How to get rid of old wet .22 bullets?

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dry 'em

in the oven, hehe. I'd think you'd pull them at least. it's easy to do, and who knows maybe you'll figure out what to do with them by then. Gives you something to do while watching TV or waiting for replies like this one...
 
Dig hole.
Insert 10 lbs of charcoal.
Light Charcoal.
Add bullets.
Cover with trash can lid leaving just enough space for fire to breath.
After 20 minutes add one chicken double wrapped in heavy foil.
Salt, pepper and or bbq sauce to taste.
Turn chicken ¼ turn every 10 to 15 minutes for one hour or until done.
(foil wrapper potatoes add a nice touch)
Enjoy!
 
Last edited:
Dig hole.
Insert 10 lbs of charcoal.
Light Charcoal.
Add bullets.
Cover with trash can lid leaving just enough space for fore to breath.
After 20 minutes add one chicken double wrapped in heavy foil.
Salt, pepper and or bbq sauce to taste.
Turn chicken ¼ turn every 10 to 15 minutes for one hour or until done.
(foil wrapper potatoes add a nice touch)
Enjoy!
Click to expand...

A few minutes later, feel effects of lead posioning.

:D
 
Throw it in the trash. They are not dangerous.
Click to expand...

They might be, if not all the rounds got wet. You would have to know your local laws, I would imagine that live rounds would be considered hazardous material in one form or another.

Out here in the country, a big hole in the ground works great:)

On a semi-related note, on our farm back in the 60's, my father was using dynamite to blow up old tree stumps. When he was done, he had a dozen or so blasting caps (primers) left over. He knew they were dangerous, but he didn't know how to dispose of them, so he put them in a "safe place".
The "safe place" was behind an old steel craftsman toolbox, between the box and the wall on top of our shop bench. The caps were in a small manilla envelope and sat there for over 40 years.

Fast forward to 2008.... I was grinding a piece of metal in our vise, on the bench, just as we have been doing for the last 40+ years.

:what:KABOOM:what:... blew the heavy toolbox and all the tools off the bench. It also blew a hole in the wall of our shop:scrutiny: Luckily, no one was hurt.
 
Soak em in a bucket of water for a while, then bury em. Not saying its perfect but its what I do to dud rounds.
 
My local indoor range has a box by the firing stalls for dud rounds. I don't know what they do with them, but they do something. If you can, check with a local range as to how they dispose of them. They may want to charge a small amount for a "few hundred" of them, but it would be well worth it.

You should also contact the manufacturer about it and see what they say, although I'm reasonably sure they would not take back and replace ammo misfires because of a soaking you gave them.

I'd also like some specifics from you as to exactly how they all got wet. I would really like to hear that story. Pardon my intense curiosity about that part, your screen name of "Leaky Waders" notwithstanding.

I'd find it unusual that they were all ruined. They are pretty well sealed, what with wax and so forth, and I would suspect that a light firing pin blow due to dirt in the firing mechanism, dirt on the breech face, or a dented breech face can be causing your misfires. Did you try them in a different --or a cleaned --gun? Did you rotate the ones you attempted to fire in the chamber to see if hitting them at a different point would set them off?

I also understand that newer priming compositions are not as long-lived as the older lead styphnate or lead resorcinol primers, so I wonder how old the cartridges are.

All in all, possibly the best thing to do is to attempt to fire them all into a safe backstop with a clean modern gun, and if they don't fire for real then think about safe disposal methods. However, beware of a real squib round sticking in the bore.

I suppose the politically correct answer would be to contact the local PD about it, but, well... ummmm... I suppose that option depends on where you live.

Terry, 230RN
 
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You should pull the bullets if you really want to. Melt those down or give them to someone.
Then take the powder and spread it on your lawn. Its great fertilizer.
The cases can be recycled or made into .223 jackets.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the responses so far.

How they got wet...well I'm a duck hunter. We had been shooting .22's before one outing and I never took the bullets out of my bag.

A few duck hunting trips later I noticed the .22's in my bag. The bag that spends half it's time in chest high water with me, sits in the bottom of a soaking boat, etc etc.

After they had dried a bit, I tried to shoot them. Nothing happended after many attempts through a win 94/22.

Now they just sit around in tupperware and I want to get rid of them before I deploy again.

Now I have two bags...one for 'expect it to get wet bag' for calls and stuff, and a canvas bag for range stuff.
 
As mentioned. Wear safety glasses/leather gloves/plier. 4 bowls. Take rd from bowl #1 Pull lead (and drop it in #2) dump powder in #3 and drop brass in#4. Give #2 to a person who casts their own bullets, dump #3 on lawn (or burn UNCONTAINED and take brass and put in ziplock bag/write on bag "DANGER PRIMED BRASS" and drop in range brass bucket. (that way it they care they will know)
 
Well, you can follow all the PC rules and spend a whole day driving around creation trying to find the place that will take them and then they just might bury them or throw them in the trash themselves, after you went through all that effort.

If you plan on living at your place for a while, you could always bury them until you plan in the future what you will do with them.

Anywhere you place them, be it in the river bottom, or buried in your yard, is going to stir up the environmentalists.

I suppose you could call the local police. Where I live, they have once or twice a year a Hazardous Waste Day where people bring all kinds of stuff (I heard someone brought a hand grenade). That would be the best thing to do.
 
I know that some of these responses are meant to be funny but if you really don't know what to do with them just bag them up and put them in a trash container that will end up in a municipal or other approved waste site and forget about it. People sometimes over think these things. The most hazardous thing environmentally, safety and health wise would be to mess with breaking them down or trying to recycle this small amount.
 
I'd say call the local fire department and ask for instructions. They may surprise you and have you just bring them in, but more likely, they'll direct you to the nearest hazardous waste collection facility.
 
I'd soak em in a bucket of water for a week then toss em in the trash. 22s aren't going to survive soaking -- heck, too much oil in the chamber and they FTF.
 
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