Over the weekend,a man who had been flipping ammo,lost it all in a fire which destroyed his home.

I knew it was bound to happen too.I wonder if he made enough profit to buy another home. Anyway,imnever happy about someone losing it all in a fire or whatever but,this guy had the ammo stored in a hot garage.

The house fire couldnt be worked on due to exploding ammo.

There is no story linked. However it is generally accepted that ammunition cooking off in a house fire presents no threat to fire fighters and should not delay response to a fire.

Storing loaded ammunition in original packaging seldom presents any major concerns. Many places have limits on ammo storage based upon fire codes. The gentleman may have some explaining to do to officials.

Just about every insurance policy will have limitations on certain types of property (jewelry, cash, firearms, etc) as well as limitations on non-residential activities (i.e.: business-related). After he talks with an insurance adjuster and has his policy limits explained he may be even more unhappy.

Denver is trying to add that 10,000 round limitation to the fire code. Hopefully it will be limited to the city. The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners Association will enter you into a drawing for 10,001 rounds of 22LR if you sign their petition.

I will point out that a lot of ammo is stored in hot locations with no side affects. Such as shipping trucks. All that surplus ammo from overseas. Testing has shown that temps need to be 150+ before breakdown can occur. I am sure this was a result of something else and not ammo being stored in a hot garage.

I suppose that there's lots of guys here that if their houses were on fire the fire dept. would just stand back and watch it burn because of all of the ammo exploding.

Any report (pun not intended) on how many rounds he had?

The guy who passed away with 1200 guns in his house also had two tons (!) of ammo. How many rounds could that possibly be?

I work with a local fire dept. that is in a rural area. Hearing ammo go off during a house fire is not uncommon. It also doesn't stop them from working the fires. In general unless the ammo is in a confined space(barrel) it will go bang, but the projectile will go no where. No harm no foul.


Matt

Isn't Karma grand?

It happened here locally and was in the news on all three tv stations.I dont know if this was reported in a newspaper or not?It happened on saturday,if that helps?

I dont know what caused it?but,all my ammo is stored in a cool clauset and in wooden boxes. No chance for a fire there--nothing around the boxes to catch on fire--let alone no fire-type sources--Ie--sockets etc.

In the news vids I saw,you could hear the ammo exploding and the firefighters werent taking any chances.Cant blame them either. As for how many rounds he had stored?they havent said and hesure hasnt said when he was interviewed.The "HE" was the homeowner. I didnt recognize him either. So,he doesnt own a store and ive never seen him at gun shows. I guess he flipped ammo only online??

Anyone seen this yet? 2 tons of ammo.
Police probing death in LA find 1,200 guns, 2 tons ammo

Are we talking it was crispy is Christi?
The story says there were also fuel tanks in the garage.

KRISTV.com | Continuous News Coverage | Corpus Christi - Investigators looking into cause of home fire

__________________
NRA LIFE MEMBER

Thats one of them.Actually, there were two fires that I know of that day.Link doesnt work for me so I cant tell you if this was it or not? If this one shows a guy in his seventies,then this is the one.

Corpus Christi. Channel six is usually good at reporting the facts. I dont watch channel three and channel ten is a joke-cept when their weather girl is on.

I agree that when ammo explodes in a fire the bullet does no go very far but the case does.

Tried it again and still will not load.

When I was in RVn and we would have to move to a new base.
All the loose opened small arms ammo was ordered destroyed.
The engineers dug hole with backhoe threw in ammo, poured
in diesel and set fire. Sounded like popcorn cooker, but more
ammo was blown clean or not detonated than was destroyed.
They then did away with that method and went back to packing
it up. The only sure way to destroy a bunch of small arms ammo
is to dump it in the ocean.

Hatcher's Notebook (if you have it) has a fairly lengthy discussion on the behavior of ammunition in a fire. I think there may be something on the SAAMI website about it also - not sure.

If he were a hobbyist I'd share his suffering, but if he was a 'flipper' I'd say 'burn, baby, burn'. It is kinda sad the good ammo is going to waste though.

__________________
"He was kinda funny lookin'"

A friend of mine was killed in a house fire last Spring. He was a big time shooter. When friends and relatives went thru the house they discovered a case (25 pounds) of black powder within 5 feet of the ignition source of the fire covered in ruble. It did not burn nor did it explode. He had a few 8 pound containers of smokeless powder that did not ignite even though the plastic jugs were somewhat melted. I watched the fire on the news and you could hear what could have been ammo but I suspect was primers cooking off.

There is not any danger in exploding ammo. The exploding ammo is an excuse to not do anything. Larry

I would guess that the house fire started from one of the usual reasons and the ammo was not the cause of the fire. But, it is understandable that firemen may hesitate to approach the situation because in TV and big screen fiction, an "ammo explosion" would have been staged that leveled the house and surrounding community. They just didn't know.

Remember the house in CA a few years ago? The home was supposedly filled with ammo and other explosives. The government in charge of the site had the house burn down to avoid exposing their people while removing said items.

LTC

Hmmmm, 10,000 rounds. Got a little more than that in just 22LR, maybe that much in a few more calibers, but stored in a nice cool basement in GI Ammo cans

__________________
H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Sporting Ammunition and the Fire Fighter: What Happens When Ammo Burns? - SAAMI

and there you have it. ammo in ammo cans which is a popular way of storing or military type tins can explode like a bomb with lots of shrapnel. personally I understand firemen that would keep their distance when ammo starts going off because they have no way of knowing how it's stored or packaged.

The above video should be REQUIRED viewing for any firefighter. You let my house burn down because I have ammo inside, I am going to an unhappy camper.

Here in Wyoming, that guy in california with 1200 guns and two tons of ammo would have just barely been an eligible bachelor.

Wingmaster

About 25 years ago, My F-I-L's house burned down with the wife in it. He loaded for the pistol team and the department's 38 revolvers. The 15,000 rounds of handgun ammo in 20mm ammo cans cooked off, but never did a projectile exit a can, some were so pounded from the inside the couldn't be forced open, other cans were opened and the ammo was mostly split cases with the cast bullet still in the case mouth. By the time I got there, the 60,000 primers had already cooked off. Neighbors told me about the noise, "popcorn" is a good description. I was there while the 15 pound cardboard keg of Bullseye still burnt. Think of a 2 foot diameter blow torch, pointing straight up, and about 15 feet out of the garage roof. It has sitting on the hood of his MG-B. 2 small dogs were in cages in the garage and of course died in the fire, but they were singed and still had some fur the weren't charred or cooked and were 8 feet from the Bullseye powder. The propane grill was on the back porch and on until it ran out of propane but never melted, but the sun room became a puddle of aluminum. The wife's J-frame BUG was on her body and the ammo never cooked off. A terrible loss but I learned a lot about ammo in fires and about firefighters usually haven't been trained about ammo or components. They are human and subject to the influence of TV and movie hype! These experiences have taught me the ammo (and powder) isn't the problem, the old wood in the house is the fuel and it is the problem! Ivan

There are schools that regular and volunteer fireman go to that teach that exploding ammo is not dangerous. If they are watching TV fiction to get their training and so afraid that they run and hide when a shell goes off they need to get in another line of work. Fires are dangerous and there is more too being a fireman than riding around with flashing lights and siren.

Looks like I'll be canceling my plans to be a fireman.

I used an average weight of 170gr for bullet , case and powder and if I did my math right it came to over 164,000 rounds.
If it was .22, many more
And also explain why we have a hard time finding some.

Now I know why there was an ammo shortage.

The only extra infoI can get on this was fromone of the fire-fighters I met yesterday.He said that there was a sizable amount ofammo stored--but said he didnt know how much? I guess the home-owner didnt want to admit on camera--how much he had for fear of somekind of punishment for breaking somekind of City statute????

The other fire mentioned--the lady of the household died yesterday.

Last summer in Armstrong Mills, Ohio a case of old dynamite was
found while cleaning out junk. Authorities were called. They close
state highway for 24 hrs +, evacuated the little town, put the
Residents in motels, burnt down the barn, which caused property
damage to near by houses. There were at least 10 guys that live
in this little cross roads town of 100 pop. That could have taken
care of the situation in couple of hours. They just sat back and
enjoyed the show. This is coal mining country, most of us have
handled more explosives than the "experts " and on the farm
old dynamite is not uncommon. We may not be able to figure out
fancy detonators in the spy movies, but handling old dynamite
is no major problem until govt. gets involved.