Shooting with open boxes, buckets of ammo


Bohemian

New member
If you have not picked up the June 2008 issue of Guns & Ammo I highly recommend it; and when you do go straight to page 24 to the article titled "Weird Stuff Happens"

Basically, the article re-iterates a common scenario, you are at the gun range, and you have one or more open boxes of ammo, primer side up lined up, and or a ammo can or bucket full of loose ammo next to you...

All of a sudden while shooting you here a loud pop next to you...
and your box of ammo is scattered everywhere...
You discover that one of your ejected rounds hit a primer and fired off the round...
Think this is unlikely, this actually happened to veteran shooter, competitor and editor of Guns & Ammo Magazine Patrick Sweeney and he provides photographic evidence and documentation in the article to support it...

The moral of the story is stop keeping/buying your ammo loose in ammo cans, buckets, etc., and do not leave any open ammo boxes, buckets, ammo cans etc open while you are shooting...

Additionally, I suggest that the CCW instructors on this forum pass this info on to their students as I am sure this is news to many veteran shooters let alone novices...

I am sure all can imagine that this particular scenario could have been a lot worse...

Best Regards.
 

Wow. But I can sure believe it. When I took CCW class we had to keep our ammo on the back bench, and know how many rounds we were taking up to the firing line. I thought this was a pretty good safety step, so I've continued to practice it... sometimes. I've gotten lax about bringing up ammo sometimes if no one is around. Especially .22 rimfires in bulk boxes. I guess it's back to the old system, it probably saved me money in any case because I had to walk back-and-forth more and shoot less.
 
Wow, that's crazy. Seems like one in a million chance of happening, but better safe than sorry.
 
Another thing that you hear happening sometimes is a shooter having several sizes of ammo on the bench and loading the firearm with the wrong one. Not good.
 
Last edited:
I started putting the ammo in my own box with a lid, and I close the lid when the shooting starts. This didn't come about because of rounds going off accidentally, but the ejected cases would bounce off the divider wall, and end up back in the box. It only took me ONE time to mistakenly pick up a hot cartridge thinking it was a round to be loaded - after that I started doing things differently.

Might also want to watch out if you're shooting outdoors on a dry day, so you don't start a forest fire. Then your news article will end up as a thread. :p:
 
Be careful when shooting different calibers....

Here are a couple of photos of brass that I collected on the range after a "Mall Ninja" type fired the wrong ammo out of the wrong gun. The guy was a "yeah, yeah, yea, I know....." type of personality. I had set him up on 2 seperate lanes for the two handguns, and the guy still managed to mess up. He had a G22 (.40 s&w) and a G17 (9mm). Both guns are the same size, take the same magazines, but shoot different calibers.

9mmwrongammosidebyside.jpg


9mmwrongammoheadstampbest.jpg


Note that the primer on the bulged case that came out of the G22 is punctured through.

Funny thing was that the 9mm round that was fired out of the .40 s&w was dead on accurate. That was the most accurate shot he fired all day. :eek:




gf
 
I read that artical also.

Makes you think twice about how hard you set down a 550 round brick of lose .22 LR!! :31-hehe:
 
I believe it

This is what happened to me about 15 years ago. I was at the range with a friend. I was down range shooting with my bedspread spread out to catch the empty brass (45ACP) My yellow plastic box of reloads was sitting on the bedspread. As I fired a string I heard another shot behind me. I stopped and looked back at my friend but he didn't know what was going on. I looked down to see the side of the plastic box missing, where a round was sitting, and a hole in my bedspread. I keep them covered now.

Joe
 
Just looked at the artical and it was Winchester ammo.
Thanks! That may be the reason that LEE doesn't recommend Win primers with their reloading equipment. I'll have to double check but I think Win was one of those they didn't like.
 
Actually...

I had that happen to me last month actually........

I was breaking in my wifes KAHR P45 and had a casing go over my shoulder and hit a opened box of 45 ACP on the ground. It was several feet behind me and to my right.

I'm sure that you can imagine my horror: I'm shooting and I hear a round go off behind me and my wife screams because something hit her. Luckily for me the round went straight down into the earth and what hit my wife was just a piece of Styrofoam from the box.

Since then I have been a little more alert and thankful that I still have a live wife.

Be very careful .

The round that went off was a Federal HYDRASHOK
 
excellent points from everybody. I'll start to keep mine covered while at the range. better to be safe than sorry. saying I'm sorry afterwords just doesn't get it when dealing with guns and ammo.
 
I'm wondering if something like this could happen at home. Obviously, when I'm at home, I keep my ammo covered up, but I'm just wondering if there is anything here that I need to watch out for. It just seems to me that it would take something a heck of a lot harder than a blow from a spent cartridge case hitting the primer, and it would have to be intentional. Obviously, seeing this lets me know that this is not the case. I don't want to drive myself crazy going around the house finding stuff to protect my ammo from, but this does concern me.
 

New Threads

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
49,542
Messages
611,255
Members
74,961
Latest member
Shodan
Back
Top