cartridges in a fire

[toby12]

hi all, i have been thinking about our shells sitting in cupboards,sheds bedrooms etc. what happens to a cartridge when it is subjected to heat or flames, do they explode and send shot everywhere or just sort of pffft out of the side?

and if you have say 250/500 shells together i assume at the very least they must be a major propellant in a house fire.If you keep them in a locked box do they then become some kind of bomb?

Any views welcomed and sorry if this has been covered previously,

regards toby.

[aga man]

i would imagine they would simply melt. the powder would flare up an eventually the primer would go bang

Edited September 11, 2012 by aga man

[kent]

its not smart, especially with cf /rf ammo. The primer will certainly explode and potentially before any plasic fully melts and the powder ignites. better not try it

[ordnance]

I Watched a episode of mythbusters were they put 50 cal bullets in a fire. They went of with a bit if a bang but with not enough power to cause serious injuries.

[WelshLamb]

IIRC its the enclosed barrel space that causes the shot/bullet to become 'dangerous' as its under pressure

 

If you tap a shotgun shell primer with something, apparently they wont go bang (I dont recommend trying this, just in case I'm wrong )

Edited September 11, 2012 by WelshLamb

[toby12]

sorry kent i think you missunderstood the question,i am not thinking of burning my ammo,just concerned what could possibly happen in a house/shed fire.

[fenboy]

i would imagine they would simply melt. the powder would flare up an eventually the primer would go bang

 

I can confirm that after a mis spent childhood this theory is indeed correct , it was tested by me and some mates , we all lived luckily ,I would like to think I have matured enough in years not to repeat the experiment !

[JonathanL]

There isn't a great danger if cartridges are in a fire. If you have a lot of them tightly confined in a steel box then there may be a problem but I think you would need a lot under very tight confinement. There are no special regulations for storage of cartriges like there are for powder (even for blackpowder cartridges which is easier to ignite and requires less confinement to achieve it's full effect) and you can be sure that there would be if there were the romotest possibility of any danger.

 

There was an episode of CSI where a car with pistol ammo in the boot caught fire causing bullets to fly off all over the place. This does not, and can not happen with modern ammo.

 

J.

[JonathanL]

sorry kent i think you missunderstood the question,i am not thinking of burning my ammo,just concerned what could possibly happen in a house/shed fire.

 

Isn't that the same thing though?

 

Basically if ammo is in a fire it doesn't send bullets/shot all over the place.

 

J.

[Caisterboy]

I can confirm that after a mis spent childhood this theory is indeed correct , it was tested by me and some mates , we all lived luckily ,I would like to think I have matured enough in years not to repeat the experiment !

I'm still alive 40years on after doing this too . What was even more stupid was an old .303 in a vice and giving it a small tap - now that did go bang

 

ADDENDUM : Now that i think of it, there was also a "minor" incident with a mortar flare too

Edited September 11, 2012 by Caisterboy

[Constantinos]

IIRC its the enclosed barrel space that causes the shot/bullet to become 'dangerous' as its under pressure

 

If you tap a shotgun shell primer with something, apparently they wont go bang (I dont recommend trying this, just in case I'm wrong )

 

ditto WelshLamb - the pressure is crucial to the lethality...however wouldn't recommend having them under your bed!

[humperdingle]

They just go 'POP', but not particularly loudly. Shot doesn't ping all over the place, either.

 

Having said that, I wouldn't intentionally put any in a fire.

[toby12]

thanks for the replies people,sounds like i am worrying over nothing.

[libs]

I seem to remember the words 'NOT LIABLE TO EXPLODE IN BULK' being written on boxes of Hull cartridges. And I have certainly warmed my hands around a fire that has popped and fizzed with the odd misplaced cartridge! No explosions yet thankfully.

 

I would be more concerned with rifle ammunition as the light case could be flung away from the bullet with a fair bit of force if a round cooked off in the heat. As an aside, I have heard Nick Griffin lost his eye from a shotgun cartridge popping in a fire.

[Robl]

I think any fire string enough to ‘fire’ the cartridges and bullets would have damaged and weakened the cases enough that there was no back-pressure behind the bullet or shot.

[bedwards1966]

I'm still alive 40years on after doing this too . What was even more stupid was an old .303 in a vice and giving it a small tap - now that did go bang

 

ADDENDUM : Now that i think of it, there was also a "minor" incident with a mortar flare too

 

Did you ever find what happened to the bullet?

The reason I ask is that my dad had a friend who found a rifle cartridge (no doubt a .303) following the war, and being young and daft the lad thought it would be fun to put it onto the cooker in the kitchen and see what happened.

Fortunately it didn't fall over, when it went off the bullet went through the roof, and the cartridge utterly destroyed the cooker.

 

Yet this seems different to the mythbusters episode where they put rounds in an oven, and they do almost nothing. Unless the old .303's we're talking about were using a different propellant (cordite?), perhaps this can allow the round to fire with serious force?

[Bloke]

I seem to remember reading an older thread that suggested that, as far as the fire service is concerned, you could store several thousand cartridges in your house before they would become an explosion hazard.

My science is old and a bit shaky, but there should be some on here that can more definitely answer. For reasons of economy in bulk buying, like many others, I usually have about 3K+ shotgun cartridges at home, but I spread these across three rooms usually, just because of storage space.

As far as C/F ammo is concerned, the law of equal and opposite reaction must surely come into play? therefore the head and the case would fly in opposite directions and should maybe halve the force as well, combined with the fact that they are not confined in the barrel? I am more worried about fire with the 900 C/F and 1200 R/F bullets, but they are in a steel box, inside a steel safe, in a place in the house less susceptible to fire, i.e. not in the kitchen or main room, so hopefully the fire service would have arrived long before they get hot enough to be a concern.

I wouldn't worry too much, simple common sense - don't store them immediately next to/above a fire/stove, and if you have the space, spread the numbers about, if you are really concerned.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Bloke

[Salop Matt]

My uncle was daft enough to play with a old 303 live round he found, the result for him was he lost his little finger ! He had decided the brass of the case would make a great replacement flue for his meth burning steam train and somehow when trying to dissasemble / discharge the the round it went off and he was holding it in a pair of pliers and the blast ripped the pliers from his hand taking the finger with it ! He was only young but still a very steep learning curve !

[mossy835]

40 years ago. while on a building site in winter time ,and we were all sat round a fire in a half built house my mate walked in though 12 gauge cart on the open fire every one was jumping out of windows,but nothing happened.

[hushpower]

i would imagine they would simply melt. the powder would flare up an eventually the primer would go bang

[Caisterboy]

Did you ever find what happened to the bullet?

The reason I ask is that my dad had a friend who found a rifle cartridge (no doubt a .303) following the war, and being young and daft the lad thought it would be fun to put it onto the cooker in the kitchen and see what happened.

Fortunately it didn't fall over, when it went off the bullet went through the roof, and the cartridge utterly destroyed the cooker.

 

Yet this seems different to the mythbusters episode where they put rounds in an oven, and they do almost nothing. Unless the old .303's we're talking about were using a different propellant (cordite?), perhaps this can allow the round to fire with serious force?

 

You know from what i remember i don't think we ever really thought about where the sharp end went - we set it off in a big clamp vice in an open Barn. From what i remember we were screaming like girls and laughing like hysterical maniacs

[Paul223]

40 years ago. while on a building site in winter time ,and we were all sat round a fire in a half built house my mate walked in though 12 gauge cart on the open fire every one was jumping out of windows,but nothing happened.

:lol:

[SakoQuad]

As a youngster I threw a 12g cartridge onto the kitchen fire and it burned and the flared up as the powder burned, THEN it went bang and the primer went off and ricocheted around the room. I suppose it wouldn't happen like that every time but it would be easy to imagine losing an eye to it for sure.

 

The .303 we found on an army range also went off with a very loud bang when my mate put it into a vice and hit the primer. We never knew where the bullet went or how far but did know it made a hole in his fathers shed wall.

 

I read an article years ago that said 12g cartridges were safe enough in your pockets as even if they did go off they would not do any damage outside of the breech of a gun. I guess they would act as a hell of an accelerant in the event of a house fire though ( I'd still worry about those primers though I guess in a serious fire I'd be out of there anyway).

[Robl]

With the 303 stood up in the oven.

If the element was in the bottom of the oven then it’s possible the metal base of the oven was much hotter than the rest of the oven.

The heat may have passed through the brass and fire the charge before the rest of the cartridge was compromised.

As it was flat on it’s base that would have meant the bullet would have gone up, but without a chamber the shell case would have bounced around a lot.

[JonathanL]

With the 303 stood up in the oven.

If the element was in the bottom of the oven then it’s possible the metal base of the oven was much hotter than the rest of the oven.

The heat may have passed through the brass and fire the charge before the rest of the cartridge was compromised.

As it was flat on it’s base that would have meant the bullet would have gone up, but without a chamber the shell case would have bounced around a lot.

 

There is virtually nothing to contain the pressure though. In a rifle the chamber and barel does that job. Smokeless propellant burns faster the more it is contained - the more pressure it generates the hotter it gets and the more pressure it genereates until it is all consumed, the bullet leaves the barrel or the gun bursts.

 

You don't get that happening if a cartridge is just standing on its own. Pressure builds until something gives way - usually the bullet leaving the case (perhaps the case splitting) and then the pressure subsides again so I very much doubt that you would get a bullet punching its self through the top of the oven.

 

J