Slightly OT- Ammo from a fire

[2ndovc]

I picked these up in a fire job I just got.
Fortunately everyone got out ok but sitll a sad event. Almost everything they own
was destroyed. The home owner is a hunter and shooter and we hit it off right away.
His guns were covered by the ins. co. and were not too badly damaged. Stored in a heavy oak cabinet.

Anyway,

Thought this was interesting...

A couple 9MMs, '06s, a .30-30 and a 12 Gage.
One of the '06s cooked off and several 20 gage shells melted but as far as
I can tell that was all that went off.
I've always wondered how much heat it would take to set off a loaded cartridge.
Guessing a lot. These got really hot and only one went off.

jb

[AJMD429]

Now you know that's not true - I saw on TELEVISION that whenever a house catches fire and there's guns or ammunition there, bullets fly everywhere, for hundreds of yards, and innocent people are killed for miles around; usually children.

A friend who was a fireman said he often attended rural house fires where there were tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of rounds of ammunition. NEVER did a bullet fly, although there were cook-offs he said sounded like lots of firecrackers, and of course there would be hot powder slow-moving bullets, and an occasional faster moving shred of brass, but nothing particularly dangerous vs. the already burning house. Ammo stored in metal surplus ammo cans that cooked off never seemed to penetrate the cans, but would bang them up and ruin them.

Blackpowder, on the other hand - went ...BOOM...! but when properly stored in either small amounts or in a powder magazine was also not a threat.

Such was NOT the case for propane tanks, butane torch cylinders, aerosol cans, etc...

[2ndovc]

Or cleaning products!

I don't know what was in there but the stuff stored under the sink blew a hole through the
back wall of the house!

jb

[KirkD]

I wonder what the powder inside those rounds looks like.

[Sixgun]

Sad story, Next to a serious medical problem, a fire must be the worst a family can go through. My sister lost 2 cars (One a 12 cylinder Jag that my B-I-L was restoring/no insurance) antique/unreplaceable furniture, paintings, etc. back in '85.

Anyway, like the others have said, no real danger in cooked off ammo but two years ago I bought out a guy whose house was nearly destroyed by a fire. His reloading componets were all sooted up and even slightly scorched. About 10K primers--all were good and I'm still using them.--lots of powder that chronos like new stuff. I believe I paid about $200 for a couple of K worth.---------Sixgun

[Chuck 100 yd]

Sixgun , Now that`s my kind of security !!
How much is there? A ton??
I have a considerable amount too. Stacked under a bench in plastic tubs that I can hardly slide across the floor.

[SmokeEater2]

I've heard ammo cook off during fires but have never seen any evidence of flying bullets at all. I suppose if a round were chambered it'd be a different story. I did see a used-to-be nice M1 carbine that had a loaded magazine (chamber empty) that the magazine was blown out on.
I don't worry much about ammo, it's the idjits that have gas cans in the kitchen that make me nervous.

[Ysabel Kid]

I wonder what the powder inside those rounds looks like.

+1 Could you pull a few of those bullets and show us?

[AJMD429]

I've heard ammo cook off during fires but have never seen any evidence of flying bullets at all. I suppose if a round were chambered it'd be a different story. I did see a used-to-be nice M1 carbine that had a loaded magazine (chamber empty) that the magazine was blown out on.

I have read two separate stories in the newspaper over the years of police officers who left loaded revolvers in the oven, and rounds supposedly went off when the oven was turned on. I suppose THOSE bullets (all six of them) would come out a-flying...

[AmBraCol]

The primer will usually fire and maybe even eject itself from the case (Did that '06 round have the primer in place?) which can be interesting as they can generate enough velocity to cause some damage should they hit bare skin. The powder requires some resistance in order to burn fully and quickly as it was designed to do. Since the internal pressure of the cartridge starts moving the bullet at a very low pressure, the powder usually can't generate enough pressure to burn quickly and thus pressure is kept low. The projectile is often heavier than the cartridge case and so will often be found laying close to where it was when the powder cooked off, but the cartridge case will move under pressure of the gasses from the burning powder.

Don't ask me how I know, but steel cased 9mm Makarov ammo will not produce as much disturbance in a camp fire as a piece of Osage Orange will. That Osage Orange can get quite a pop and move a lot of coals around. The Makarov stuff did pop but didn't push coals out of the fire ring like the wood did...

[Old Ironsights]

A gentleman over on Cast Boolits lost his barn/reloading shed a few days ago.

All of his reloading gear, powder, primers, brass, several MILLION cast bullets, etc, etc.

He's taking it well all things considered...

[handyrandyrc]

One of our own, Lloyd Smale, lost his pole barn filled with reloading/casting gear over the weekend...

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=53364

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=53551

He had 6 Dillons in there, probably a million cast bullets as well. Ironsights, I think we posted near the same time! lol

[2ndovc]

I wonder what the powder inside those rounds looks like.

+1 Could you pull a few of those bullets and show us?

I was thinking of doing that too. Will do when I get home tonight.

One of the guys found a partial box of Winchester Fail Safe '06 that
was in another room unaffeced by fire but got really wet. He gave them to
me this morning. The box and shells were damp but I think ok.

About a year ago we had a water loss in a home where the water
ran for about a week while the home owner was away.
I found several boxes of Remington 3" .410 in a bag in the
basement that had belonged to her ex she told me to take them if I wanted to ( I told her to put another $100 on her claim list.
There was about an inch of water in the bag.
I dried them off and let them sit on a towel in the sun for a couple days.
So far they have all gone off.

Pay those home owner's premiums Boys! And check your policies some companies
don't cover firearms or have very low limits on them.

jb

[2ndovc]

Pulled the bullet from the 30-30.

Powder looks unaffected. I was trying to get one of the 9MMs apart
but the collet for my bullet puller is worn out and can't get a good enough
grip on the case. Betting it looks the same anyway.



jb

[J Miller]

Jason,

Use a shell holder in place of the collett. Works real good.

Joe

[2ndovc]

Brilliant!


jb

[SmokeEater2]

I've heard ammo cook off during fires but have never seen any evidence of flying bullets at all. I suppose if a round were chambered it'd be a different story. I did see a used-to-be nice M1 carbine that had a loaded magazine (chamber empty) that the magazine was blown out on.

I have read two separate stories in the newspaper over the years of police officers who left loaded revolvers in the oven, and rounds supposedly went off when the oven was turned on. I suppose THOSE bullets (all six of them) would come out a-flying...

I wonder why they put their revolvers in the oven in the first place?

[AmBraCol]

I wonder why they put their revolvers in the oven in the first place?

A "safe" hidey hole. No one will find it. And they don't use the oven anyway, you know? Heard of someone getting shot with a glock left in the oven a while back. Sure do bet THAT left a mess.

[alnitak]

There was an episode on Mythbusters about this. Basically, it takes an awful lot of heat to get powder or a primer to go off...and even in the unlikely event it does, the bullet doesn't go flying -- the case does, and not with much force. They concluded no danger to throwing ammo in a fire or even an oven. Slightly different results with a pistol in the oven, but even then, the bullet didn't break the glass. Only when they strapped the pistol down and pointed the muzzle at the glass did they get anything like a normal firing of the case.

[AJMD429]

Don't ask me how I know, but steel cased 9mm Makarov ammo will not produce as much disturbance in a camp fire as a piece of Osage Orange will. That Osage Orange can get quite a pop and move a lot of coals around. The Makarov stuff did pop but didn't push coals out of the fire ring like the wood did...

A couple handfuls of .30-06 surplus ammo thrown in a fireplace by 'friends' may not throw out bullets, but it DOES throw out sparks that can catch a couch on fire...

[Old Ironsights]

A paper .22 box full of 3F makes an interesting WHHOMP! too....

[mescalero1]

In the recent New Mexico wildfire, my Ranger was in the burn zone, but the only thing that happened was my plastic grill melted.
Inside the truck was my blue bag that I carry ammo in, inside the bag was the following:
.44 mag
.357 mag
.38 Special
.22 mag
.223 Rem.
All ammo is fine.
I did have to explain to the locals that it would NOT have exploded.

[2ndovc]

Glad to hear things turned out mostly ok!!

Takes a LOT of heat to set these things off.



jb

[2ndovc]

Used Mr. Miller's Brilliant suggestion and used one of my old Lee hand prime shell holders and pulled a 9mm and one of the '06s.
Powder looked just like the powder from the 30-30. Just fine. No supprise.

just for kicks I cleaned off the 30-30 case and loaded it in my old 94 to see if the primer woud go off.

Stuck it out the back door and bang! Just fine. The cartridge not only got very hot it also got very wet and
still would have gone off.

Interesting!

jb

[mescalero1]

The gunsmiths you hear me talk about frequently used, to maintain one of the indoor ranges, the range brass from this endeavor used to be collected, we would sort it by caliber.
There is a surprising amount of unburned powder collected like this.
Once a large amount was spilled in the street, the immediate solution was to wet it, soaked it.
A week after the Phoenix sun had baked it dry,it was decided to ignite it, it burned at the rate we are accustomed to seeing smokelesss powder burn. The soaking had no effect on the powder at all after it had dried out.

[Mokwaw]

When I was taking training for NRA Certificates, the instructor put on a demonstation. He placed a 30-06 round on a hot plate and placed a cardboard box over the whole thing, when the round cooked off nothing penetrated the box, did the same thing with a 12 ga round, same effect.