Primer detonation in live cartridge

K-C

K-C

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I put some "club brass" into the oven to dry after wet tumbling (on the Warm function ~75C). Later, I opened the oven door to retrieve the 4 "cookie sheets" laden with about a thousand .40 S&W cases.

I exclaimed "Oh my gosh!" :mad: (or words to that effect) and my wife told me that there had been a bang and some crashing about in the oven - she thought that one of the steel cookie sheets must have flexed with the heat.

Not so - I observed fine powder and brass fragments scattered across the oven floor along with about 200 cases. a full cleanup yielded the contents of the photo below.

Oh oh, my bad! I failed to notice that a live round had come out of the wash and gone into the oven :bangHead:. The primer detonated blowing the cartridge apart but the powder had not ignited as it was evenly spread across the oven along with the brass. Curiosity made me gather most of the powder and attempt to ignite it in the garage. Sure enough, the powder burned fast and furiously.

This cartridge was a CCI/Speer .40 S&W 115g RHT (Frangible) with a glued bullet. I had found several during the processing of this 8000+ batch of cases. Close observation of the primers told me that none of the other rounds were miss-fires, I'm guessing that the rounds were simply ejected as part of a clearing and reloading drill.

Oddly enough, a couple of these same live rounds had gone through a previous complete drying cycle without incident. Dismantling these revealed the glued bullets. I guess my luck just ran out...

The cookie sheet had a sizeable dent in it along with the sheet above it. There was no damage to the LGE Range at all which meant that I had fortunately escaped "death-by-wife"...

What I've learned from this incident:
1) "$hit happens" and I got off easy this time.
2) CCI/Speer makes water-proof "battle-ready" ammo!


vPCgDOJ.jpg
 
I think the powder hit the spontaneous combustion temperature there. I deal with a company that does disposal of law enforcement ammunition. They have an armored plated furnace that they heat the ammunition up in to render it inert. When I had asked the owner about it he said the powder usually goes off from heat long before the primers.

Also, that is law enforcement frangible training ammunition. If you hit the projectile with a hammer it will fragment into copper/zinc matrix dust.
 
I always sort through my brass before cleaning to ensure no accidental "live" range ammo ends up in the wash. Mind you, I don't oven dry my brass. Goes to show that out of barrel detonation isn't as deadly as Hollywood depicts. Not saying it's "safe" but a good chance you won't die.
 
Wow. Thanks for sharing because that is a scenario I have never thought of. I do the same with .308 and 5.56 brass.
Screwing up and having to eat your pride and buy a new oven can make life complicated.
Interesting how much heat a live round can endure.
I accidentally put live rounds through the washer and dryer a couple times a year with no blow ups so far. Rounds always fire after too.
The fact that your wife is cool with you using household appliances to help make ammo shows how cool a human she is.
 
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Although not completely safe out of barrel detonation is rather harmless. Have you ever seen ammo thrown into a fire? Popcorn...

(The real fun starts at 12:19)

[youtube]3SlOXowwC4c[/youtube]
 
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Cool share, but don't you deprime before cleaning? Only way to get clean pockets and you avoid the whole loaded round in the oven problem.
 
I have destroyed hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammo by shovelling it into the fire. The primer detonates and shoots out the back of the case, at a fair velocity. It may or might not ignite the powder charge. If some of the powder burns, the case will rupture. The bullet goes nowhere. Sounds like popcorn.
 
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Trinimon said:
Goes to show that out of barrel detonation isn't as deadly as Hollywood depicts. Not saying it's "safe" but a good chance you won't die.
Click to expand...

Julian Hatcher covers this in Hatchers Notebook. He deliberately sets off unchambered rounds covered by a card board box. The projectile stays put, the brass marks the cardboard but does not penetrate.
 
Shotgun primers can have some spunk. As a teen I had to have one dug out of my shin after it was tossed into a fire. Luckily I was sitting on top of the picnic table with my feet on the bench, or I would have got it in the gut.
 
So this primer ignited at 75C? That's a bit hard to believe but otherwise about what should be expected from baking live ammunition in an oven.
 
I'm pleased that you learned a couple of lessons. Here is a couple more for you to consider..........
Examine/check/sort your ammo before cleaning to make sure that you are only processing the things you want to process. At some point before reloading you need to check each case for dents, cracks, debris inside, flaws, you may as well do this first.
Keep oven temperature below 200 F and use the convected oven mode if you have one, the air circulation speeds things up.
The bullet you dodged wasn't in the oven, it was the dreaded DBW which can leave lifelong scars and trauma. AVOID AT ALL COSTS
 
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