More beginner questions

[CWOOD]

I haven't gotten my press yet but I have acquired nearly 5000 pieces of .45ACP once (or so) fired brass and a Cabelas tumbler kit. I am going through the brass, de-capping it and polishing it and putting in baggies of 200 for future use.

Some questions have come up.

1. Are there any recycling opportunities for the old primers or are they to be simply discarded? That would seem a waste.

2. Are the 45ACP NT cases reloaded the same as regular brass, except using the small pistol primer? Does anyone use this stuff?

3. There were a few hundred nickle plated cases mixed in with the regular brass. Is there any reason to load these seperately or do you just load 'em up along with the rest?

I also had a couple of observations. The Cabelas tumbler kit for $56 is a good value...so far. The machine is relatively quiet, and does a good job. I have been able to reuse my first loading of media for over 2500 rounds. The polish included in the kit seems to do a very good job. The media seperator seems to do a good job over a 5-gal. plastic bucket. Just a little hand tumbling of the brass gets almost all the media out of the cases. For decapping, an old Lee or Herters decapping rod and base with a cheap plastic mallet works well and pretty quickly.

Thanks all.

[Houston1944]

Welcome to the world of reloading, one of the few hobbies that pays for itself.

I put fired primers in the trash. Do not know of anyone that would pay for them.
The small volume of NT brass I come across does not make it worth my while to have different load setups for them. I just chunk them in the trash.
I do not separate my plated brass. Plated and unplated are mixed together and loaded as they fall from the brass feeder.

In my opinion decapping before cleaning is an additional step that adds no value or quality to the loaded ammo. You must run them through a resizing die with a decapping pin anyway so why add the extra labor to the process.

[KD5NRH]

1. Are there any recycling opportunities for the old primers or are they to be simply discarded? That would seem a waste.

I'm not sure what metals they're actually made of, but I keep meaning to toss a few in the pot next time I fire up the furnace and try to make a guess based on how hard they are to melt. I probably have a couple pounds laying around somewhere waiting to find out if I can cast anything interesting from them.

2. Are the 45ACP NT cases reloaded the same as regular brass, except using the small pistol primer? Does anyone use this stuff?

Out of the 2,500 or so .45ACP hulls I've dealt with, I think I've run across two of these, and tossed them rather than deal with the hassle of having to change priming setups mid-run to deal with just a couple of cases.

3. There were a few hundred nickle plated cases mixed in with the regular brass. Is there any reason to load these seperately or do you just load 'em up along with the rest?

I separate them out and use them for loads I'm testing, or anything else that's different from my usual plinking ammo. In .45ACP, I load almost entirely 230LRN, but I like to keep a few 185SWC and 185JHP on hand, so all the 185gr stuf goes in nickeled hulls for easy identification in bullet-down type boxes. In .38, I use it for +P loads that I don't use in older .38s, and in .357, it's the max-load magnums I generally reserve for use in the Blackhawk rather than the little snubnose.

[WildBill]

1. Are there any recycling opportunities for the old primers or are they to be simply discarded? That would seem a waste.

I'm not sure what metals they're actually made of, but I keep meaning to toss a few in the pot next time I fire up the furnace and try to make a guess based on how hard they are to melt. I probably have a couple pounds laying around somewhere waiting to find out if I can cast anything interesting from them.

I strongly suggest that you do not throw primers in your lead pot. If you happen to have a live primer or some residual primer compound into molten lead, the contents will explode out of the pot and you will be covered with molten lead. Many metal recylers will not take spent primers for this reason.

The primer cases will not melt at the temperatures created in a lead pot.

[Jeremae]

My recycler buys them(spent primers) as dirty brass...

Win NT cases go into the recycle bin...

I keep the Nickel Plate 45 cases for carry ammo because it stays bright and shiny longer than brass when on my person all day.

I load the NP 9mms for my son to use at sanctioned IDPA matches

[KD5NRH]

I strongly suggest that you do not throw primers in your lead pot.

Actually, it would be the crucible I melt aluminum and sometimes brass in. For safety's sake, they would also be going in at the start of the run, so nothing would be anywhere near molten by the time any residual flammables cook off.

[WildBill]

I strongly suggest that you do not throw primers in your lead pot.

Actually, it would be the crucible I melt aluminum and sometimes brass in. For safety's sake, they would also be going in at the start of the run, so nothing would be anywhere near molten by the time any residual flammables cook off.

I was confused. I thought you were trying to melt primers in a leadpot, but I re-read your post and noticed that you said furnance. I would think that the primers would be brass or a similar alloy. They have to be somewhat soft so they can be set off by a firing pin.

[KD5NRH]

I was confused. I thought you were trying to melt primers in a leadpot, but I re-read your post and noticed that you said furnance. I would think that the primers would be brass or a similar alloy. They have to be somewhat soft so they can be set off by a firing pin.

Probably. They seem to melt at around the same point, though I don't have a way to track temperatures that high other than watching for a piece of known metal to melt. At any rate, since a number of them have some sort of nickel or copper wash or plating, and most alloys will change when melted in the open like that, (due to oxidation, mostly) it's going to be something rather random afterwards anyway.

Until I can get a waste oil burner set up, it's not even remotely cost effective - just an experiment to see what happened.