Extra shells?

[Mastrogiacomo]

My mother passed on the 5th of this month, and we had her Mass yesterday. I've been cleaning through my room and found nine 12 gauge Remington shells for a shotgun I no longer have. How would you dispose of them? Sell them for $5 or throw them in the trash?

Laura

[Wag]

Give 'em to someone who needs 'em. $5 each is a lot, actually.

--Wag--

[rc]

Take them to the local gun shop or shooting range and tell them you don't want them anymore. Someone will dispose of them for you.

[44 AMP]

Factory ammo in good condition, pass them on to someone who wants/will use them. Damaged, or corroded, or reloads of unknown and unknowable origin? Toss them, or pass them on for disposal.

[FrankenMauser]

Give them away.

If not, then plastic shot shells are easy to dispose of - even for people afraid of lead.
Cut the shell just above the brass base and pull it apart over a garbage can.
Drop the rest in the can and walk away.

*If you live in a location that processes sewage in a way that removes chemicals before discharging the effluent, the powder can be washed down a drain. But don't do so in the average township that just removes solids - several chemicals in smokeless powders are very toxic to aquatic organisms.

If you want to salvage the shot, pull the wad out or cut the shell again and pour it out. You'll see where to do so.

[mehavey]

I'd suggest (if the OP pulls the shells apart), not putting the powder in ordinary garbage.
(Recycling centers tend to incinerate household garbage)
Instead, dump the powder in a soup bowl -- and when finished sling it out into your grass.
Great fertilizer.

BUT. . . Best suggestion is to take the ammunition, as-is, to a local range and donate.

[FrankenMauser]

It is not great fertilizer. It is not mediocre fertilizer. It is not a bad fertilizer. This is absolute fuddlore and false.
It is, in fact, a terrible fertilizer -- a non-fertilizer. The nitrogen in smokeless powder is sequestered in a form that is inaccessible to plants, even after years of breakdown.
On top of that, it contains chemicals that are harmful to many species, but especially aquatic species.

If you want "proper" disposal, it must be burned.
The only appropriate methods for completely safe disposal of smokeless powder are:
1. Recycle it. -- Good luck. This is only possible on an industrial scale, by powder manufacturers.
2. Burn it.

The third best option there is your local landfill. Which, hopefully, has a proper liner and leachate treatment process.

[mehavey]

It is not a bad fertilizer.

Tell my lawn designated disposal 'swath' that.
(it seems to like it just fine over the last 25 years.)


(and the powder from 5 shotgun shells isn't going to hurt anything --
tho' I'd still not put it in your household garbage as a practice)

[darkgael]

Not a good fertilizer? Hmm. I have used it for decades when I had powder to dispose of. High nitrogen 45-0-0. The grass always got greener, Why do you suppose that happened?

[FrankenMauser]

Natural processes and/or your actual fertilizer treatments.


Just because people have been saying the same stupid falsehood for 80+ years doesn't make it true.

If you would like to learn why it is a stupid thing to say, I suggest starting by reading this DTIC (Natick) report on the conversion of nitrocellulose into usable fertilizer.
It isn't just a bland chemical formula, or list of toxicities, or summary of leachates, like most references. It provides an overview of why nitrocellulose is not a fertilizer and how hard we have to work to break the nitrogen out to make it useful.
And, yes, this report is from 1976. We have known for a very long time that nitrocellulose is not a fertilizer.

I'll share one notable sentence from this report, which sums up the entire reason for the study and the reason why nitrocellulose is not a fertilizer:

Since nitrocellulose contains 12% to 14% nitrogen it was suggested that this material might make a good fertilizer, if the nitrogen could be converted to a usable form.

Emphasis mine.

And from the patent that this report seems to have been based on:

Although the process of the invention may be carried out with any nitrocellulose, it is particularly applicable to nitrocelluloses having from about 2½ to 3 nitrate groups per glucose unit in the nitrocellulose chain since these nitrocelluloses are the types commonly produced commercially and they are non-biodegradable.

Emphasis mine.

Further reading is not difficult to find via your preferred internet search engine; and there are additional discussions on this forum.

If you want to keep your head buried in the sand, go for it. But stop perpetuating fuddlore.

[Scorpion8]

You can turn them in to most police stations also. Our local HAZMAT disposal won't take live ammo or powders.

[mehavey]

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