Ammo storage

I keep mine on a heavy duty shelf bolted to the wall; factory ammo stays in factory boxes, reloads go into either MTM boxes or harbor freight ammo cans. This is in my basement, but there's zero chance of flooding.

I use ammo cans for the majority of the ammo just like so many others. One or more cans per caliber. Custom shelves that can handle the weight. Six 50 Cal cans wide.

Ammo cans.
None in the safe (more room for guns)
Carry/SD ammo is mixed in a couple cans; by caliber in the others.

As others have said. Ammo cans with packs in them. Been working great for years.

Robbins290 said:

As others have said. Ammo cans with packs in them. Been working great for years.View attachment 941530

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Wonder what a 9mm Rosie is?

Daughters ammo's, which means off limits.

I buy in bulk so I store ammo in original cases as much as I can. This is only one caliber 5.45x39. After I open a case I store it in marked ammo cans.
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Kevinq6 said:

I separate the calibers and put them inside 50 cal ammo boxes and then I put those in a giant job box.

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I do the same thing. I just mark the ammo cans with painter's tape and a sharpie. I also use really good locks on the job box. Ammo has gotten rare and expensive lately.

Now, I shoot more shotgun than anything. I have a ten drawer STEELCASE cabinet. Each drawer can hold 45 boxes of 12 gauge or 54 boxes of 20 or 28 gauge. When full, it weighs about 1600#, not including the 150-200# the cabinet weighs.

Ammo cans with a little padlock on them. I don't have as many cans as others, so - I usually just put rifle rounds in one can, .22 LR in another can, shotgun in a can, and pistol in another. So, 4 cans in one area. Those are the I don't really use this stuff much cans - extra, or just a basic supply amount.
Think they are 50 Cal plastic basic ammo cans.

Smaller ammo cans in my gun cabinet - again 4 of them, I put the more common calibers in them - kid of mixed, but kind of sorted by similar calibers etc. Then I stack some common use cartridges just on the shelves in the ammo cabinet, with a small stack of need immediately rifle rounds for emergencies.

I like the plastic ammo cans, because on a shelf, turn the lock side to the wall, and they pretty much look like little file folder boxes, and don't draw attention.
I forget how many rounds of what I store (way less than many), but generally - and not right now because prices are nuts, if there's space in any of my ammo storage spaces - I look to fill it with any really great buy in any cartridge I have a firearm form.

George P said:

Those green ammo cans are more likely to build up great pressure than that green thin cabinet. I have been transitioning to the Plano plastic versions of the green cans - lighter, cheaper, rustproof, and in a fire will melt and let rounds cook off without pressure build up.

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That never concerned me, if you're close enough to be harmed by ammo cook off you'll be dead from smoke or heat. As with any amount of stored ammo, fire dept. Should be informed if they're there to put it out.

I wish I had enough ammo to have these problems... Factory ammo stays in factory boxes, and reloads get baggied by 50 or 100, depending on how many I loaded at that exact time, and then put in surplus steel ammo cans.

Gunny; Did the plastic cans that leaked during the flood have rubber seals in them? Makes me think about switching even though mine can't flood. If they leak in a flood, they're not airtight and protecting from air moisture either.

I store bulk reloads in vac sealed bags and then put them in a can with a desiccant pack, factory rifle ammo gets bagged and put in a can, each can is a different caliber. I have some 50 and 100rnd plastic boxes that I fill and then store them in ammo cans. 20 & 40mm cans holds shotgun ammo. I store home defense rnds in fanny packs close to the gun it goes with.

I store in a pair of 7ft tall, 4ft wide cabinets. Rifle and shotshells in one, pistol and all components in another. Separated by caliber only. Some ammo cans. Some MTM cases. Some factory boxes.

As for the ammo can in a fire, I can confirm that the seal melts before the ammo inside melts. And yes, ammo can melt before exploding, and projectiles are left seated in the casing.

These are my own pics. In a rare flat 25mm Autocannon box. Some already fired cases were in there too. And a ruger bx25 mag















And my poor Fords...

berettaprofessor said:

Gunny; Did the plastic cans that leaked during the flood have rubber seals in them? Makes me think about switching even though mine can't flood. If they leak in a flood, they're not airtight and protecting from air moisture either.

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Sorry I did see your post till today.
Yes. The plastic ammo cans all had rubber seals. Most of the cans I saw were MTM. Plenty of officers on my department and some LA. State Troopers cars were caught in the flood. The ones that had ammo in the plastic cans, in the trunk, were all filled with water.
The problem is 5hat under pressure the plastic cans flex and the seals leak. Plastic cans are good as long as they don’t go under water, or get dropped on a hard surface.

Most of my bulk ammo is stored in marked 50 caliber ammo cans. The stuff I shoot the most of is in MTM plastic boxes on a shelf in my loading room. Some 50 round and some 100 round boxes.

I just built a set of shelves from some surplus cinder blocks and 2X8 lumber to hold my ammo cans. It was copied from a member over on Snipershide.

I think Gunny wins though!

All of this is under roof in a controlled temperature environment.

Well, I did have it all that way. But I lost the ammo in a canoeing accident while I was dreadging for the guns that I lost in that boating accident!

Yeah, I lost all my reloading stuff, much of which was my grandpas. The bronco was my first vehicle. All my tools. Everything in a crammed 40x72 metal building.

Both of my ammo cabinets are lockable, heavy gauge steel. They are in my safe room, which is 6" thick reinforced concrete on all six sides, with a heavy steel door with deadbolt. Its heated and air conditioned.

I do have a couple ammo cans filled with common ammo for defensive firearms if I need to bug out quick.

I there’s anyone that would like some labels like the ones I use on my cans, just send me a PM and I’ll try and get some to you. I have a bunch of light and dark blue ones.

hso said:

Thanks for the illustration of the point and so sorry for your loss.

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First hand experience is also the best to learn from. Time heals all wounds... But yeah, it still stings. I had some classic old powders, bullets hand polished by my grandpa in 1981, lots of his notes, etc.

This particular fire was in a well insulated metal building. The fire inspector said the temps were in excess of 2000°F.

Unloaded primers do go off in a fire. The FD was there already and we told em to let it burn. There was no saving anything. As the fire moved westward, it exploded one of the oxy-acetylene torch tanks, then about 15k primers went off in about 3 seconds. It sounded like no other bundle of black cat firecrackers on earth.

Nearby, I had about 40 pounds of powder inside a mini-fridge. None of it exploded like a bomb, but instead just burned. That corner of the shop was actually the "least" damaged. Though that's not saying much. When we told the FD about the powder and ammo, they were only concerned about it being black powder. I had only one pound of BP and they were not worried. They just stayed a bit farther back.

The unloaded projectile stockpile ended as a puddle of lead full of hollow copper cones, in the bottom of a toolbox.

In one of my pictures above im holding a copper jacket from a 44mag. The lead all melted out.

One last point I realized, and would like to make is that without a barrel or a bolt behind the cartridge, half the energy will be released in a rearward direction. This means low velocity. In addition to this, the bullet has no barrel to spin or guide it, resulting in instant keyholing. Again lowering velocity. The casing itself will also expand, and possibly rupture, again lowering velocity, or even rendering the cartridge inert.