Ammo can storage.

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:)Another vote for the construction type boxes.I prefer the Greenlee box,once loaded with 50 cal cans it will not walk off.I was able to purchase a few of these over the years,if you dont see these on display ask sales people and they may have in back of store.Dont keep all your apples in one basket.
 
i guess my point is this. you could have an open flame in front of a stack of ammo cans for 10 years, and there wouldnt be enough leakage of any kind to allow combustion or fire of anything other than the initial flame. #1) there just isnt much (if any) flamable gasses leaking, from either the cartridges themselves, or the ammo cans. #2) even if there was some leakage, it would not be enough to ignite (there has to be enough of a concentration percentage wise for combustion to work. #3) even if there was enough fumes escaping for ignition to occure, the flame front would not get back inside the ammo can to ignite the the "fumes" inside of the can, and #4 even if all the above could happen, the ammount of fumes would not be enough to make the ammo can an explosive device. these were designed for long term storage of ammunition, both in armories, and under battle conditions. if there was going to be danger of these things turning into bombs, with out someone purposly making them into bombs, they would have been redesigned so the danger was no longer a threat. it's just not going to happen! i hope we can put this to bed now. i am done with it.
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This isn't about "fumes" its about heat from a fire causing the ammo in the can to cook off and the resulting combustion inside the can turning it into a little bomb.

I sent a message to our own hotpig figuring if that has happened, he's seen it. I doubt he'll mind me sharing what he said.
So far all that I have seen was cook offs that pierced the cans. I have not seen a ruptured can even when the house burns down into the basement or foundation.

Unlike loose ammo I'm positive that the cooked off rounds that pierced the can could cause injury if it struck someone.
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It sounds like the ammo can isn't going to build up enough gas to have a dangerous blow out, but you still wouldn't want to be standing next to one.
 
Just starting to think about storage. My wife is getting picky about it. The ammo cans look air tight -- can direct burial be okay? If so, I may dig a patch out back...
 
In my years of geocaching, I have seen ammo cans subjected to the worst outdoor conditions you can imagine, including one that was chained to a tree and spent an entire summer underwater. They never fail to keep the insides nice and dry.

WRT burying them. . . I would be worried about corrosion eventually eating the can away, but then again, we geocachers leave them outside in the rain and snow covered with moss, wet leaves and sticks, and they never seem to rot away.
 
ok, the miliitary has been using ammo cans for years in worse enviroments than civillians have. point is if there is a housefire then nothing is safe. anyway for a bullet to have any force it has to be in something like a chamber. you can toss a bullet in a fire and it is like a firecracker. no real force to it because ... the force is not contained and directed. think if a shape charge.
bullets in am ammo can will go off....and make a bunch of noise. hollywood is full of brown stinky stuff when the show explosions of bullets cooking off and killing people. if anything a bullet cooking off will leave a welt, ive had worse from paintball guns...
 
mudslinger and others... anyone able to explain the difference between a grenade and an airtight sealed metal ammo can with 1,000 rounds?

My concern would be th in a hot fire the ammo can would provide the compession to essentially turn it into 1 big grenade.

Anyone out there have knowledge?
 
Seeing how an ammo can with ammo in it would contain a bunch of little "cells" of powder, and not one big mass of powder, any resulting cook offs would probably occur one by one, like popcorn instead of a Kaboom.

It might eventually burst the ammo can but I cant imagine an explosion.
 
a grenade is a charge of explosive packed and sealed, tightly in a case that is also sealed. much thicker construction of an ammo can. pick up a grenade next time you see one. there is space between rounds in an ammo can, that wouldnt be filled unless you pack them with something fluid, like water.
you ever put a firecracker in a empty pop can? course the ammo cans and bullets are bigger, but same principal.
 
cooked off ammo would turn the ammo can into a machine gun, not a bomb. for bombs to work there must be pressure, what happens when the first cooked off round goes off???? pressure is released.
 
Many years ago American Rifleman Magazine did an article about ammo in fires. There was a picture of a .50 cal can full of .30-06 ammo that burned up in a house fire. The can was bulged a little and dented from bullets banging into the inside surfaces. The rubber gasket gave out quickly in the heat and vented the pressure build up. All the rounds just popped apart, some more violently than others, but no bullets made it out of the can.

A coworker I had once came to the company straight from 20 years at the Lake City Ammunition Plant. He said they took defective ammo out to some burn barrels, made of somewhat heavier gauge steel than normal, doused it with fuel and burned it. They put a heavy gauge metal screen over the top to keep the bits and pieces in. Then the scrap metal was sold for recycling. No big deal.

:D
 
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