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[44Vaquero]

The question that have always asked my self is this: If the house is on fire what difference is 15 or 20 feet going to make? Powder burns (if not confined) primers exploded and ammo pops when heated.

"I am a bit concerned about the primer tube detonating and igniting the powder and setting off the ammo." You might want to re think the "Hard Hat" comment. Seriously, ammo and components are relatively stable if handled correctly. Thankfully most of use do not live a life like a Final Destination movie.

Prudent and reasonable precautions:

Don't leave powder canisters open on the bench.

Don't Smoke or eat while reloading.

Don't take out more primers then you are going to use.

Wear safety glasses.

If something sticks/jambs do not force it! Stop, Find out why!

Put everything away when you are finished.

Mount an ABC fire extinguisher at the door.

I could continue on, but I think you get the idea.

[LAH]

I keep a space between my primers & powder & ammo. Consider storing ammo below the bench containing the priming tube instead of above it.

[meshugunner]

Ok, thanks for the advice. True, once a fire starts it doesn't much matter where in that room the powder and primers are stored. What concerned me was the possibility of a primer detonation on the press setting off some ammo and starting a fire. I keep my primers and powder in two different locations. Putting ammo on a lower shelf seems like a good precaution - good enough to mitigate this risk and little trouble.

[LAH]

Believe me when primers go...........the force will be directed upward by the safety tube.

[Honorstick]

The question that have always asked my self is this: If the house is on fire what difference is 15 or 20 feet going to make? Powder burns (if not confined) primers exploded and ammo pops when heated.

I can tell you from experience that it doesn't make any difference at all!


Almost 30 years ago my wife and I lost the first house we lived in together to a fire (electrical), The first fireman to show up was a neighbor who was a volunteer, he asked if there was anything he could try to retrieve from the house (I already had the guns out ), I told him I had just got my unemployment check and we cashed it and had it seperated into envelopes right next to the front door but I didn't think he should try to go after it because I was a reloader and all of my supplies, loaded ammo and such were on the (heated) front porch and I didn't want him to get hurt. He said he would give it a try anyway and he was about 30 feet from the front door when the first box of primers blew, I never seen anybody hit the deck so quick and belly crawl away. It was an interesting night to say the least, you would hear the tops blow on the powder cans, then you might hear a few hundred rounds of ammo go like machine gun fire, then a primer boom, this went on for the better part of an hour. The firemen kept there distance and fought the fire. There was so much popping and boomin that one of our neighbors thought we were under attack and had his daughter hiding under the bed. Needless to say the house was a total loss along with all of my reloading equipment and just about everything else we owned and being young and dumb we didn't have renters insurance, didn't even know it existed. I also got yelled at by the firemen for belly crawling in and getting my guns to pass off to my brother who just tossed them out in the snow until we got them all out.

One good thing that came out of it though is the next day we went in to examine the mayhem and I was looking through the ashes in the area we had put our bill money and I seen a charred ash that you could tell used to be a hundred dollar bill so I carefully started going through the ashes and with tweezers gently picked up the pieces of money trying to keep them from crumbling and placed them in a cotton line box and took them to our local bank to see if there was anything that could be done. They told me they could send it in too the feds and see but it was most likely a total loss. I wrote down how much I knew was originally there and turned it over to them, about a month and a half went by and I got a call from the bank telling me that they had a check for me, figured if I got $50 back I'd be doing good, well, it turned out I ended up getting $100 more than was burned up. That's the first time the feds ever did me right.

Sorry for being long winded, just brought back memories.

[44Vaquero]

Honorstick,

Thank you for confirming my suspicion's. I did enjoy reading your story, sorry for your loss, albeit 30 years late. I keep my primers in ammo cans and my powder is stored in a regular kitchen wall cabinet with finished rounds stored in a separate closet.

[meshugunner]

Honor thanks for sharing that story. It must be a painful memory.

I'm still learning about reloading safety so I don't really know but I have read several places that primers or powder should not be stored in metal container or cabinets because the sheet metal will turn into shrapnel.

I don't know how likely this is. Safety is a matter of managing risk. You can never eliminate all risk. I believe in taking reasonable precautions against dangers that have some real likelihood of occurring and taking my chances with the bizarre freak occurrences. I suspect that the most dangerous part of my reloading process is driving to the range to try out my ammo.

PS My little reloading bench in a closet idea has worked out very nicely. I will post pix in a while.

[Honorstick]

Not too painfull anymore, there was a lot of learning from that experience. Besides the obvious I seen what a downed power line does on the snow, it dances pretty darn good.

I also keep everything stored in seperate areas, always have but in the case of a house fire it ain't going to make any difference. I have a cabinet behind me at the bench where I keep primers, powders are in an overhead cabinet to the left of the press area (opposite of priming station) and loaded rounds go in an ammo box. I do my best to not invite trouble.

[bear67]

Just a pic of the left hand bench with the new "old" Herters #3 mounted on it. It is easy to run out of bench space. Everything on that bench is mounted with drilled and tapped holes and I can remove with socket wrench and install a correct sized threaded socket screw and plug the hole. Probably will move that Dillon to the other side of the room.

[bear67]

Sorry, I forgot to include picture.

[boltons75]

My little corner of the basement..

And my 80% receiver project.

[1911aug]

We had to move to a smaller house a year ago, and finally after several rearrangements, I got it to where I'm comfortable and don't feel boxed in.

[LAH]

My little corner of the basement..

My kind of place.

[louism]

Just thought I would share my photo. Full disclosure, this is just after an reorganization.

[meshugunner]

Beautiful setup. Jealous. Looks like you do a bit of electronics too. I have the same tangle of cables hanging on my wall to the right of my bench .

That grey cabinet on the left with drawers full of bullets, is that just a plain akro mills thing. Is it up to the weight? I'd like to do that with my castings.

[louism]

Electronics repair and maintenance is what I do for a living and yes it is quite a tangle. The cabinets are from Lowes. Not sure of the brand but the ones in the photo have been filled as you see them for about 12 years and they are still holding on fine.

[257]

i can't figure it out as close as i can tell somebody keeps piling and stashing stuff all over my benchs, but i can never cach them o well

[skizzums]

here she is. i know it's dim, i have overhead lighting, just not on in the pic. but i love it, and you cant see the recliner and flatscreen to the right of it. it's my sancuary and i love it.

and i just started doing this about 6 months ago, so i'm scared to see what it's going to look like by the time i'm 40(that's 12 yrs btw)

[boltons75]

My little corner of the basement..

And my 80% receiver project.

And I did away with my Lee turret finally, and upgraded to the hornady lnl ap. Nevermind the messy bench in the background, this was right after getting it mounted.

[grumman581]

i can't figure it out as close as i can tell somebody keeps piling and stashing stuff all over my benchs, but i can never cach them o well

I know the feeling, but I have a problem with *someone* moving my stuff from where I put it and I can't find it afterwards. For some reason though, now that my daughter is off to college, that problem is a bit less than it used to be.

May the gods protect us from women who want to borrow or "straighten up" our stuff.