I read on one of the forums to just throw bad rounds in the trash. I know most people know better but it still happens...

Don't ever ever ever throw live ammo in the trash!!!! As an ex garbageman I beg you please do  not do this!!! The truck is basically a rolling trash compactor, the forces exerted by the trucks hydraulics can squeeze a round and  and set it off. I have heard of rimfires being set off but have never seen it myself. I don't know how many times we've had to stop the truck, climb in the packer and pick out the loose live rounds and search carefully and nervously to make sure none have been caught in the pivot points. We've turned in coffee cans full of ammo undamaged and some bent by the packer to the police. We've never heard of a round going off but the potential of it happening and injuring someone is.  Trust me, your garbage man will thank you....


I'm completely serious, this isn't a joke post.

Thanks, C.M

Don't throw it in the trash! Send it to me!

Giving it to the police seems reasonable, if nobody you know wants if for parts.

I deep 6 mine in the I&M canal.......

do aerosol cans usually burst when thrown in the trash?  i threw out a can of pepperspray once which still had pressure, then later felt bad about it because i realized i probably ruined the garbageman's day if the thing burst while being compacted and pepperspray went everywhere....

Quoted: Giving it to the police seems reasonable, if nobody you know wants if for parts.

OTOH, the police around here would put you on a list if you gave them cans of ammo on a regular basis.  Mine go in the trash, but already smashed.  What idiot tosses live ammo.  Never mind.....

Lets say a round just happened to get squeezed right on the center of the primer while in the back of a garbage truck.  It is not in a chamber, and it would just pop open (the case might rupture) with very little projectile velocity.

I've seen rounds cook off in a house fire and in the 55 gallon trash burning can at the shooting range.  They hypothetically would be subject to the same laws of physics as a round getting "squeezed off" in a garbage truck, I assume.  It scares the shiite out of every but that's all. The cooked off rounds wouldn't even penetrate the side of a trash barrel and surely to God a garbage truck is made out of thicker steel than a garbage can, right?

Just wondering WTF?

yea, the round would just split the case and make a loud "bang" sound, kind of like having an M80 go off.  wouldn't do any damage... unless a fire started... THAT would really suck.

Quoted: Lets say a round just happened to get squeezed right on the center of the primer while in the back of a garbage truck.  It is not in a chamber, and it would just pop open (the case might rupture) with very little projectile velocity. I've seen rounds cook off in a house fire and in the 55 gallon trash burning can at the shooting range.  They hypothetically would be subject to the same laws of physics as a round getting "squeezed off" in a garbage truck, I assume.  It scares the shiite out of every but that's all. The cooked off rounds wouldn't even penetrate the side of a trash barrel and surely to God a garbage truck is made out of thicker steel than a garbage can, right? Just wondering WTF?

This is the reason a policy was made earlier last year about throwing away bad rounds.

I carry a half quart of oil around that i throw rounds in to neutralize them.

Completely nullifies the concept of bolt/chamber/barrel ?  


So let me get this right..........

If you have a Garbage Truck full of ammo.....and then operate the hyraulic compactor.......
you in turn now have a massive Claymore?

Well fuck......then why do we have tanks?  Just send in the garbage trucks.

[corpmonster] is responsible for this article.

Quoted: Completely nullifies the concept of bolt/chamber/barrel ?   So let me get this right.......... If you have a Garbage Truck full of ammo.....and then operate the hyraulic compactor....... you in turn now have a massive Claymore? Well fuck......then why do we have tanks?  Just send in the garbage trucks. Some complete and certified dumbfuck is responsible for this article.

Quoted: yea, the round would just split the case and make a loud "bang" sound, kind of like having an M80 go off.  wouldn't do any damage... unless a fire started... THAT would really suck.

+1

No barrel for the bullet to gain velocity = it isnt going to shoot out of the side of the truck and kill anyone. Even when rounds cook off in a fire, sometimes the bullet is still found in the case neck when the case ruptures. If the bullet does move, it will be going very slow and probably cant even penetrate a coffee or soda can.

From another perspective, if inmates help the trash services in your area, like they do in some rural areas here, they could pick up some rounds if the rolled out and use them when they make a homemade gun.

GR

Quoted: From another perspective, if inmates help the trash services in your area, like they do in some rural areas here, they could pick up some rounds if the rolled out and use them when they make a homemade gun. GR

From what I understand, inmates that are allowed to go out and work on trash pickup, especially if they were working in neighborhoods, collecting household trash, are NOT the kind that are likely to build a home made gun in prison. The ones with enough time to do that and that would contemplate doing such a thing shouldn't (and AFAIK aren't) allowed outside the prison except in shackles and cuffs, with fully armed guards and complete confinement. In fact, the prisoners used are likely to be "short timers" that aren't in for serious violent charges (more like DUI, simple possesion, etc.) and pretty much won't be in for long enough to build such a gun. Additionally these inmates are searched completely upon re-entering the jail. In my area, inmates are used only for picking up roadside trash, not residential garbage.

If I am wrong about this, then someone seriously needs to re-think the prisoner work programs.

Quoted: From another perspective, if inmates help the trash services in your area, like they do in some rural areas here, they could pick up some rounds if the rolled out and use them when they make a homemade gun. GR

1. Not my concern or problem. If the corrections officers are doing their job, then they will get pat down/searched before leaving the trash facility.

2. I guess on that line we should stop throwing away anything that could be made into a shiv Nothing made of glass, metal, hard plastic, ceramic, wood....

3. Perhaps they might be able to rig up some sort of workable zipgun tube that could handle the pressure of a .22 rimfire but I doubt they have access to the correct steel and produce it of the correct thickness to handle an 8mm Mauser, .308 or 7.62x54r round. If they did try to use a round of that class in one of their POS zipguns it would just have enough strength to build up some pressure then blow up like a grenade in their hands. Talk about a KaBoom!

Quoted: From another perspective, if inmates help the trash services in your area, like they do in some rural areas here, they could pick up some rounds if the rolled out and use them when they make a homemade gun. GR

I would be more concerned about giving inmates access to broken glass, broken light bulbs, old knives, metal poles, aerosol cans, than to ammo in the trash.  With ammo, they have to make the homemade gun, with a piece of broken glass it's a deadly weapon with little to no modification.

Quoted: I carry a half quart of oil around that i throw rounds in to neutralize them.

That's been tested, and oil does little to neutralize ammo.  There was a test where rounds were left to soak in oil for a couple of days, and they all fired when someone tried it.  The oil myth provides a false feeling of safety.

As others have said, it won't do anything if they do go off, just a loud pop.  

It's ammo people, not hand grenades or plutonium.  

I just throw mine away (talking about a couple rounds here or there, never like a whole case of them which would constitute a fire hazard)

I should explained this deeper, it’s not the bullet that’s dangerous. The bullet isn’t what causes the danger. Please read on.


1.I am not a dumbfuck, you do not under stand how the truck works. I'm talking about the standard throw trash in the back hopper, garbage truck. When the packing blade that squeezes the trash comes down and then retracts by hydraulic force is when the danger occurs. The round can be trapped between the hopper floor or sidewall and the sweep blade. When this happens, most of the round is hanging out in the open hopper. It’s the explosion (for lack of a better word) out in the open hopper where the debris or shrapnel will fly, not the bullet.  Think of setting off a round on a kitchen table covered dirt, steel shavings and glass. (Not to mention all the other small sharp things lying in the hopper.) Now stand facing the round and detonate it. The debris flies right at you. Add the curved steel of the hopper and you have the perfect launching ramp aimed right at to your face.

2.Yes, an aerosol can will burst and spray at the garbage man the same way. Any pressurized can will do the same. Once it’s inside the truck in front of the packing blade and buried in the trucks box, there isn’t any danger. T.V. set do make a nice Karomuphh when they safely implode under pressure in the trucks box. Plastic jugs, metal cans and even a well-sealed trash bag will spew it contents all over you and the street if you are not careful. Many of us have been “hosed” this way. Have you ever seen a spray pattern in the street of slop after the trucks gone and wonder WTF caused that? That’s what is is.

3.We’ve had fires start on the trucks, and they do suck. A truck’s cost is around $175,000.00. The fires generally start in some undetermined way. We don’t know if it was a cigarette, ashes or some other type of ignition source. They happen and if the load is not dumped quickly, the truck goes up. Last fire i was around cost the owner close to $10,000.00 in repairs. It started because of a reaction with filters from a spraybooth, a hot day and loose paper in the same load. It was the only thing on an otherwise empty truck.

4.The truck has openings for the hydraulics to operate. Sometimes things fall out. Want one of “your” bad rounds lying in the street for the neighborhood kids to find? Didn’t think so. It’s happened with hypodermic needles…..

5.I know this all common sense to some of you but it still happens.

6. Don't worry about the prisoners, it's usually people on parole who work the trucks.

Quoted: We've turned in coffee cans full of ammo undamaged and some bent by the packer to the police. I'm completely serious, this isn't a joke post. Thanks, C.M

Who then turn around and put them in their dumpster...

Some of my "XM193PD" ammo looks like it came out the back of a compactor...

Rmpl

In our area, we have the rolling trash cans that get picked up by the truck by a big mechanical arm and dumped, then set back down. The driver stays inside of the cab and operates eveything by levers, so he really is not exposed to getting hit by bursting stuff.

We were told that the police incinerated the "bad" ammo. I hope that's what really happened to it.

We had the old stand on the rear type of trucks. We did move away from the rear of the truck, but stuff would ricochet around. A old glass bottle had gotten pinched and shattered once and we were showered with it, even though we ran to the side of the truck. I started wearing sunglasses on the back of the truck after getting blasted in the face by dirt thrown by an exploding milk jug. I have a millon "gross or near miss" stories so I'll stop now. Maybe if someone starts a gross job or on a garbage truck forum. I a bizarre way I miss those days, I had alot of fun.


I also drove a portable toilet truck for a while too. Shitty job....

C.M.

Quoted: Quoted: Lets say a round just happened to get squeezed right on the center of the primer while in the back of a garbage truck.  It is not in a chamber, and it would just pop open (the case might rupture) with very little projectile velocity. I've seen rounds cook off in a house fire and in the 55 gallon trash burning can at the shooting range.  They hypothetically would be subject to the same laws of physics as a round getting "squeezed off" in a garbage truck, I assume.  It scares the shiite out of every but that's all. The cooked off rounds wouldn't even penetrate the side of a trash barrel and surely to God a garbage truck is made out of thicker steel than a garbage can, right? Just wondering WTF? This is the reason a policy was made earlier last year about throwing away bad rounds. I carry a half quart of oil around that i throw rounds in to neutralize them

Doesn't work.  A few months back this thread was posted for the eleventy billionth time and it was just as someone was taking out various types of ammo from the can of oil he'd put them in 6 months before.  He's also soaked a bunch in wd-40 and some other things.  The oil soaked rounds had something like a 9 in 10 fire rate and the wd-40 soaked rounds had like a 7 in 10 fire rate.  

This topic seems to come up a lot and the advice I would give is to spend a few dollars and get a bullet puller, such as the one from RCBS. I bought mine way back in 1992 and have pulled hundreds of rounds with it.

Quoted: In our area, we have the rolling trash cans that get picked up by the truck by a big mechanical arm and dumped, then set back down. The driver stays inside of the cab and operates eveything by levers, so he really is not exposed to getting hit by bursting stuff.

We have these now, too, ain't it cool!  Hell, you could put a dead body in the trash now and the garbage police would never know.  When we used to put out our trash in bags, the damn garbage cop (we used to call him "F. Lee Bailey") would inspect it and leave it sitting there if we put something contrary to their rules in it.  Now I throw away old tires, batteries, cans of paint, and laugh all the way to the curb.

Kids finding bullets and killing themselves?!
Garbage trucks blowing up and burning 'cause of ammo?!

Requires a methinks.  These kind of paranoid thoughts belong on DU.

Quoted: Quoted: In our area, we have the rolling trash cans that get picked up by the truck by a big mechanical arm and dumped, then set back down. The driver stays inside of the cab and operates eveything by levers, so he really is not exposed to getting hit by bursting stuff. We have these now, too, ain't it cool!  Hell, you could put a dead body in the trash now and the garbage police would never know.  When we used to put out our trash in bags, the damn garbage cop (we used to call him "F. Lee Bailey") would inspect it and leave it sitting there if we put something contrary to their rules in it.  Now I throw away old tires, batteries, cans of paint, and laugh all the way to the curb. Kids finding bullets and killing themselves?! Garbage trucks blowing up and burning 'cause of ammo?! Requires a methinks.  These kind of paranoid thoughts belong on DU.

Yep

Quoted: Kids finding bullets and killing themselves?! Garbage trucks blowing up and burning 'cause of ammo?! Requires a methinks.  These kind of paranoid thoughts belong on DU.

I know, say anything about throwing bullets in the trash and it's the end of the world, but no one ever says anything about broken glass, which is way more likely to hurt kids playing with it.

Quoted: I also drove a portable toilet truck for a while too. Shitty job.... C.M.

At least that shit is treated "the blue liquid" try a septic tank pumper..

Please.  You are worried about ammo in a garbage truck?  Dont you have more important REAL things to worry about?

FALARAK Team Member Please. You are worried about ammo in a garbage truck? Dont you have more important REAL things to worry about?

No, not really.

Quoted: This topic seems to come up a lot and the advice I would give is to spend a few dollars and get a bullet puller, such as the one from RCBS. I bought mine way back in 1992 and have pulled hundreds of rounds with it.

Why bother spending money on a bullet puller when two pairs of pliers will do?  Most people have pliers around.  If it's a rifle cartridge, chances are you won't even need pliers.  Just jam the bullet into a crak in the driveway and work the case back and forth enough to loosen the bullet so you can remove it and dump the powder.

Quoted: FALARAK Team Member Please. You are worried about ammo in a garbage truck? Dont you have more important REAL things to worry about? No, not really.

It's a wonderful country if that's your biggest worry!!  

Amongst the various hazards of garbage collection, there are 53 bajilliondy things more potentially troublesome than a loose round or three in the trash.

If I were a garbagedude and there was a law requiring every citizen to throw 5 live rounds in their trash cans each week, I'd still be more concerned about a coat hangar poking me in the eye or getting cut on the edge of a Frito's bean dip can.

You see, if the round isn't firmly contained within a chamber and barrel, the pressure from ignition will go in all directions (not just into the bullet) AND the rate of deflagration will be a fraction of its potential, so the total energy release is drastically reduced.

This is why  the National Fire Protection Association (IIRC) has determined that live rounds cooking off in a house fire pose no particular threat to normally-equipped fire fighters.

Pull the bullet with a pair of pliers, spread the powder on the lawn, and throw the rest away.

Or just throw it in the trash.  

How about my AIDS layden hypos I thow in the trash? Just kidden but I could imagine that I would be more scared of some used hypo's then a live round.

Quoted: We were told that the police incinerated the "bad" ammo. I hope that's what really happened to it. We had the old stand on the rear type of trucks. We did move away from the rear of the truck, but stuff would ricochet around. A old glass bottle had gotten pinched and shattered once and we were showered with it, even though we ran to the side of the truck. I started wearing sunglasses on the back of the truck after getting blasted in the face by dirt thrown by an exploding milk jug. I have a millon "gross or near miss" stories so I'll stop now. [r]Maybe if someone starts a gross job or on a garbage truck forum.[/r] I a bizarre way I miss those days, I had alot of fun. I also drove a portable toilet truck for a while too. Shitty job.... C.M.

Done.  Have at it  Me, I've got a weak stomach and a gag reflex that could launch small satellites into orbit.  I've always wondered how you guys do it.  

www.jobrelatedstuff.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=435799&page=1

Thanks for the link WinstonSmith. I should have some time this weekend to submit.
Would you like to hear about the dead cat and the portable toilets or the the dead cats and the garbage trucks? My sister was a emergency room nurse in Detroit before she transferred to the operating room for the urology dept. I'll have her relay a few stories..

hanks,
"Why break a guys legs when you can mess with his head."

Quoted: Quoted: This topic seems to come up a lot and the advice I would give is to spend a few dollars and get a bullet puller, such as the one from RCBS. I bought mine way back in 1992 and have pulled hundreds of rounds with it. Why bother spending money on a bullet puller when two pairs of pliers will do?  Most people have pliers around.  If it's a rifle cartridge, chances are you won't even need pliers.  Just jam the bullet into a crak in the driveway and work the case back and forth enough to loosen the bullet so you can remove it and dump the powder.

Because after you've mangled the bullet with the pliers it won't be worth loading into another cartridge. The kinetic bullet puller does not damage the bullet.

unless you have reason to believe it's evidence to a crime-it's a waste of tax dollars to pay a Policeman to voucher it to be destroyed. Take some initiative and destroy it yourself.