[rebbryan]

I was just wondering what, if anything, kind of impact would set off a round or shell, seeing as how a lot of shotgun rounds are stored on outside holders such as side saddles.

[C.R.Sam]

Anything that will dimple the primer so as to crush the priming mixture between the anvil and the outer surface.

Dropping on a flat surface not much of a hazzard.

Having it fall primer first onto gravel might touch it off.

Sam

[Sisco]

Once dropped a shell (minus powder & pellets!) from a second story window onto concrete and it didn't go off. Dropped it a couple more times, still nothing.
Taped a rock to the primer and dropped it again, that did the trick.
(Slow night at work)

[Dave McCracken]

When reloading, removing a live primer as one would a used one can cause a detonation, which is why the manuals, and I, disapprove it.

American Rifleman had a mention years back of someone loading steel shot in a MEC, one pellet seems to have been dropped onto the priming station and ignited the primer as it was seated. No damage, except possibly to the loader's underwear. Loud noises while reloading are quite disturbing.

Heat will also do the job. When a round gets hot enough to cook off outside a chamber, the heavy shot or bullet stay put while the lighter casing goes whizzing around. This also will make thy sphincters flutter. Don't ask me how I know...

[Tom Held]

I have a friend who once fired a 22 round by holding it in a pair of pliers, pointing it at a target, and holding a cigarette lighter under it. The result: the round fired, the empty casing "went backwards" into his chest. He was a teenager at the time, just dumb and young. By the way, he survives to this day. A bit smarter.

[jthuang]

During my teen years we tried to set off a 12 gauge birdshot shell by shooting the primer with a .22 LR rifle. The shell was placed on a tree stump facing downrange and we shot the primer with the rifle.

Surprisingly, it worked -- but only partially. The bullet ignited the primer but by some quirk the shell itself did not fire. The bullet somehow pushed the primer past the main powder charge.

Kids: don't try this at home. :)

Justin

[foghornl]

Don't really know if this is true, or another of those "urban legends", but have heard of a doofus reloading shotgun ammo, saw a primer wasn't seated fully on some finished rounds. Attempted to seat primers with hammer and punch. You figure out the rest.........

[sm]

vacuum cleaner

Sam and I , kill vacuums, tick off women :)

[mete]

Percusion, heat and electricity. I've heard of cases of loose handgun rounds along with loose batteries in a pocket going off.

[Shawn Dodson]

When I was I kid I'd slice open shotshells with four longitudinal cuts from the mouth to bottom of the wad, remove the shot and flare open the shotshell like a shuttlecock. Then I'd scotch tape a BB to the primer and throw them high into the air so they'd land in the street on the BB. It was a primative noise maker.

[C.R.Sam]

Have lost a couple vacuums to primers...
But have , so far , not lost one to a loaded round.
My life is not complete.

Sam

[sm]

Shawn, oh my, I did that too , especially on halloween, armed with those and hardboiled eggs...guys from across the way turn tailed and ran :)

Sam, testing ammo against vehicles-focus on glass and deflection of, on a trans-am...I was in fear of my life when that vacuum attacked...Kirby touted to be best--.357 better. :)

[Daedalus]

When I was younger and stupider one of my friends had palmed one of his dad's 12 gauge shells. We took it and opened it up with an exacto knife, took out the shot, the wadding, and the powder. The brass and primer was left. We used a phillips head screwdriver and a hammer to set off the emptied shell. pretty :eek: now that I look back at it.

[jsalcedo]

When I was a kid we found a few .22LR in an dried up creek.

We stuck them in the ground with the rims pointed toward us, stood back about 15 feet and began using our slingshots to fire rocks at the exposed
part of the cartridges.

After about 20 tries we hit them and set them off but the only thing that traveled was the shell casing itself. We found the bullets close to where we put them.

Young and dumb.


Friction can also set off priming compund.

I pulled some .22 bullets and tried to retrieve some priming compound by scraping it out with a bent curtain hook.

Scared the crap out of me when it went pop in my hand and burnt some thumb hair off.

Again young dumb and curious.

[Dave McCracken]

After scanning this thread, I realize some guardian angels worked overtime to ensure some of us reached maturity.

I'd mention some personal experiences with homemade muzzleloading cannon but I'm not sure what the Statute of Limitations is on that sort of thing.

And Wonderful Wife waxed wondrous wroth when some spilled 8 1/2 shot ended up making the household Dust Devil sound like a small block Chevy with a blown clutch. The thing still works.

[jsalcedo]

some spilled 8 1/2 shot ended up making the household Dust Devil

Never. I repeat Never use a dirt devil vacumn to pick up spilled powder.

I had been reloading in the same area for over a year and I decided to
vacumn up the carpet under my bench.

I didn't think I had spilled that much powder. It was apparent that the vacumn found a pile of it because I could hear it getting sucked up into the
dust container. All of the sudden the Dirt Devil picked up a dropped primer.

About 150 grains of bluedot, unique and clays with a quart of dust mixed with dog hair had a large magnum primer go off in it.

It made a big scary noise, the see through dust container was glowing bright red and the most putrid smelling foul smoke was pouring out of the
vacumn cleaner.

Luckily I was close to the bathroom and was able to pour the smouldering contents into the toilet.

Never never again.

[Sisco]

Didn't have anything to do with gunpowder & primers but....
Waaay back in '73 I worked at a Texaco station. The other guy that worked there and I were tossing a tennis ball around one day while a tanker was unloading. Ball fell down the filler pipe to one of the underground storage tanks.
Ooops.
We could see the ball but couldn't reach it so we got out the shop vac and dropped the hose down the pipe and sucked the ball out, worked great!
About twenty minutes later the boss showed up and started to vacuum out his brand new Olds Toranado. When he started the shop vac up a column of flame shot out the exhaust vent all the way to the ceiling!
When asked, neither of us had a clue as to what may have caused that!

I have another story involving me, the same other guy, small trailer house, contact cement and a pilot light but I'll save that for later. :scrutiny:

[sm]

some of us reached maturity.

huh, what he say? Hold on checking a theory here...
fuse-check, gunpowder...gunpowder...hmm...little is good...more is gooder---check....

[roscoe]

I had a friend in high school who used to tape short nails to the primer, glue fins to the other end, then throw them off a ledge onto the concrete below. Boom - with a lot of shot flying everywhere.

[QuarterBoreGunner]

I hesitate to admit that I actually know how to do this...

Rattrap Claymore.

take one rat/mouse trap. Where the striker bar would swing down and impact upon the wooden base, cut a circle the same diameter of the shotgun shell so that the shell would face out of the bottom of the trap. Take needle nose pliers and bend a point into the striker bar where it would impact the primer of a shotgun shell inserted into the hole you just cut.

Drill a hole through the trap's wooden bottom under the trigger bar where you would put the bait.

Nail the trap to a surveyors/landscapers stake. Place trap where you wish by driving stake with trap attached into ground. Tie nylon fishing monofiliment through hole in bottom of trap to trigger bar- stretch across path to act as a trip wire.

Insert shotgun shell in base of trap. Set trap striker bar.

Hilarity ensues.

Wait for BATFE agents to execute 'no knock' warrant. Blame internet.

[Gearhead Jim]

The bit about cartridges and batteries in pockets is interesting- the (in)correct combination is to have a 9v "transistor radio" battery in your pocket along with the ammo. The two terminals of the battery can be shorted out by the metal cartridge case or metal shotshell head. The metal then gets hot enough to ignite the primer, and you end up with pants that have a black hole in the side and a brown hole in the back.....

[sm]

QuarterBoreGunner...:D

Sounds like a better "mousetrap" to me;)

scribbles note on grocery list..."moustraps"...don't have/get mice here...gotta plan tho', oh yea this will be good. ;)

Yes Dave, its legal, I won't get into trouble, I'm behavin' (sorta)...its a critter/nuisance/alarm thingy....see why I refuse to grow up? Art said I didn't have to :D

Thanks QBC !

[Dave McCracken]

(Wiping off monitor) Thanks!

Maybe sometime, I'll explain why I no longer regard 10% Dynamite as proper groundhog clearance equipment. Not all excess is wretched, this was....

[Traveler]

Herb Parsons used to have a trick where he would eject a live round from his M12 Winchester and set it off with the next round. You can see this done on tape somewhere.

I've tried a suprisingly large number of the tricks already mentioned. Guess the "young and dumb" applies. A good BB gun will set off a primer in shotgun shells.

[TrapperReady]

Dave - Re: Reloading shotshells and primers

Somewhere around shell 2000 or so after I'd gotten my MEC, I had a little "oops" which resulted in some lead missing the shotcup. I stopped production for a few minutes and cleaned eveything up.

About 20 shells later, the press didn't feel quite right on the downstroke... a little rough and with taking more pressure than normal.

Again, I stopped (probably even said a word or two that Art's Grandma wouldn't have approved of) and started to diagnose the problem. As it turned out, an errant #7.5 shot had worked its way around and down into the primer-seating location, and was between the primer and the press.

The primer had a slight indentation, just barely off-center... and looked about like a chambered-but-unfired round from an AR. Had I completed the downstroke, I have no doubt that the primer would have detonated. While it's unlikely that it would have caused any real problem, it may have caused me to go back to buying ammo (at least for a little while). I still get kind of uneasy when I think about it.

BTW, the two major lessons I learned from that experience are:

1) If something doesn't seem right... STOP! Find out the problem and fix it accordingly.

2) Wear eye-protection when reloading. I didn't always do this before, but I ALWAYS, ALWAYS do now. I picked up an extra pair of clear glasses just to keep at the bench, so that I have no excuse not to.

[Dave McCracken]

TR, Amen! I know folks who wear safety glasses when reloading ammo. It may be a good idea.

I can't emphasize this enough. If something doesn't feel right, STOP and check things out.

An example would be an odd sounding report on firing. Check the barrel for an errant wad. Grenades and shotguns have similar working pressures...

[hilljack22]

I know it's just a movie but...

I believe that there was a scene in the original "Phantasm" where the young boy (Michael?) taped a nail to a 12 gauge shell and then taped the whole getup to a hammer. He then struck the whole thing against his bedroom door to blow the lock out. Of course, it worked, and didn't take his hand with it either.

:what:

(Kids, don't try this at home!!)

[Quartus]

some of us reached maturity.


So, Dave old boy, are you ready to retract that statement yet?



:D

[Dave McCracken]

Quartus,no.Perhaps it would have been better to say,reached our majority.

My old CB handle was "Big Kid"...

[BWC]

How about a bang stick ? They do quite a number on the errant shark that won't get away from the boat.......