My concealed carry situation

I'd probably want to get a simple steel lock box with a cable, the common types sold for securing a pistol in a car. You could keep it under the drivers seat cabled to the seat frame. Low down and not exposed to the sun the temp might be better. I doubt you'd have ammo problems, and it's safer to store your holstered pistol (if you are so inclined) in the lock box rather than unholstering, unloading, loading and reholstering every day in your car. Get home quicker too

Shoot your ammo once or twice a year. I.ve been doing it for years.

If you're really curious, shoot your ammo over a chrony, at New, 6mos, 12mos, 18mos in the hot car. I'll bet you can't tell the difference.

Also, I would not manipulate the gun in the car; store it like you carry it.

Smokepole14 said:

Ok guys I need your opinion and help on this. My place of employment does not allow concealed carry inside the building, however, we are allowed to keep firearms in our vehicle in the parking lot. My problem with this is it gets hot inside my car( car color is black so it soaks in the heat ). My worry is when it gets up to 105+ degrees inside my car how bad is it on the ammo? I know good quality carry ammo is supposed to be good at being in extreme temperature changes. Typical iwb carry in the summer It’s exposed to body heat, sweat, and winter freezing temperatures. I know that it’s good to rotate your carry ammo for this reason. Ok here’s what I do so let me know if you think it’s a good idea or not. I leave my firearm in the car but I unload it and carry my mags inside work in my bag. That way my ammo stays in room temp environment. Which brings my next worry, when I leave work I load my firearm back. So does that hurt the ammo as in bullet setback and increase the pressure in the cartridge? I carry Hornady critical defense 9mm as my ammo. It does have the cannelure to supposedly help with the setback of constant loading unloading the same round over and over. So what do you guys recommend? Leave the ammo in the hot car or continue loading unloading as I currently am doin?

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As has been said; get a good lock box, and lock it in there, loaded. My 'truck gun' (snub .38) sits in a lock box through 100 degree heat and -30 cold. Never been an issue.

There's a lot you can do. A blanket or other insulation in the rear foot well can cover or surround a handgun (whether in a lockbox or not).

You can also leave you windows cracked on days without a good chance of rain. This will keep a vehicle much much cooler. I forgot to do this yesterday. Big difference.

You can rechamber the same round all week, then unload the magazine and put that round at the bottom of the stack, reloading it in order (first out, last in). If you put a sharpie mark on the first round you do this with, then each week it should climb up the stack until it's at the top. At this point each round has been chambered 5 times. Shoot it up, and buy more. Or switch to your backup mag and repeat.

Our ammo and explosives in afg. was stored in shipping containers with no temp controls. In the winter you could safely store meat in there, and in the summer you could probably steam shrimp inside of one. Of course, we also carried the ammo in vehicles, in our weapons, and on our bodies in the same conditions. It always worked as advertised.

I think the best choice is to lake you ammo into your work place. It cannot reasonably construed a carrying so it would not breech company policy. I have no expertise to opine on the affect of high heat on ammunition. During my years in the Corps I served/trained in places with extreme high heat, high humidity, or both. I have experienced a loaded M14 magazine get so hot in the desert sun that it was approaching painful to retract it from the weapon. That scenario was not uncommon in training. We were never advised of an precaution to be taken to keep ammo cool. I never experienced any deterioration in performance in such hot environments. Still I want to reiterate that my experience does not rise to expert knowledge.

Nothing to worry about. Hot as it gets in the car, it's not anywhere near enough to affect the gun or ammo.

Keep it in your car, rotate the ammo out every few months.

Or better yet get a slim .380 or .32 and discreetly pocket carry.

bassjam said:

Keep it in your car, rotate the ammo out every few months.

Or better yet get a slim .380 or .32 and discreetly pocket carry.

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I would not encourage somebody to break their company policy as these policies are zero tolerance and depending upon the employer could result in various things that are bad for a career and one of them would be immediate termination.

My Jeep has an under seat lock box and an armored glove box. My Toyota has an armored box under the rear seat (it flips up).

Smokepole14 said:

Ok guys I need your opinion and help on this. My place of employment does not allow concealed carry inside the building, however, we are allowed to keep firearms in our vehicle in the parking lot. My problem with this is it gets hot inside my car( car color is black so it soaks in the heat ). My worry is when it gets up to 105+ degrees inside my car how bad is it on the ammo? I know good quality carry ammo is supposed to be good at being in extreme temperature changes. Typical iwb carry in the summer It’s exposed to body heat, sweat, and winter freezing temperatures. I know that it’s good to rotate your carry ammo for this reason. Ok here’s what I do so let me know if you think it’s a good idea or not. I leave my firearm in the car but I unload it and carry my mags inside work in my bag. That way my ammo stays in room temp environment. Which brings my next worry, when I leave work I load my firearm back. So does that hurt the ammo as in bullet setback and increase the pressure in the cartridge? I carry Hornady critical defense 9mm as my ammo. It does have the cannelure to supposedly help with the setback of constant loading unloading the same round over and over. So what do you guys recommend? Leave the ammo in the hot car or continue loading unloading as I currently am doin?

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Loading & unloading is BAD for the magazine AND the rounds.

I leave a loaded Glock in a gun safe and it stays loaded for LONG periods.

I have taken it out about twice a year to shoot with the loaded ammo = NO ISSUES and nothing but an empty magazine to show after.

Then cleaned and reloaded.

I live in an area that gets ALL 4 seasons,and never had an incident with any of the guns left loaded,or with the ammo that is not loaded,but in vehicle.

It is significantly cooler on the floor of the backseat of a car in hot sunlight than many realize.

That is where you should be putting anything that might be heat sensitive. If you park in the shade then the vehicle may not ever get over 100 degrees.

Kleanbore said:

I hope you are not serious.

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I'm absolutely serious. Many people decide that protecting their life is more important than the risk of getting caught carrying. We aren't talking about breaking the law here, just company policy. It's up to everyone to determine for themselves what amount of risk is worth it to them.

As others have recommended, get a tethered lock box. If extreme heat is a concern store the lock box in a insulated cooler to keep temps down.

bassjam said:

I'm absolutely serious. Many people decide that protecting their life is more important than the risk of getting caught carrying. We aren't talking about breaking the law here, just company policy. It's up to everyone to determine for themselves what amount of risk is worth it to them.

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Welcome to unemployment line then because I would turn such a person to security pronto and they will get caught. Private companies are free to set policies and nobody forces a job or company on us. It is employment for mutual benefit. If a policy is not agreeable to a person then they should get another job or start their own business. Breaking a company policy is serious and at my former employer it would involve the feds (airport ramp access). And most companies I have worked for there is a verbal if not written agreement, my word or signature of honor, that I will abide by company policies as an employee and representative of the company. Breaking a company policy is dishonest. It is the same as breaking one's word.

Some weapons will cause some ammo to set-back. Some weapons more so; some ammo will be more susceptible. I would be more-concerned with set-back, than heat. My personal policy was, for a long time, to never re-chamber a round. This was after I found some .45 ACP ammo, especially Eighties-era Winchester Silvertips, to have been significantly damaged with each trip into the chamber, with some setting back, and some of the hollow points becoming notably less-hollow. More recently, with more-modern pistols that feed more-directly into the chamber, I became less strict about this, but still tried to limit re-chambering to as few as possible.

The only documented case, that I can recall, of duty-type ammo being ruined by in-vehicle heat, was when the sealant, at the case mouths, got hot enough to become semi-liquid, and eventually flowed down to the primer area. This was ammo stored inside patrol vehicle trunks, with the cartridges stored with the bullets nose-upward. Had the ammo been stored nose-downward, the flow would have been noticeable, and, would not have de-fizzed the primers.

One idea: Keep the weapon stored low, inside the vehicle, and cover its safe storage place with a light-colored blanket, jacket, or such. This makes a BIG difference, and is easy to confirm, for yourself, on a hot day. This works for me, in Texas, to keep anything noticeably cooler.

Another idea: Keep doing what you are doing, but leave the chambered round in place. This way, only the chambered round gets baked. Once a week, or at whatever interval seems comforting, empty the chamber, relegate the baked cartridge to the training ammo box/bag/bucket/bag, and chamber a fresh round.

Another idea: Opt for a revolver, as a “work” gun. I am not kidding. No worries about set-back. My first handgun was a 1911, back in 1982 or 1983, but I had to get comfortable with DA revolvers, in late 1983, at a police academy, and then had to be comfortable carrying only DA revolvers, 24/7/365, for my first year as a sworn LEO, in a city that was competing against Detroit for murder capital of the USA, at the time. I learned to like revolvers, well enough, that I did not completely switch to an auto, as a duty pistol, until 1997. Now retired, I am OK with a revolver or an auto, as a carry gun. Because training opportunities are pandemic-limited, and my DA sixgunning skillset is far less perishable than my G-locking skillset, I have defaulted to DA revolvers, today.

Glad you brought it up because I was about to.

bassjam said:

Or better yet get a slim .380 or .32 and discreetly pocket carry.

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Agreed.

bassjam said:

I'm absolutely serious. Many people decide that protecting their life is more important than the risk of getting caught carrying. We aren't talking about breaking the law here, just company policy. It's up to everyone to determine for themselves what amount of risk is worth it to them.

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Agree again. Not breaking the law, jobs come and go; only the person breaking company policy can determine how much their life is worth. American's need to find their backbone again.

Woof.

My wife says I have too high of standards for others. That blows me way out of the water.

BreechFace said:

Glad you brought it up because I was about to.



Agreed.



Agree again. Not breaking the law, jobs come and go; only the person breaking company policy can determine how much their life is worth. American's need to find their backbone again.

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It has nothing to do with backbone...it has everything to do with one's word. If you verbally and physically sign an agreement to something when you hire into a company and you breach that agreement at a later date.. it says a lot about the quality of your character and any trust of your stated word.

I have a pistol and rifle in my truck all year long. I swap the ammo out twice a year. Tho sometimes i forget. Never had a issue with the ammo. Even with cold winters and hot summers. Sometimes we get snow and 80 degree days in the same week. Good ol Maine weather. I bet you could go alot longer then 6 months.

"One's word."

If a pistol is carried in a pocket and no one else ever knows about it, the only way "one's word" comes into it, is in one's own mind.

Personally, I feel that if an employer can't protect me from violence in the workplace, I have the right to do that myself. If it's a secure facility with guards, metal detectors, fences and key card access, that's one thing.

But if the workplace is open enough that any one can just walk in off the street, that's just another "gun free zone". And we all know what they're good for.

You can of course argue that anyone who doesn't like it can get a job somewhere else, but employers specifically mention the prohibitions of weapons in company handbooks now, for liability reasons. I've never worked anywhere that it wasn't in the company handbook. So that's a pretty limiting factor if you don't want to break "one's word", but you do want to protect yourself and make a living.

My outlook is if someone is working hard, doing the job well, not making waves, and making their employer money, the employer is getting exactly what they need from an employee. And if no weapons are seen or discussed, no weapons are present. Best if everyone just does their job.