De-arming live bullets

[Fogducker]

When I was in grade school they hung up a display board with examples of dynamite fuses to avoid. We now knew what to look for out on the RR tracks etc. none of us got hurt thank god!

Farm friend, well into his 70's related finding a fuse but it was too long to fit into his .22 rifle. No problem for a farm kid, took it to the work shop and shortened it with a hammer/chisel----the hammer went through the roof and Charlie's hand still showed the results after 50-60 years! He could play the fiddle pretty good and run a dairy operation though.

Fog

[jayhawk]

so I've done more checking of other threads on this.

Seem a couple of ways to do this. Neither of which I personally feel qualified to try...

1. You can pull the bullet off the top and dump the powder, then put the bullet back on. There are tools made to do just this.

2. You can drill the case. I had thought of this but it seemed like a good way to ignite the powder with a hot drill bit. I am told that with the brass case it is unlikely to get hot enough and even if it did the pressure would escape the drilled hole. Hmmm. Think I would let someone else try that.

With either way you still have the igniter to deal will. The most common thought her is to put the bullet in the gun and fire it. Don't have a 50 cal just lying around.

I saw several articles on using oil/WD40 to make the powder inert. I also saw just as many saying the powder would dry out and still work. Same with the igniter. About a 50/50 split. I wouldn't trust that approach.

Starting to look for a person in the Wichita, KS area (where the bullets are) that would do this and convinces me they know what they are doing.

Jack

[rllink]

As far as the primer, any oil is death for primers. Reloaders, I am one, go to great lengths to not touch primers because just oil from the fingers can contaminate them. A squirt of almost any oil into the primer from inside once you get the bullet out will make it inert, especially some penetrating oil..

A hole drilled through a cartridge often times indicates that it is a dummy round for training. If you want to keep it a genuine .50cal cartridge I would not drill into it. Personally I would not drill into it for any reason. I doubt you could set it off that way, but it just feels unsafe.

[jayhawk]

Thanks for the response. I am not going to do this myself. These things are big. Having never done it, it just doesn’t seem like something I want to mess with. I’ll find someone who will do it and makes me feel like they do know what they are doing.

Jack