I am making some Dummy Rounds as a project. My question is has anyone deactivated primers before? What did you use?

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

Punch the primmer out. You can never be certain a live primer has been inactivated. Either leave the primer out or fill the cavity with silicon putty. It is a good idea to also color them an obvious unusual color to distinguish them from live ammo.

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Old paratrooper in NC

For a dummy round, I don't use a primer, since it has no purpose for a OAL item.

For show a little dent does not look that bad with a fired primer but you can add a little silver fingernail polish for a flat surface if needed.

Do you really need a dead primer for the job ?

Read Trooperdan's post, and follow it. I tried to deactivate primers once. It's not as easy as it sounds, and the only way to be sure is to fire them a few times, or at least make them go off once.

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Formerly Model520Fan

I am doing them with FMJ round nosed bullets, with a nickeled case and wanted to use a brass primer.

Actually my "project" is a set of my old Hubley Revolvers that I had as a kid. They will accept .38 Special Cases in the cylinders and the gunbelt. The set hangs over a door in one of the two rooms in the house I call mine. The set came with lead bullets that had a copper jacket on it. Over the years I have lost all except one. Just trying to make it look nice while we have "down"time due to CV.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

If you are a handloader, most of what I will say is common knowledge. If you are not a handloader, beware of pitfalls!

If you attempt to deactivate a primer with chemicals, it is a good bet that you will not succeed and even if you think you have succeeded — there is only one way to know. (Load and pull the trigger)

This is the hazard. Because if you HAVE created a dummy round with a bullet and no powder and eventually you or someone pulls the trigger on a primer that does indeed go “bang” then it is a 100% guarantee that the bullet WILL MOVE.

No way whatsoever to predict how far the bullet will move, but it is absolutely possible that it moves out of the case and in to the bore. Now you have an obstruction.

The deep dive in to the details of the death of actor Brandon Lee on the set of the movie “The Crow” is fantastic evidence of the pitfalls of what you are looking to do.

What you really want here is a dead primer that has gone “bang” already. Or no primer at all and an empty flash hole. Any use of a live primer, doctored or otherwise is simply a bad idea.

Just a little piece of advice. Avoid making dummy rounds that can be mistaken with live rounds and vice versa.

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Expect the unexpected

Was planning on drilling a hole in the case. I have dummy rounds in .30-06 that were made at the turn of the last century for the military that have holes in the cases.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

If you reload and are handy.

Id try to take spent primer, pry out the anvil. Then use a punch and flatten out the primer strike. If it looks good press it back into the case.

Id look into washing the primers first, lots of nasty stuff on primers.

Half of a spent washed primer is just a piece of metal so no fear of ignition.

Don't know if it will work?

This is one of the ways I differentiate my dummy round. I alsouse nickel cases for dummy rounds as my reloads are in brass.

The title is the correct name. You should try to duplicate factory dummies. That means, no primer, use cold gun blue to blacken the shell casing and bullet. Cold blue won't work on nickeled cases. Use brass cases. In the case of .38 SPL and .357 magnum, brass cases are getting hard to find but I'm sure a commercial range would let you have a few.

No primer, that's how you know its a dummy load....fill the hole with RTV silicone if you wish...leaving a primer is asking for trouble, even if its discharged...to much room for error.

Use either no primer or a fired primer. As several have stated, live primer inerting can be iffy no matter what you do. Drilling holes in the case wall is OK, and provides positive ID. I have loaded numerous dummy rounds for use as museum displays and just left fired primers in place or replaced live primers with fired ones (I didn't drill holes in cases for those).

Military dummy action functioning rounds (.30-'06) made during WWII were loaded with potassium carbonate instead of propellant to simulate the weight and balance of a ball round. I had a few of those rounds once. I pulled a bullet and what was inside looked like fine white sand.

^^^ THIS ^^^
It seems like I have plenty of brass for whatever I want to load these days. I get very few nickel plated cases, so I save them to make a dummy round for each bullet I load in each caliber. This way I can always adjust my seating and crimping dies quickly and consistently. Also, if it’s with my stuff and nickel I’m reasonably certain I’m looking at a dummy... no primer? I know it’s one of my dummies. Works for me, but YMMV.

OP, I understand and sympathize with your plan, but I’d be awful leery of mixing “real” ammo... even dummies, with your toy guns. A drilled case would be my minimum precaution, and I’d probably use non-primers such as hot glue to be safer. Again, you know your situation so YMMV.

Froggie

I recall a thread on this (maybe in the ammo section) on making rounds for a gun belt display??


Anyway there is NO (practical)way to deactivate a primer .
Just use spent primers no one will the the dent. If the dent is not acceptable, fill the primer hole with body filler or epoxy and paint it gold.

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Still Running Against the Wind

If I wanted a primer in a dummy, for looks only, I'd find a fired primer, remove the anvil, find a punch that fit the cup, and flatten out the firing pin dent. May have to lightly sand/polish the cup to make it look "new". but that's about a close as I'd recommend. (I once, when young and foolish, very carefully, removed the anvil from a live primer and wet the compound with water and scraped it out. But it's too easy to set off the compound when messing with a live primer like this)...