Rusty & split cart's.

[THEINVISIBLESCARECROW]

Haveing a clear up & found loads of old cart's.

Safe to use or bin ?

Please remember newcomers might read this so thinking caps on, think safe.

Problem one, short of money & huge price rise so do I use up all my old ones before I buy new stock or bin the bad ones & bend my plastic.

Splits in Eley & Winchester ones on the top edge where it folds over for the crimp, slight swelling at the end & very noticable split in the plastic.

Same but no swelling & tiny but easy to see split on the edge at the crimp end.

Paper, either slight swelling or some slight flakeing, feels firm & solid though.

Rusty brass, from a easy to remove rust spots to furry rust all over, primer looks fine.

Blue or green furry primer in fair / good brass.

Heavy tarnish on brass, no rust but badly discoloured.

I intend to recycle the lead & use empty cart's for airgun targets with those considered dangerous.

I'm loathe to waste a safe cart but have no desire to penny pinch & risk safety at any cost.

Has any one experiance of a "new" safe looking cart' splitting open when fired.

In the worst senario what would happen if the case or base failed when fired, would the gun hold the pressure or fail ?

We all know the danger of blocked barrels but what about old cart's?

[bob300w]

Nothing there that would prevent me safety-wise from using any of them, depending on how rusted the bases are. The splits in the crimp end are no problem at all, the rust on the bases could possibly split.

It all depends how badly rusted that they are. Without seeing them or photographs it's not possible to say. I would not use badly rusted ones, they may well mark your chambers or action face. Imagine wrapping sand-paper around a cartridge and firing it, that's the type of tiny pock marks rust will leave, these hold moisture, and a rusty gun is next.

Badly rusted, bin them, but even if one does split, it's unlikely to harm you or your gun, providing the gun is sound.

I had an old gun many years ago when I was a lad, it had very oversize chambers, it would split new cartridges down the full length regularly, but it was never a problem. Ballistically, it was probably horrendous, but there was never any visible gas leaks.

There was a batch of Winchester trap and Topmark cartridges around 25 years ago that had splits in most of the cartridges near the crimp, from new, as you describe.

My biggest concern safety-wise would be using them as airgun targets. I did this as a lad, shooting at the primer, I hit it, the primer fired and came back out of the case, hitting me one inch above the eye, and causing a wound that would probably have caused the loss of an eye had it been an inch lower. Shoot at the cases, fine, but give the primers a miss as targets, tempting as it is.

[Cranfield]

Each cartridge needs to be examined individually by someone with experience, it is very difficult to generalise without such an inspection.

Although I agree that splits on the crimping is not a safety issue.

 

I suggest you take them to your local Gunshop or Clay Ground and ask their opinion.

Most Gunshops will take old cartridges for safe disposal.

 

Using a live cartridge, even without the shot, as an airgun target is not a good, or safe idea.

[al4x]

I'm with Bob generally you'll know if you can use them, slight rusting is fine any more and you run the risk of damaging the gun. The worst that can happen if your gun is sound is that they won't go off which is when you need to keep it pointing safe for 60 seconds just in case its a slow burning one.

Any that don't fire I'd open up and dispense with the contents, generally with modern cartridges they put up with a lot of abuse before they don't work

[THEINVISIBLESCARECROW]

Thanks for that.

I intend to dump the furry primer ones, the rusty ones I'm giveing a quick wipe over with wire wool to remove the spots, the furry rusty ones I'll allso bin.

Had no idea with the split case ones.

Just kept on getting odd cart's given to me over the years & they ended up not used.

With the price rise I think it's time to stock take & pay attention.

Also thought this might be of value to newcomers who might buy a gun & get the same as me, offers of old cart's & not sure about what's safe or not.

Thinking about it I might do some photos, deffo cringe factor with some of them.

[radio1ham]

before binning them take the lead shot out of them as there is always a use for the lead shot

then if the rest of case is no good soak in oil before chucking them in the bin

as you dont want any going bang in the bin wagon or worse still someone finding them and trying to use them