Family Death - Ammo Disposal

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Sorry for your loss. PM me if you are in the Valley as I may be interested in taking a look.

Mike
 
I'm sorry for your loss, AZAmmo. Kudos for trying to do what he would want. It sounds like shooting was a big part of his life, so he's probably be proud and pleased to see you going the extra mile to get his stuff into good hands.
 
First off, I'm sorry for your loss. It a shame his one friend screwed up this whole situation by being a greedy SOB.

With a little research, you can help yourself out greatly here. Here's where I would start:

1. Buy the book titled blue book of gun values

2. Get make/model/caliber/and serial #'s of all guns. Write them all down on 1 piece of paper.

3. Look them up by serial # on each gun manufacturers website-this will tell you the manufacture date of the firearm which directly pertains to value. Write date of manufacture on the same piece of paper listed above.

4. Then refrence the blue book with the known age of each weapon and determine value. Condition is a factor here so use your best judgement.

5. Contact a gun store that buys used guns. Take into consideration that he has to make a profit so the values he offers you will not be the same as the blue book value. BUT you will have an idea of how much each is worth. Generally speaking, he will probably start at around half of the current retail value given condition. Feel free to counter offer him but remember, he wont spend $500 to just make $50 profit (10%). He will want to see a 30-40% return on his investment.

If you choose not to go the gun store route, which I don't blame you if you don't, try a site called armslist. Take good quality pics of each firearm for each ad. Blur ther serial #'s out. Sell them individually, not as a big lot. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, let buyers there offer you pennies for them....trust me...many will try. In capitol letters, state no trades and cash only. Follow local laws regarding person to person firearm sales in your state. Armslist is like a garage sale and nobody pays list price so start a little high and come down a little bit so the buyer feels as if they are getting a bargain.

I'm sure once you got some pics, and ages of guns, members here would be way more informational. We just cant help without the info listed above.

Again, sorry for your loss.
 
Craigslist doesn't allow the sale of gun stuff but there is a very similar site dedicated to the shooting sports called Armslist. You could probably sell all of the stuff there.

Sorry about your brother and about your knee. I hope things start getting better for you really soon.
 
Guns and bikes...my kind of people as I'm bitten by both bugs
Me Too; internal combustion at its finest!
To the OP, my condolences for your loss
 
I'm simply overwhelmed by the tremendous feedback, condolences, and cordial approach by everyone in this thread. Again, sorry for the delayed response.
To me, THR seems more like a family of like minded people...than a forum of strangers. Kudos and thanks to everyone who has chimed in.

I've taken some initial inventory, lot's of 44 & 45's, 270 rifle rounds, also 12 gauge. A ton of spent rounds for the above. However, I found some unusual things....at least to me...knows nothing about ammo. I need to take some pictures of these odd things.

1) Some rounds (38 Special) don't have any rounded bullet tip. The bullets look like they were sawed off level with the end of the brass cartridge. You can see the mold marks in the flat lead end so they obviously were not sawed off. Are these considered a "slug" or something? What are these for?

2) Many of the bullets have a deep hole in the center. These are considered hollow point correct? Is it OK to sell these?

3) With some of the bullets the casing is dark gray, not brass. I thought these might be Teflon coated but assumed they would be slippery like a frying pan surface, they are not. Maybe they are just gray steel.

4) A few boxes look like they are new brass casings without a bullet. I think it says "Unprimed" on the box but he wrote "Primed" on the box with a pen. Any insight here would be appreciated.
 
I'm simply overwhelmed by the tremendous feedback, condolences, and cordial approach by everyone in this thread. Again, sorry for the delayed response.
To me, THR seems more like a family of like minded people...than a forum of strangers. Kudos and thanks to everyone who has chimed in.

I've taken some initial inventory, lot's of 44 & 45's, 270 rifle rounds, also 12 gauge. A ton of spent rounds for the above. However, I found some unusual things....at least to me...knows nothing about ammo. I need to take some pictures of these odd things.

1) Some rounds (38 Special) don't have any rounded bullet tip. The bullets look like they were sawed off level with the end of the brass cartridge. You can see the mold marks in the flat lead end so they obviously were not sawed off. Are these considered a "slug" or something? What are these for?

2) Many of the bullets have a deep hole in the center. These are considered hollow point correct? Is it OK to sell these?

3) With some of the bullets the casing is dark gray, not brass. I thought these might be Teflon coated but assumed they would be slippery like a frying pan surface, they are not. Maybe they are just gray steel.

4) A few boxes look like they are new brass casings without a bullet. I think it says "Unprimed" on the box but he wrote "Primed" on the box with a pen. Any insight here would be appreciated.
1. These are more than likely Wadcutters. They're wonderful for target paper shooting as they leave a perfect circle with little to no tearing.

2. These are more than likely Semi Hollow Points. Perfectly legal to sell.

3. Probably either Steel or Aluminum cases.

Without pictures it's hard to say with 100% certainty, but most likely probable with all 3. If I am incorrect, someone will be along shortly to fix where I have erred. They will also help with #4.
Best of luck to you & again sorry for your loss :(
 
Don't take my word for it....

1) If they look like its cut off at the same level as the brass then I'd guess its not a wad cutter (the lead is visibly higher than the brass by a 1/4" (give or take a little) but is flat. I'd guess it a shot shell. Like a shotgun round for your pistol. They're good for snakes.

2) Yes.. hollow points. Or semi hollow points... whatever. Yes. you can sell them BUT not to people in certain places; I think NY is one of them. This is where selling local and not through craigslist or other internet can be better.

3) Steel with a coating or 'bi-metal".

4) Id guess he bought empty brass cases 'unprimed' to reload himself... and then put primers in them. Have you found any re-loading equipment? If not, maybe he bought them pre-primered at a gun show? Look on the underside - if they have primers you'll see the silver circular thing where the firing pin would hit.


Again, don't take my work for it. Much more knowledgeable people here than me. Pictures would be your best bet.



To me, THR seems more like a family of like minded people...than a forum of strangers. Kudos and thanks to everyone who has chimed in.

Well..... if you had ask which is better. 9mm or .45, or Glock vs 1911 or anything else ever invented, blood would have been flowing in the streets.
 
UPS Store are allowed to ship ammo, but not firearms. It is not necessary to take your ammo shipments to a UPS Main Hub. My local UPS Store manager looked into this for me, and confirmed it.
 
I still think they're Wadcutters or Dum Dum rounds.
OP, are you able to upload any pictures? Also, I'd take Nom up on his offer, he's a stand up guy that will do right by you. I hope everything else is going smoothly.
Please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help make this situation easier on you.
 
UPS Store are allowed to ship ammo, but not firearms. It is not necessary to take your ammo shipments to a UPS Main Hub. My local UPS Store manager looked into this for me, and confirmed it.

TAC, This is welcome news; my UPS store is < 2 miles. UPS hub... 10 or so miles w/ traffic to add to that. However, can you cite a UPS Store policy memo? It may also be a different policy if the specific UPS store is franchised vs. company owned.

chuck
 
His wife wanted to keep some ammo for each gun, so I put that aside. I then spent 13 hours over 3 days opening each tiny box to sort, bag, count, clean, display, and photograph the remaining ammo.

When done, his wife walks in and says "Are these from the closet....or just the garage". She then walks me to a closet full of ammo, first I heard about all that. I guess I start over again and re-inventory everything. Below are those initial pictures without the "closet" inventory. I did not include pics of the 12Ga., 45, 38 Special, or 22 ammo. I had to plastic bag some of the ammo because their boxes were to torn up pretty bad for some odd reason.


#1 - These are the flat top "38 Special" bullets.
Are these "Wadcutters"? I think there are 300 rounds of these.

2doth4.jpg


#2 - Are these some sort of special hollow point bullet?
They are for a 44, say on bottom "44 S&W SPL R CCI"

20js9kl.jpg



#3 - What is this ammo?
Some say "TZZ 84" and others say "TZZ 85" on bottom

2prd6yh.jpg
2nvrwna.jpg



#4 - These are the good 45 rounds, 783 rounds:
fjmbeo.jpg



#5 - These are the good 270's, so far 529 rounds.
n623xk.jpg


#6 - This is all the empty brass casings I felt like messing with. Is there a market for this stuff.
It's mostly 45, 44, and 270 casings. The boxes are full of used casings.

10fnsr4.jpg


#7 - Are these just a standard "38 Special" hollow point?
dq3z8m.jpg



#8 - Here's some weird ammo.
The red shell is "Industrial #2 Lead Shot" 8 gauge shell.
The white 12 ga. shell says "Explosive" on it, has almost no weight to it.

296nr7q.jpg
 
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Most are standard ammo.

#7 appears to be a game deprevation round [ yellow case ] that is used to scare away birds,will travel about 75 yards then enplode.Also called modern day crow bombs.

The red cased round appears to be an 8 guage furnace cleaning round that is used to clean blast furnaces in industrial uses ONLY.But it does appear to be an 10 guage shotgun round for the same use.
 
Scaatylobo...thank you. I updated the image numbers, you are referencing image #8 now.
You are correct. The one shell is yellow on the inside of the white plastic. Good catch.

This is one of the many guns. Smith & Wesson, I didn't take it out, I guess a 44 magnum, possibly stainless. It obviously needs to be cleaned. I noticed he had a few boxes of real wood grips for hand guns, never installed for some reason.
fu6gc1.jpg
 
I beleive the gun above is nickel plated, not stainless. The model number will indicate if its a stainless gun, Smith & Wesson usually using a 6 to start the model numer for stainless. On the 44's, the carbon (blued and nickel plated) guns are model 29's (and can be a variation, like a 29-2 etc), the stainless guns 629's. Other models didnt run quite the same way, just adding a 6 before the carbon model number, but stainless models usually start with a 6.

Factory wood grips, especially older ones, can be worth serious money. For factory wood target grips, they seem to go in the $75 range and up for even older types. The black rubber grips look like Pachmayers. They are OK, and basically not worth much.

And yes, the empty shells are definitely worth money. They represent about half the value of a cartridge on average, but once fired or used brass isnt as valuable as new brass.

The 44 special (spl) rounds with the dull silver cases are CCI Blazer brand and type. The case is aluminum, and not reloadable (hence the N-R on the case). They are fine for shooting or keeping for defensive loads. They were intended to be money saving by using the aluminum cases. Empty blazer cases are not usable for anything. Looking inside an empty, you can see two small offset flash holes. Most cases have one hole centered in the bottom of the case.
 
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AZA,

Yes, everything you have there is worth some sort of money, even the shell holders (plastic trays)
Almost all of that ammo can be sold, the only restrictions may be the explosive ammo in restricted states.

The pistol ammo are dum dum (wadcutters) hollowpoint, Full Metal Jacket or Ball and semi jacket hollow point rounds.
 
...The pistol ammo are dum dum (wadcutters) hollowpoint, Full Metal Jacket or Ball and semi jacket hollow point rounds

No disrespect intended. I believe the term "dum-dum" is the least understood and most nearly useless term in all of firearms terminology, and has no practical use today. I'd hate to see our friend in Az use the term and be misunderstood or taken for unknowledgeble about firearms. Az friend, please dont use the term in discussing your ammo to prospective buyers, you may be laughed at.

Our history sidetrack for the day:

The term Dum Dum has surfaced now and them over time. It came into widespread use by the anti-gun folks back in the 70's or 80s to describe expanding bullet loads like hollow points, (in the context of handguns in the anti-gun circles). The origin came from a British arsenal in India, at a place called Dum Dum I beleive. They developed an expanding .303 load that was more effective than the full jacket ammo. Before long, the "Dum Dum" loads were decried as inhumane and harsh. After that point, when someone wanted to make a point about expanding bullets being bad, they referred to them as Dum Dum rounds for some reason, which in and of itself, means little other than an expanding bullet, and was never used in the firearms world to decribe expanding bullets. Better terms exist, for specific types or as a generality.
 
Malamute,

Very well put. To be perfectly honest I put it in there because of the ease to Wikipedia it. AZA said firearms weren't really his thing, so I was trying to make it easy as possible to research for him.
I had never heard it used as an anti gun term, I've only ever heard it referred to as with the British history behind it. Thank you for pointing that out.
 
Sorry to read of your loss. We are all getting up in our years and I realize I need to make an inventory of my gun and gun related items.
For example the nickel plated S&W looks like it is factory original, it is worth a lot of money instead of someone just taking it and having it chrome plated.
I opened my gun safe and told my kids "There is a million dollars worth of guns in here, if you sell any for cheap I will come back and HAUNT YOU!!"
 
Family Death - Suggested Ammo Prices

Hi All,

I'm new to guns/ammo and my brother passed away recently. Awhile back I created a thread to learn the best way to dispose of his 3,000 rounds of ammo. I've now completed the inventory and would like to get an idea on how we should price this ammo. We would like to sell each item as a package.... 45 ammo as one package, all 270 ammo as one package, cleaning kits as one package...etc. We're looking to give people a fairly good deal, not try to get retail prices.

NOTE: Click thumbnail images to view larger image, click that new image to view a very hi-res image.

1) 45 Ammo - 1,340 total rounds
44_Both.jpg

2) 44 Ammo - 264 total rounds (72 hollow point)
Both.jpg


3) 38 Special Ammo - 275 rounds (96 hollow point, 169 wadcutters)
38_Special.jpg

4) 357 Ammo - 50 hollow point rounds
357_Ammo.jpg

5) 270 Ammo - 657 rounds
270_Both.jpg


6) 12Ga. Ammo - 251 shells
12_Guage_Ammo.jpg


7) Cleaning Kits/Accessories
Cleaning_All.jpg


8) Holsters
Holsters.jpg Model Names: Holster_Closeup.jpg


9) Brass (Already Fired Rounds)
Brass.jpg CloseUps: Both_Brass_Boxes.jpg Both_Brass_Bags.jpg
 
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