What Happens When Ammo Burns?

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Load Master

Load Master

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For anyone worried about having ammo or reloading supplies in your home, you may find this 25 minute video of interest. It is 4 years old, but answers the question of what happens with a fire or if one drops a case of ammo. Interesting results.

SAAMI Test of Burning Ammo
 
While that was interesting, it brought a tear to my eye.
The cost of this SAAMI study must have been astronimical.
Destroying all that ammo was not necessary to get those conclusions. I did find it interesting that loaded firearms can be very dangerous in a fire, as dangerous as pulling the trigger on a loaded gun and loose ammo danger is considerably less of a hazard than one would think.
I wonder what would happen if these were blackpowder cartridges in a firefight?
How can a firefighter know if ammunition for the cowboy shooters blackpowder ammo is stored along with smokeless powder ammunition in somebody's ammunition inventory?

There was no mention or thought to that scenario. Also, firefighters do not arrive instantly at the scene of a fire. The 4 to 5 minute fire was under control at the mock-up retail store fire but retail stores also sell powders both smokeless and blackpowder.
 
I have that video posted as a sticky on a couple of other forums.

SAAMI is a subsidiary of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which I'm a member of. Rick Patterson is the current CEO of SAAMI and is a very, very knowledgeable individual. SAAMI is just one of his jobs, as he is also an NGO representative to the United Nations, representing gun rights to that anti-gun organization. (not for discussion here, please)

The ammunition was donated by the member manufacturers of both SAAMI and NSSF, and the video was made to quell the rumors amongst the general population, and some firefighters, about the storage of ammunition and to take some of the mystery out of the conversation. The video was made in cooperation with a fire department.

As to blackpowder, it's an explosive, not an accelerant, per se, so it's subject to different rules as far as transportation and storage. Only about 10% of the 100,000+ Cowboy shooters shoot blackpowder, if that many. At our match yesterday, there were only 3 BP shooters out of 35 total shooters.

SAAMI was formed many years ago to bring some uniformity to the firearms industry so that ammunition from one manufacturer would fit in a firearm from another manufacturer. Standards were agreed upon by the member companies, and continue to this day. There are calibers that aren't listed by SAAMI, as they're proprietary in nature or "wildcats". Reloading was never intended to be a part of SAAMI standards, due to the industry having no control over individual reloaders. Manufacturers voluntarily adhere to SAAMI specifications, and if you read the individual specifications for some of the calibers, you'll find there is some leeway allowed in them. One example is the extractor groove for the .45 Colt cartridge, which is optional, and wasn't adopted until more modern times. (That lack of an extractor groove in the .45 Colt is one of the reasons the Winchester 1866 and 1873 rifles, and others of the era, were never originally produced in that caliber. Without an extractor groove, the case couldn't be reliably extracted from the chamber of a rifle.)

SAAMI and CIP were never intended to be cure alls for the firearms industry. They were simply created to provide some degree of standardization across the board.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
The BIG question for me is, How many Firefighters know about the results of this test and others like it?
 
It pops the case like pop corn. It will also throw coals into your tent, if your campfire is close enough.

Filed that one away at age 12 or 13, stoking the camp fire one morning and had a shirt pocket with .22 LR in it that dumped out while I was leaning over.

Moved camp over, came back the next morning and found one of the cases.
 
Last edited:
Load Master said:
For anyone worried about having ammo or reloading supplies in your home, you may find this 25 minute video of interest. It is 4 years old, but answers the question of what happens with a fire or if one drops a case of ammo. Interesting results.

SAAMI Test of Burning Ammo
Click to expand...
That was the original post. So why was this taken to the rather old argument about SAAMI drawings and headspace? This has been hashed over time after endless time in these forums. No, a case drawing does not include a headspace dimension, since as we covered a hundred times, a cartridge does not have a headspace dimension. So what and what would that have to do with the subject of the thread.

The video is a sticky in the General section: Sticky: SAAMI video on ammunition and fire fighter safety (Multi-page thread 1 2)
hso


So the point of the headspace nonsense again would be?

Ron
 
That is why powder does not come in metal cams. It was like a little bomb when in cans.
Click to expand...

Maybe not now, but way back when, powder DID come in metal cans. The two on the right are steel cans. IMR powder made by DuPont came in steel cans as well.

P8010069.jpg

"It was like a little bomb when in cans." No, SMOKELESS would simply split the can at the seam and burn. Get that notion out of your head that smokeless powder is an explosive. It burns progressively to propel a bullet down the barrel,,-- hence the name progressive burning propellant.
 
Metal cans and kegs just split open when exposed to a house fire. One of my best friends is a retired Battalion Chief from a large county fire dept., and also an avid reloader. He's recovered metal powder cans from house fires to keep in a display at their fire academy. No bombs, just split cans.

We used to be able to buy powder in 20 pound metal kegs. I'm still working off a 12 pound metal keg of SR 4756 powder that I bought in the late 1970's. It's not a bomb, and never will be, just a metal container for a propellant..........

What firemen are justifiably afraid of are propane tanks and 5 gallon gas cans.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
What firemen are justifiably afraid of are propane tanks and 5 gallon gas cans.
Click to expand...
Absolutely! My nephew is a firefighter, although he is teaching in the Dept now. He nearly had his ticket punched by a propane tank at a house fire. A few seconds earlier and .....

Metal powder cans just split at the seam. It burns like heck, but doesn't explode.
 
We often run a fine line between having fun and wasting ammo, but I can say for sure these fellows were wasting ammo!
 
Originally Posted by AABEN View Post
That is why powder does not come in metal cams. It was like a little bomb when in cans.
Click to expand...

Not true, when Hodgdon started packaging Winchester and IMR they considered using cans because there were IMR users that not use plastic. Hodgdon decided on plastic because they could only find one source for cans. Hodgdon decided not to take the risk and moved everything to plastic. Rational; there was no shortage of manufacturers of plastic bottles.

F. Guffey
 
At least some of those Hodgdon cans had cardboard tubes and tin top and bottom. I bought some old stock H240 in a can like that. It was much "hotter" than data. I figure the powder dried out through the cardboard and I was getting more propellant to the grain with the solvents and moisture gone.


I have on the mantel of my new house a whiskey bottle and a Goex black powder can, both scorched in the fire that totaled the old house. The contents of both were fine. ;-)
 
I have lots of powder in metal cans. Even one metal 20lb keg of IMR 3031.
 
Makes you wonder why we have to pay haz-mat fee when shipping loaded ammunition.
Click to expand...

You don't. You have to pay hazmat on primers, if they are not seated in a case and powder if it's not inside a case but loaded ammo ships without hazmat.
 
Load Master said:
For anyone worried about having ammo or reloading supplies in your home, you may find this 25 minute video of interest. It is 4 years old, but answers the question of what happens with a fire or if one drops a case of ammo. Interesting results.
Click to expand...
ALL of MY questions were answered LONG ago, when my house burned down with guns, powder, primers and ammo inside it...

DM
 
The kids and rookies on here have never experienced the frustrations of trying to get the last few chunks of powder out of one of the IMR steel cans! :banghead: the tops are flat, no taper to the neck to help the powder find the hole. You could hear the last few kernels rattling around in there, not finding the way out!:cuss:

I don't miss them one darn bit! Besides, you could not tell if the insides were rusting, or the powder had begun to go bad,-(rust/red dust on the powder). Problem is I still have quite a bit of old IMR powder in those dad gum steel cans!:fire:
 
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