avoid any contamination.

    I just griped because the total amount of nickel plating from a few primers would be lost in the amount of copper and zinc in a big bucket of brass cases. And because griping is second nature. And because I'm not creative enough to figure out how to easily remove the plating.

  18. #98
    Boolit Buddy
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
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    E,KS
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    102
    Nope1 Trash!
    TF

  19. #99
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Texas by God View Post
    They are a poor substitute for shot- based on this 30ft pattern aiming at the post it note
    The wad was headed for the tree tops I guess.

    Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk
    Everyone knows you don't aim for what you want to hit. Well there is some truth to it in a shotty. You did better than my Judge did but worst then my 10g. I would give you one more thing to do with old primers, but that gun looks to pretty to shoot wax slugs down the pipe.
    Stop being blinded by your own ignorance.

  20. #100
    Boolit Buddy Shadow9mm's Avatar
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    Jul 2021
    Location
    Indianapolis, IN
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    105
    never saved them, never recycled my brass either, but I do have a scrap bucket with bad or oddly sized brass, might need to start saving primers.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

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