What happens when ammo is burned or extremely abused?

[Grouse]

Cool video for firefighters that shows you what happens to ammo when burned and abused.

[jr.deerslayer]

Wow, that was a small fortune in ammo....I guess all the old westerns where the bad guys put the ammo in the burning building to kill all who enter are full of crap...What a surprise.

[Grouse]

Not sure about that. If their ammo was black powder, the results may have been different.

[Doc]

Who'd of thunk it? I always assumed that fire and ammo resulted in full-force detonation and a full-force projectile. Thanks for the video. That kind of set things straight.

I do know that powder when exposed to flame will result in a flash of fire which if you were standing close enough could cause some personal damage. It also could assumedly ignite other building materials that might turn a small fire into a big one. These are probably things to consider when arranging powder storage areas. From this video, it does not sound like some iron strongbox would be appropriate since apparently confined powder does become explosive.

[ants]

Cool video. I hate to watch them wast all that ammo though

[jusputtn]

A bit of logical thought and research on historical fires involving ammunition would have reached the same conclusion at much less expense.

Had a semi-auto 22 fire once with chamber not fully closed. Bullet stayed in chamber, shards of brass exited out the side. Glad I was on shooter's left.

My dad used to tell a story of someone tossing some 30-30 rounds in a wood stove in an warming hut at an ice skating rink. Kids dove out of the shack when they started cooking off. Country fun circa 1940 in rural upstate. True that the bullets wouldn't go anywhere but I always wondered what if someone went to check the fire right then.

I put a handful of misc powder in a burn barrel once. The flame that came out of the top makes one very respectful and careful while handling and storing it.

[Fantail]

@ 7:20 a lesson in how to frame a cheap hunting box/blind

[Nomad]

Can't watch the video, comp. issues right now. Would like to though , this is an old issue that won't go away even the fire service seems confused even though everyone from the NRA to Myth Busters and well the laws of physics tell us it won't "fire" a bullet.

It needs to be in a chamber,"recoil" being that equal and opposite reaction thing we learned about in physics class.

bullet melts, powder kind of goes fizz.... sometimes the cases split first.Even if it did "fire" it needs something to launch off of.

Every once in awhile I'll see on the news somewhere where FF's stay outside a house fire because of ammo inside going off... I'd of though we were all up to speed it is our job...