SAAMI firefighter training video

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MarkdevCanada

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Hello all:

I've got a bet going on here at work with an anti who thinks burning ammo is very dangerous cause teh ammo would would explode and cause untold thousands to die. I'm sure I've seen a link on this site showing a SAAMI / firefighters video which show this is not ture. Unfortunately I didn't find the video when I did a search. Would anyone happen to have saved the link.

Thanks & cheers
Mark
 
You guys are psychic! A couple days ago a co-worker who hunts was saying that if the fire dept. knows you have a large amount of ammo in your home they will let it burn because it will explode and they will be shot. Now I can prove him wrong.
 
A couple of thoughts; in small towns, firefighters are probably not that trained relative to ammo in burning buildings. I suspect they probably would refuse to enter if they knew there was any amount of ammo. The second thought is that I do recall a pistol shell going off in our local BBQ pit at the club. The empty shell came out of the pit at a pretty good clip and with one hell of a bang. Luckily no one was hit. One final observation is that I have seen demo movies of several pounds of shotgun powder going off inside a burning mock up building; a massive explosion and certainly not a controlled burn. I believe the powder was in a plastic container but not in the original powder container. It was made to justify the proposed changes to the explosives act, that were narrowly thwarted a couple of years ago.

cheers mooncoon
 
Mind you I'd love to see the same kinds of tests conducted with reloading supplies (powder, primers) etc...
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Powder is not more dangerous than loaded ammo. The factory container is designed to split open before any pressure builds up. Thus the powder burns without exploding. Hatcher did experiments on fairly large volumes of powder 60 or 70 years ago and never had an explosion.

While primers might be loud, in the factory packaging they should be pretty safe from mass explosion.
 
Anyone know where to find that video where they set off 8lbs of handgun powder in a small shed? The one where the roof and door get blown off but the window doesn't break.
 
damndirtyape said:
Anyone know where to find that video where they set off 8lbs of handgun powder in a small shed? The one where the roof and door get blown off but the window doesn't break.
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I believe it was NRC Explosives Branch that did the video, mainly to show how "dangerous" smokeless powder is. The real reason I believe it to show other senior bureaucrats that their jobs are necessary to keep track of "evil" smokeless powder.

They used 8lbs of the fastest powder they could get (700X) and sat it ON TOP of an open flame, to maximize the combustion speed.

I remember seeing the video but can't find it.
 
Suputin said:
Powder is not more dangerous than loaded ammo. The factory container is designed to split open before any pressure builds up. Thus the powder burns without exploding. Hatcher did experiments on fairly large volumes of powder 60 or 70 years ago and never had an explosion.

While primers might be loud, in the factory packaging they should be pretty safe from mass explosion.
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Hope I'm not pissing in your pickles but is very possible for propellant to burn to detonation and I have seen it on 2 occassions during the last 25 years. We are currently sitting on 6,000 lbs of tank propellant that we can't get rid of because of the danger of a high order detonation. If primers are safe from detonation, ask Federal why they have the only primers that are packed in thick packaging? Something about being sued if I remember correctly.

In the good old days when the CF wasn't as enviornmentally sensitive as it now is, we used to burn SAA that was designated as unsafe for future use in a specially designed furnace built for burning SAA. And yes like many Ammunition technicians, I tried to take a long job and shorten it up, by adding additional SAA above the limit until one day in CFB Borden I blew up the furnace made of cold rolled steel, if I remember correctly.

The film is old, and not very scientific. It proves nothing. It should be remade properly with witness panels at 10, 25 and 50 meters at a minimum. SandRoad, if you can remember the name of the movie, I would really be interested in finding out so I can order it through work.

NRC, when it was trying to amend the explosive regulations received very many insulting letters that achieved nothing. I'm amazed that they remained polite. I sent my letter, that lead to 6 other follow up emails, with the signature block as an Explosive Technician from a gov't organization and was treated very well until I started asking all the correct questions. By this time they decided to suspend the amendment.

And somehow when your office is surrounded by multiple tons of explosives or whatever, the fire fighters won't respond either. They told me that they would stop for coffee on the way
 
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SandRoad, if you can remember the name of the movie, I would really be interested in finding out so I can order it through work.
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Garand, I don't remember the name of the video but I believe it is recent.
 
The vid was very informative. A buddy had a house fire that came very close to the reloading room in the basement. No black powder just smokeless. The fire burned thru a wall near the powders and he had a pic of a 4lb jug that had almost completely melted away without the powder igniting. Still kinda scary though. I can certainly understand the firefighters fears keeping them on their toes. Aint worht dyin for if you are wrong.
 
Our department policy is to fill a room with foam if we know or suspect it to contain ammo or reloading supplies in any quantity. Course, I'm the only guy in the service area with any ammount of powder of primers, and my guys know the priority is to get my guns out! Our biggest fear is the local reinactor's house though- lot's of black powder at that location.
 
Hope I'm not pissing in your pickles but is very possible for propellant to burn to detonation and I have seen it on 2 occassions during the last 25 years. We are currently sitting on 6,000 lbs of tank propellant that we can't get rid of because of the danger of a high order detonation.

In the good old days when the CF wasn't as enviornmentally sensitive as it now is, we used to burn SAA that was designated as unsafe for future use in a specially designed furnace built for burning SAA. And yes like many Ammunition technicians, I tried to take a long job and shorten it up, by adding additional SAA above the limit until one day in CFB Borden I blew up the furnace made of cold rolled steel, if I remember correctly.
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Not to be rude but it appears you do not understand the difference between over pressure bursting an enclosed vessel and a true high order detonation.

A high order detonation involves a detonation speed upwards of 25,000 fps. This is where true explosives operate. They will cause such an exlosion whether contained or not.

Gunpowder is NOT an explosive and will not explode when uncontained. Yes, if you burn it in an enclosed space like a steel pipe or a steel furnace, it is possible for the pressure to build up to the point where the vessel bursts. THAT is NOT a high order detonation. It is no different from an over full balloon bursting.

I am quite surprised that as an ammo tech you are not aware of the difference between the two. It would seem to be fairly elementary.

As I noted previously, Hatcher burned fairly large containers of gunpowder in the factory container and did not find any evidence of explosion or bursting. Powder containers are specifically designed to split open and release the burning powder without causing a bursting explosion.
 
Garand said:
We are currently sitting on 6,000 lbs of tank propellant that we can't get rid of because of the danger of a high order detonation. If primers are safe from detonation, ask Federal why they have the only primers that are packed in thick packaging? Something about being sued if I remember correctly.
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You should check out Hatcher's Notebook if you haven't already, in there he has an account of a powder magazine containing 600,000 pounds of small arms rifle powder catching fire and it did not detonate, it just burned for approximately one minute and 50 seconds, two men that were just over 400 feet away laying in a small depression in the ground recieved blisters on the backs of their necks but no serious injury.
The older Federal primers were also more sensitive than the newer ones, I had a PPC revolver tuned to fire the older Federal primers reliably, once the bigger package primers came out my revolver would no longer fire reliably and I had to increase the mainspring pressure to get reliable ignition again. Though not a scientific test my revolver went from 100% reliabilty to annoying with the newer primers, and that was the only change with the revolver or reloads.
 
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