Ammo in fires....

[Sheldon]

Oh the humanity, they destroy over 500,000 rounds in these tests! they shoot it, blow it up, drive over it with a bulldozer, they set it on fire!!!

SAAMI - Sporting Ammunition and the Fire Fighter

 

[BC1]

Personal experience found that rounds will go off in a fire. I was sitting in my friends kitchen a few years ago having coffee. He went to the sink to rinse his cup and yelled "Joe's car is on fire!" We grabbed the hoses and bolted for the neighbor's house. His minivan was burning in the driveway. No one was home. As we were hooking the hoses up to his house bullets started firing sending us running. 30-40 pops, then it stopped. Joe is a NYC cop. He had three loaded mags in the center console of the minivan. nearly all the rounds went off.
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The funny part was later, after the fire was out, the police brought an arson dog. I was standing next to a NYS Trooper when the guy finished. He said "the dog didn't get a hit." I asked the cop what he looks for. Cop says accelerant. You mean like gasoline? Yeah. It's a ********** car. It just burned. The dog didn't get a hit? The dog handler just shrugged.

 

[UATKP]

I spent over 20 years in the fire service. One of our structure fires was the home of a Texas Highway Patrolman. For a while during the fire, we could hear his stored ammo exploding. No one was in the structure at the time. Because of the location of the home our attack of the fire was hampered to the point that it was fully involved by the time we were able to put the wet stuff on the red stuff. But nothing about the ammo exploding was spectacular other than the noise. Some of it sounded like a bad hail storm... which we have a lot of where I live.

 

[S&W645]

Ammo doesn't go off like it does in a gun. Yes, a bullet will come out of the cartridge. But with nowhere near the force of one coming out of a gun. And it might only have half of the force you'd expect as if the case isn't anchored down, it will be the case that goes flying. Strange things happen in fires.

 

[wizrd]

You are more likely to be injured by the primer being propelled from the case. It will exit with enough force to pass through a few inches of muscle tissue. Bullets will move very little, with almost no penetration power. Primed empty cases pose more of a fire hazard, still enough power to penetrate a few inches of flesh.

 

[Sheldon]

I spent over 30 years as a Fire Marshall, in my time have heard many stories about ammo in fires, mosts of them were wrong, the video simply presents the verifiable facts, and that is turn out gear is sufficient protection at 15 feet.

N FYI in an empty primed case, the primer will have nothing to push against in a fire, it will simple sit there and go off like a tinny firecracker...

 

[wizrd]

N FYI in an empty primed case, the primer will have nothing to push against in a fire, it will simple sit there and go off like a tinny firecracker...[/QUOTE]

I've spent over 31 years as a Fire Dept. Captain -- I can show you the scar on a friends calf where an EMPTY PRIMED CASE was carelessly thrown into a fire. Primer detonated, blowing it out of the case, PRIMER ONLY entered his calf & traveled about three inches through flesh before coming to rest just beneath the skin, opposite side of calf.

Go set an empty primed case, secured in a vice with a burner of some sort below it. Heat it and see what happens to the primer. Be sure to wear sufficient eye protection & stand behind something for cover. The danger of some real damge is very evident. DO NOT TRY THIS WITHOUT SUFFICIENT PROTECTION.

 

[sgtbill]

If my garage ever catches on fire the fire Dept. would have a problem. Not from the stored ammo but from the stored powder for reloading ammo. I have about 35 lbs. of black powder that would explode and another 35 or 40 lbs. of regular propelant that would simply burn. Not to leave out about 20,000 primers of all types. This is the reason for building my garage about 150 feet from the house,
If I was home at the time of a fire in the garage I would have to tell the firemen to let it burn as it would not be worth their lives to try and put it out.
Bill