Too much gun powder on hand?

[Iron River Red]

Whats the rules about quantity of gun powder on hand?

I may have too much... if that's possible.

How about storage of same?

Shooting 50 bmg consumes powder fast...

[mike in co]

This Is A Question You Should Not Ask Unless You Are Ready To Spend A Bunch Of Money To A) Comply With Local..maybe Gun Unfriendly Rules, Or B) Move.........

[wills]

PM me for instructions for delivery to me for proper disposal.

[45nut]

Not to step on Wills toes :smile: ,But the Alliant site has a pretty good page "Here" (http://www.alliantpowder.com/safety/storage.php#consider)
"S A A M I" the Sporting Cartridges people has a page that has most of the powder companies and cartridge makers "here" (http://http://www.saami.org/) .
I refer to these as "Guidelines". All the usual rules appy,common or "un-common" sense as it may be takes center stage. I would think a call to your local Fire Dept. Capt. would be a phone call worth making if you were truly concerned.
The main rules,keep away from temperature extremes, and in original containers.
The powder companies design their containers to release pressure well below the point of explosion.
Ammo usually just goes "pop" with the case going further than the projectile.

[StarMetal]

Actually the best disposal is with Starmetal Industries. We're the scrap metal of the powder industry. Here at Stametal Industries we pay you for your scrap powders. Its a win win situation with our company..you rid yourself of that dangerous and hazardous powder and you get some money in exchange, rather then lose the shirt off your back. Feel free to contact our friendly staff anytime.

Joe CEO Starmetal Industries

[imashooter2]

What about storage laws and insurance carriers? Would suck to have your house burn down and have your claim come back "denied" because you had 3 8 pound kegs on a shelf in the basement.

[Iron River Red]

Good idea. The excess must go... it just is toooo dangerous sitting there looking menacing on my shelf.

I knew this would generate some humor... :grin:

On a more serious note, has anyone had any problems with the insurance people or local ordinances concerning this subject?

Is loaded ammo covered under the same criteria?

[StarMetal]

Do you have any gasoline cans in your garage or house? Like for fueling your lawnmower, weed wacker, chainsaw, etc.? Actually this is more dangerous then smokeless powder...as long as the powder is stored in an original powder container.

Joe

[imashooter2]

Do you have any gasoline cans in your garage or house? Like for fueling your lawnmower, weed wacker, chainsaw, etc.? Actually this is more dangerous then smokeless powder...as long as the powder is stored in an original powder container.

Joe

I wasn't thinking about any danger from the powder starting a fire. I know that isn't an issue. My concern is an insurance carrier using powder as an excuse not to pay. I don't know, so I asked.

[StarMetal]

Well that's what I was getting at. Your home is full of just as volatile or maybe even more dangerous stuff, like the gasoline I mentioned and the insurance companies don't say anything about those. A good lawyer could easily defend the powder if the company refused to pay, in my opinion. Look how many homes blow up from natural gas leaks. They pay off in those, what are they going to tell you, you can't have gas heat?

Joe

[C1PNR]

Well that's what I was getting at. Your home is full of just as volatile or maybe even more dangerous stuff, like the gasoline I mentioned and the insurance companies don't say anything about those. A good lawyer could easily defend the powder if the company refused to pay, in my opinion. Look how many homes blow up from natural gas leaks. They pay off in those, what are they going to tell you, you can't have gas heat?

Joe
Joe,

Interesting that you use this analogy. For years I worked for a Natural Gas company and investigated Several "mysterious" Kabooms. One I'll never forget was when a person went on vacation and their house blew up while the person was still on the road.

CLOSE inspection of the remains revealed a missing pipe cap in the basement. It was just gone! Oh, and the gas stove was also resting in the basement as well, having come down through the floor. One burner was turned to the "simmer" setting!?

Fire Marshal took note of all information and saw to it the owner was aware as soon as the person was located (in Portland, IIRC).

Never was an insurance claim on that incident. Insurance fraud is a felony and the owner/person was aware of that, too.;-)

[wills]

I wasn't thinking about any danger from the powder starting a fire. I know that isn't an issue. My concern is an insurance carrier using powder as an excuse not to pay. I don't know, so I asked.

What does the policy say?

[imashooter2]

Well that's what I was getting at. Your home is full of just as volatile or maybe even more dangerous stuff, like the gasoline I mentioned and the insurance companies don't say anything about those. A good lawyer could easily defend the powder if the company refused to pay, in my opinion. Look how many homes blow up from natural gas leaks. They pay off in those, what are they going to tell you, you can't have gas heat?

Joe

I suppose, but there aren't any laws against having gas heat or spray cans in your house. There might be about gas cans, but I'm smart enough to have them stored in out buildings anyway. I won't be in financial ruin if the insurance company doesn't pay off on my shed. :)

[imashooter2]

What does the policy say?

Been a long time since I read my insurance policy. I can't remember it addressing the issue at all. So here I am making internet conversation. :)

[Linstrum]

If you ask the fire department, insurance company, or any other agency with the power to screw you and cause you grief about powder storage, be discreet about who you are and specifically where you are located. Remember all phones have caller i.d. now, too, even if you requested the phone company NOT to install it on your phone. I requested a phone without caller i.d. but the local pizza place still knows where I am when I call a pizza delivery order. Anyway, even though the odds are in your favor that if you call your insurance company or your fire department they will NOT write down who you are, don't take chances when the consequences can be devastating, such as having your insurance denied AFTER having a fire.

Except for small amounts of the various kinds of powder that I am currently using for reloading, I keep all of my powder stored outside in 5-foot deep storage wells spaced 40-inches apart out in the back yard. I dug the holes with a power post hole digger and then lined them with 5-foot lengths of 8-inch inside diameter plastic drain pipe with a wrap of galvanized canary wire mesh (same as chicken wire but with smaller holes) to make the pipe gopher and ground squirrel-proof. First I dug a little pit 18-inches square and a foot deep and then in the bottom of that I dug the post holes 5 feet deeper. After clearing out the loose dirt I put in the 5-foot long liners, which have some additional canary wire over the bottoms so if any water seeps in it will drain out the bottom into the soil. I used 12" square stepping stones for lids (18” would be better) and then put a foot of soil over the tops to help keep the holes cool. Above each one I put a flower pot marker to keep from accidentally driving over the tops and to mark their locations. I doubt if driving a small car over them would hurt anything, but I don’t want to find or the hard way. Even with a foot of soil it will still get up to 85° F in direct sunlight one foot down underground during the summer, so it is IMPERATIVE that the tops of the storage wells always be kept in the shade. I know it is a lot of digging, so using power equipment is necessary if you want to do the work yourself and keep the number of people who know about it to a minimum. Be careful about the neighbors seeing you do the work, a good cover story is that the holes are for a passive heating/cooling soil reservoir for energy-saving house air conditioning system. It will work unless you have a real Poindexter for a neighbor. Make a map of your storage area and keep a list of what is stored in each one so you don’t have to do a lot of digging to find something. I use a shepherd’s crook to lower the jugs down the holes and get them back out again, and do it with my truck parked to block the view or at night if there is a chance of someone seeing me. I also wrote a description of the powder on the container itself with a waterproof Sharpie pen because paper labels might slowly deteriorate and fall off. For the jugs that did not seal well I put a very thin soft rubber gasket under the lids to make sure that they were absolutely air tight. The environment is damp just like in the northeast bottom corner of a basement so they have to be sealed up air tight. Have fun!

[StarMetal]

C1PNR

Here's one that stuck in my mind forever as one of the victoms was a friend of mine. I worked in the Post Office with fellow we called Red...he had red hair. He was a WWII figther pilot veteran. He flew them all, the P51, the P47, the P38 Lighening, the P39 Air Cobra....great guy to talk to about those planes. He got shot down quite a few times too and survived. He survived the war...apparently. Then while working for the post office, on a day off, he managed to cut a leg off with a chainsaw. They sewed it back on and fixed him up and he returned to work, after a long recuperation time. This guy was indestructible, so I thought. Well one evening while at home he, his son, and his son's best friend smelled gas. They checked the furnace and that was it. The pilot light was out and the thermocouple was bad. Well Red sent his son to buy a new thermocouple, while Red and his son's friend stayed behind. Well..someone lit a cigarette...according to the fire marshal...and boom. It killed Red and the boy. What a damn stupid freak accident to a formerly indestructible man.

Joe

[longhorn]

The title of this thread makes no sense whatsoever! "too much powder??" I have an insurance story-got burglarized in '97 and lost essentially all my guns. Some states allow limitations on firearms coverage, but not, thank heavens, Texas. (Check your homeowners policy, guys.) I had good documentation, and State Farm just swallowed hard, and told me the deal: I was responsible for buying replacement guns, took them receipts, and they paid up to my loss amount in total-but it had to be done within 12 months. Think it sounds like fun to have to spend $20K plus on guns in a year? Nope. Remember, this was a "collection" of shooters I had built over 25 years of haunting gunshops, pawnshops, and gunshows. No real collectible stuff, but not stuff you'll find at Wally World, either-like, for instance, the old model Colt Trooper (V-spring) in .22LR that shot like a high-end target pistol. Or my Casull, serial # 14542, in case you run across it. Or my supertuned CASS Blackhawks. Sob! So far, 4 of my guns have shown up-beat to hell, and I had to buy what I wanted back from the insurance company. Moral: KEEP DETAILED RECORDS-and check your coverage!

[Buckshot]

...............I don't know for sure because I've never bothered to check for myself, but I have heard that in San Bernardino County in which I live the limit is 25 lbs. Don't know if this is smokless, black or a combination. At least this is what retailers use for an excuse if they don't have what you want.

This number may be what you can have on the premisis in an approved carryable magazine. The danger with smokeless is not it's explosive potential which is small in correctly designed containers. Rather it's more the intense heat and hot gasses generated with it's combustion. However it's easily disbursed and put out with water, which is the fire departments #1 choice and is usually carried in a pumper or avail from a hydrant.

I don't know how the 25lb limit was arrived at and it could very easily just have been an arbitrary number dreamed up by someone. If you were an avid shotgunner you could easily equal that with 3 kegs of Red Dot, 700X and SR7625.

http://www.fototime.com/3DC94686D080C59/standard.jpg
This is my powder supply. On the shelf above the 8 lb jugs is the various 1lb containers. The red tags hanging down denote what is in each row. There are 22, 8 lb jugs. Some full some opened, so I'd imagine all together there is probably 160 pounds or more in those, plus the one pounders and 26 or so pounds of blackpowder. Those jugs of Hercules powder are sitting on 35K LRP's. This cabinet is against the wall furthest from the house.

However, in my garage you will not find any gasoline or paint thinner. while some may debate the amount of powder I have in the garage, I consider the volatile liquids a much greater hazard due to thier possible production of volatile vapors. These can be ignited by a spark or small flame with explosive consequenses. The powder I have stored will not do so and it requires a much elevated tempurature to ignite.

The powder is further stored in a cabinet constructed of 3/4" MDF. While it is not inflammable, it does not readily support combustion due to it's construction and density. You can apply the flame of a propane torch to a corner and while it may burn. But once you remove the flame it will merely smoulder, and may also go out, depending upon how much was involved.

Playing the devils advocate I will admit that storage in an old unworking refrigerator away from the garage and dwelling would be the 100% smart thing to do, just as I store volitile liquids and such in a 8x12 outbuilding.

..............Buckshot

[454PB]

A friend of mine was the assistant fire chief at one of our volunteer departments. He about had a stroke when he saw how much powder I have, and I made the same points already mentioned concerning stored fuel, paint and paint thinners, extra propane bottles, etc. I have three vehicles fully fueled sitting in my attached garage, that's over 50 galllons of gasoline. However, all my powder is in a seperate building, and the large containers are in plastic tote containers that could be rapidly moved if required.

I store my small supply of black powder well away from the smokeless, and even then it worries me.

[NVcurmudgeon]

I keep powder and primers in their original containers in a dedicated components and ammunition closet. I don't tell ANYONE how much of anything I have, on the assumption that ALL businesses are either anti or chicken. Should the unthinkable happen I would not even consider filing a claim on ammo or components. That would be a trifling percentage of a fire insurance claim, why give the insurance company an opening for a denial. I learned well from the impeached President Clinton, "dont ask, don't tell.

[Dipperman]

If you go to www.imrpowder.com and click on the Handloaders Guide, on the left side of the page that comes up you can click on "Laws". Check out 13-3.7. The way I read it, if you have more than 50 pounds of powder in your residence, you are in violation of the law. Now just what law this is and where it applies they do not make clear. Maybe someone better at research than me can figure it out.

Hope this helps.

Dipperman

[imashooter2]

I keep powder and primers in their original containers in a dedicated components and ammunition closet. I don't tell ANYONE how much of anything I have, on the assumption that ALL businesses are either anti or chicken. Should the unthinkable happen I would not even consider filing a claim on ammo or components. That would be a trifling percentage of a fire insurance claim, why give the insurance company an opening for a denial. I learned well from the impeached President Clinton, "dont ask, don't tell.

Maybe it's just too much TV, but I thought that whenever an insured building burned trained investigators looked into why. I know if it was my quarter of a million bucks on the line I'd spend a grand or two to make sure a pipe cap wasn't taken off and a stove left on as C1PNR reports above.

[KYCaster]

I went to the link that Dipperman posted and I see that IMR is in Shawnee Mission, KS, where Hodgden has been forever. Does this meen that Hodgden controls IMR?

Jerry

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It's perfectly true about various volatile liquids (including some less than obvious ones) being far more dangerous than powder. Besides being prepared to creep out and come looking for trouble, a pound of gasoline combines with the oxygen from around ten pounds of air. But a small part of your pound of powder combines with oxygen contained in the rest of it. That apart, the energy content of substances is surprisingly alike. You can get about as much work done in an afternoon with some fatty or sugary food and a sledgehammer, as you can in a millisecond with the same weight of dynamite.

A major difference, though, is that people who reload are a hobby, but people who use gasoline are a constituency. For people who do get caught in an insurance dispute, there is a lot of useful information in "Hatcher's Notebook" on the myths of ammunition and powder storage hazards, and a more authoritative source would be hard to imagine.

A useful fact is that I've never heard of any jurisdiction which judges things by the labels on the canisters. It is always by weight stored, and there isn't liable to be anything (especially force of an explosion, since it will have precious little) to say whether they were anywhere near full. Primers, though, leave their skeletal remains behind, if anyone is motivated to count them.

[Dipperman]

KYCaster,
Go to the IMR link and click on "NEWS". The info at the bottom of the page indicates that Hodgdon bought IMR in October of 2003.

Have a good one,
Dipperman

[Scrounger]

Maybe it's just too much TV, but I thought that whenever an insured building burned trained investigators looked into why. I know if it was my quarter of a million bucks on the line I'd spend a grand or two to make sure a pipe cap wasn't taken off and a stove left on as C1PNR reports above.

They might do that, but they don't react like the did 50 years ago. Trials are expensive (if you lose) and bad publicity either way. Nowdays, they just pay the 250K and raise everyone else rate that much to get it back... I suspect that is why C1NPR just pointed that out to the Fire Marshall and the Fire Marshall just "told" the home owner. No insurance claim, no investigation, no trial, no bad publicity. I wonder what the insurance company would have done IF the owner had filed a claim anyway. They could well have just went ahead and paid off. It's only money, and damn little in their financial strata.

[9.3X62AL]

I'm one of those investigators that paws through the rubble at a fire scene, and smokeless powder ranks pretty low on the scale of flammables that will sustain or propogate flame or explosion if contained in commercial packaging and in small SEPARATE amounts. If substantially confined--or if stored in bulk amounts that can create product self-compression.....the story changes, and an explosive effect can result. If 1# to 8# containers of smokeless powder are stored in a garage or outbuilding as we are describing our hobby amounts, I would conclude that in most cases the compounds would have little more significant effect on flame/fire propagation than would many common construction materials. Smokeless powder is FAR less hazardous than liquid petrochemicals/solvents in a residential fire scenario. Even black powder doesn't rise to the level of gasoline in that spectrum--BP is neither flows nor fumes.

Only lame-assed arsonists would attempt using smokeless powder as an accellerant, and BP would be similarly ineffective. The powders make mildly effective explosive effects if confined, but a serious bomber gets the right stuff and ignores BP and smokeless. Gasoline or diesel fuel is the usual choice of arsonists, and usually way too much of that. Hell, WATER is even better as a destroyer of homes.......the organized crime types like to enter homes and open valves on bathtubs, kitchen sinks, etc. and stop up drains, allowing water to flow for days within a house. This is especially effective in multi-story residences. Much quieter, little chance of untargeted neighbors sustaining damage, and is something of a "signature" for loan sharks--especially when accompanied by graffiti spray-painted on a master bedroom wall, "PAY YOUR BILLS, THIEF".

[Iron River Red]

I didn't completely read each post. Yet didn't see anything about the powder in loaded ammo.

I'm always looking 1 step ahead and trying to look at reasons the anti gun liberals may try to aim at our hobby. I have heard rumours that they will tax us into submission and so forth.

I have gone as far as to become a certified reloading instructor to possibly bolster the right/priviledge to hand load and cast.

I would like to see a trend in America of people getting more certifications and becoming instructors. I think this may help keep the nuts at bay when it comes to the legislation aspect.

What are your thoughts?

[mike in co]

In A City In The San Diego Region, A Local Group Got The Fire Code Changed To Only Allow 8(?) Pounds Of Powder Per Business.......the Rest Had To Be Stored Off Site.........no Vote, No Asking The Populace, Just "improved" The Fire Safety Code.....basically Put Reloading Out Of Business In One City...

In One Denver Area They Have Done The Same...... The Gun Biz Could Keep Small Amounts On Hand , But Must Keep Inventory In A Secure Offsite Approved Storage Facility. At The Gun Shows At I70 And Chambers, Aurora Will Not Allow The Sell Of 8 Lb Containers Of Powder..."for Safety Reasons"

[TCLouis]

being kalifornicated.

SO far we have not been overwhhelmed bythe kalifornia or NE US attitudes and are still free citizens!

We will start watching closer if follks get funny ideas though.

I knew you were in trouble in Colorado when your trapping regulations got changed so drastically!!