A Florida man’s house blew up, and he stated that he was reloading ammunition and 6 lbs of powder caused it.

Homeowner was reloading ammo when Seffner house exploded, firefighters say

I’m calling BS. Something else blew up the house. I’m leaving it at that.

What do you think?

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Reg. Magnum wants/Rossi wallet

Be interesting to be able to follow what is found on the investigation.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

I say BS. The powder is not under pressure. It would just burn big.in it's container .

6 lbs of powder will NOT blow up a house.

Start a fire, yes, blow up a house, NO.

Well maybe if he was next to a oil or propane heater for the house...........

How much insurance did they have on the house and amount of $$ on bills ?

Before cheap Mexican meth took over the supply in Iowa, Meth cookers would rent farm houses to cook meth. Explosions happened every now and then. We reloaders here know smokeless gun powder doesn't explode, it burns.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

6 pounds of BLACK powder will.

Back in '64 a local gunshop, Shooters Paradise blew up, Killed the owner and blew customers out of the plate glass front windows. The owner was also a gunsmith, He was in the basement checking out a repaired pistol. Fire dept said that he set off a pound of black powder in a paper bag in the basement. What was strange was the local natural gas company was there the next day leveling out the rubble.
SWCA 892

Homeowner stated smokeless powder.



I have thrown one lb containers that smelled weird in a bonfire. Big flash and burn off. Never and explosion.

Perhaps this is a new method to remodeling a house ?

I wonder if the house had natural gas.

Don’t let my wife see this

Meth, black powder or a natural gas leak get my vote
Thinking out loud, could a hot powder fire melt and flash off a natural gas line? Used to be all gas piping was black iron, but are they using plastic now?
In any case, the loader was doing something dumb and/or illegal.

Let's look at the pictures, shall we...

The damage is confined to an area at the back of garage or the room behind it. The resulting damage indicates an explosion but not much (if any) of a resulting fire. This is backed up by the fact there is lots of small debris and a partial collapse of the truss system over the point of origin but the rest of the house remains intact with no smoke staining or sooty runoff. In fact, there is no water or sooty runoff from the fire department down the driveway, where you would expect it to be. Witnesses also say they heard "an explosion".

This was not a natural gas explosion (from a gas leak to a clothes dryer or gas water heater, either of which you would expect in that area of the house). If it was, the damage would be much (MUCH) greater - with possible secondary damage to surrounding structures. The same can be said if it was a meth lab - plus there would be more evidence.

The news reported that investigators already made the determination that it was a result of the reloading activity and the smokeless powder. There is nothing shown that contradicts this conclusion. I would not be surprised if the homeowner/reloader may have had a fan or an AC unit running in his work area that may have stirred up some powder, or possibly tipped over his container by accident. Get enough of it airborne and it WILL explode. Heck, wheat dust will explode. I also wouldn't hesitate to believe that he may have been smoking or was using some electrical equipment that may have generated an open spark.

The most amazing part about what I see is that he is actually using his garage FOR A CAR!

Never underestimate "Florida Man"...

In the mid 70’s my (Ex)wife and I were having Sunday lunch when we heard a loud explosion. After lunch we drove up the highway 3 miles in the direction we thought the sound came from. In a subdivision just off the highway police and fire trucks had gathered where a house had been an hour earlier.

The roof of the house was a half block away resting on top of two telephone poles. Insulation and debris littered several blocks and the only identifiable remains of the house were a few concrete blocks where the corners of the foundation were.

The official report was that the owner had been working in the basement with his acetylene torch and touched off 25 pounds of black powder. Apparently the blast from the powder ruptured both the acetylene and oxygen bottles which made things worse.

The event occurred just a short time before a daughters birthday party guests were to arrive. Thankfully the guests hadn’t arrived but the two children were killed , the father and family dog. The wife was in the kitchen and was blown through the window int the back yard. I believe she was the only one to survive. The explosion mangled the bodies so badly the authorities thought the family fog was the daughter.

Another similar thing happened to a fellow students home in high school in the mid 60’s. Early one Sunday morning the water heater blew up because there was no pop off valve. They weren’t required at the time. Anyway the water heater was on the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms where the family was sleeping.

The blast blew the water heater through the roof and was found two houses away. All of the brick on the house was blown off and every window blown out. Fortunately no one was hurt because the explosion wrapped the mattresses around the sleeping members of the family.

Oh.... well, as long as the Homeowner stated that it was smokeless powder, than it surely must have been.

Honey oil extraction gone wrong.

Note that the article does not say that six pounds of smokeless powder exploded.

Six pounds of smokeless powder would have produced quite a bit of fire and, as our expert noted, there are no signs of fire in the damaged house.

Could primers have caused this?

It was a while back.
My Buddy Milt ( Ret Army Ordnance) was standing out in front of his house BS-ing with a neighbor.
Ka-Boom! House next door blows.
Guy staggers out the front door and collapses on the lawn.
The blast blew out the back wall and moved the entire house forward several inches.
This is a pretty nice neighborhood.
But they were cooking Meth there anyway.
I’m also not buying HandLoading.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Combine garages & basements, the black (or, smokeless?) powders (in or out of a paper bag?), natural (or, perhaps "unnatural"?) gas dryers & water heaters, acetylene & oxygen bottles, and Meth...

Clearly a recipe for disaster: must be just about time for some new "sensible and reasonable federal regulations" regarding reloading to protect the public...? Perhaps a new federal bureaucracy, the Department of Reloading Insanity should be in the works? Think of all the new jobs that will be "created" and the "countless lives that might be saved"!

What a total Croc! Well, no: in Florida it really should be a 'Gator!

Cheers!

I was always under the impression that modern smokeless powder is a PROPELLANT and not an explosive, especially if stored in its original factory containers. I would expect a decent fire but not an explosion. I try to never say never, but my StinkoMeter is pegging out on this one.

No.........

Happened at 4:20...

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My Daddy was a pistol..

Dang...hope the wife doesn’t read this!

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

6 pounds of black powder will blow up a house!

I think there is more to this story than what the homeowner wants to admit.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

Florida Man Was Reloading Ammo Prior To House Explosion, Total Loss Of Home

I read a neighbor's quote in a different story about this incident who noted there is no natural gas service in the neighborhood . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Yep, so do I, a whole lot more !

Yep. BS on the story........Cooking Meth will do that........So they say.

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S&W Accumulator

The usual cause of residental house explosion and fire is a leaky gas line somewhere in the house .
HVAC unit and water heaters in attic are hard to smell ... attic ventilation usually keeps build up down ... Calm day , no breeze ...could have an attic full of gas .
Gas cooking stove , Gas dryer ... all can leak ... and natural Gas will explode .
Recently in Baton Rouge , a unit in an apartment building exploded and caught fire ... 3 Units were destroyed ...
Smokeless powder ... no way ... 6 pounds ... still no way ...
More than likely just an old fashioned gas line leak ...
Now there are some illegal drug making activites that can create explosions and fires ... so maybe he was throwing the law off the real reason !
But the Law should be able to tell the difference between a reloading press and Meth lab equipment !
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

Here in my southwest Iowa town a few years back we had a small(1500 sq ft) house in the not so good part of town blow up with very little fire damage. Everyone thought it was just another meth lab that went kaboom. Turned out the people who owned it had a cockroach problem. They used not one, but six aerosol bug bombs in the house. Left the pilot flame on the water heater on and voila.......big boom. No more cockroaches, no more house.

Loading after sampling meth might do that, especially if it was a very very small reloading room and the six lbs of powder was a compressed load.

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Have Fun/Stay Safe

Hmmm, 6 lbs caused that? Last looked, I think I had somewhere around 20 lbs. Wonder what that would do?

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

He may not have had natural gas service, but LP gas goes boom too.

As many posted above. we're not getting the whole story here.

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

Local guy blew up his garage and killed himself, officials said he was manufacturing fireworks.

wonder if it’s not something more nefarious given the current political climate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

From one account:

"Several neighbors reported smelling gunpowder in the air at the time of the explosion."

Man was reloading ammunition prior to Seffner house explosion, fire rescue says | WFLA

Say what? There's something else going on here.

Well, right now, on Gun Broker, fund a NICE firearm purchase. With change.

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Reg. Magnum wants/Rossi wallet

Somebody from that area what for newspaper or TV reports on what is found. Keep us posted.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

Hmmm...I am surprised that nobody has mentioned tannerite as a possible source. I have seen a washing machine just get shredded when a friend placed 8 lbs of it under the washer and fired an Ak47 at it. Yes, we all picked up the pieces and threw them away afterwards. It was an impressive sight!!!

I have seen a few house explosions, from bug bombs to natural gas to methane leaking from an old landfill. Extensive damage to the house, but no fire. If it wasn’t one of these it was probably a meth lab, but we may never know.

Hector Salamanca

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Sure you did

Does tannerite burn or explode when in a fire?

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

If the reloading caused it the homeowner was at the epicenter. I am in the something else camp.

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Front sight and squeeze

Wonder if the neighbors know what gunpowder smells like? Or did they jus smell something and assumed it was.

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I told you not to use Lifebuoy

The explosion or you guys actually cleaning up the mess?

Did they smell gunpowder burning? 'cause ya can't smell powder from more than a foot away.

Ding, ding, BOOM!

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

LP gas bottles of all sizes generally don't go boom - they burn like a roaring jet engine! The one thing people are forgetting here is that if this was an LP explosion there would be plenty of evidence of subsequent fire because LP fires don't "blow themselves out".

LP Gas Fire - YouTube

There are plenty of flammables and explosives in a typical garage even without reloading going on in an enclosed space. Spray something in the air, gasoline fumes from a gas can with a leaky cap, plenty of petrochemicals in convenient consumer-sized pressurized spray bottles, fumes from paint and other household chemicals - then the fan for the AC air handler located in the same room clicks on or perhaps the compressor motor in an outdoor freezer or someone presses the button for the garage door opener which generates a spark, then... You get the idea.

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Sure you did

He did not blow up his house while reloading.

He blew up his house (and his reloading bench) while cooking up meth on a leaky gas stove