Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Moving the accelerants out of the house

I have been thinking for a while about the 50 some pounds of smokeless powder and untold thousands of rounds of ammunition stored in the house in case of a fire.

My wife's sister's refrigerator quit, so we moved it into our garage.

I still have to figure a way to make it resistant to theft. I might consider wrapping a couple chains around it. But that is a bit tacky. Or possibly building a plywood cabinet around it with a hasp and padlock, which would be much more attractive.

There is still a bunch of ammo in my gun room. But a lot less than before. And all the primers are out of the gun safe. Dessicant packs are incoming.

Damn.

No room for beer.

Neat idea! Lots of storage with good visibility. Does the ice maker spit out bullets? LOL.

Used to be every shop on a farm around had an old fridge for the welding rods and cow medicine.

Room for beer, the refrig quit didn't your read about that part ? Who likes room temperature beer ? The British, I know.

Cool.

I've heard that it was once popular to use a broken upright freezer or combo as a gun safe. Many of them used to come with a key lock. When I was a kid, we had an old upright freezer with a key lock that would have worked well for that.

If you're going to build a plywood enclosure, why not just build in a bunch of shelves and scrap the fridge? That would be equally secure and have more shelf space.

People worry about this stuff, but have they ever tossed an old couch or living room chair on a bonfire and saw how fast all the plastic based materials it's made of go up?

Or, better yet, been involved with the fire service and been through the training or a few house fires?

Unless your powder and ammo is THE seat of the fire, what amount most reloaders have in storage won't make a tinker's damn to the outcome of the situation. Your entire house is full of potential accelerants.

The same concerns have rattling around here.
Our daughters closet would burn really well when the flames it the shelves.😉

What's been on my mind the most is loaded guns.
The powder, primers, and ammo would put on a nice show.
The propane bottles and acetylene might make nice grand finalizes,
but the handguns and AR could be deadly.
Positioning to point them into the basement makes sense, but how to
be sure they stay that way in a hot fire, without elaborate steel structures?

I’ve often wondered how most guys store powder safely. Mine is pretty much in closets but I know it’s certainly not the best. I really don’t have a detached structure to store it, and worried about the extreme temperatures of my attached garage. No good way I suppose without it being removed from the house.

Cool and dry, and in a non contained structure.

Just take a look at how retail stores store and display powders. Do you think their insurance policies and or local fire codes don't have a say in how it's stored or displayed?

Climate controlled, open shelving, or boxes that won't contain pressure. A locked steel cabinet is the worst possible way.

I don't really worry about my powder and primers too much in the house but I have always been a fan of a detached garage. Gas cans, solvents, small engine work etc - all things that might start a fire - I'd rather lose the garage than the house and garage.

You moved the powder from the house to the garage why?

as long as you keep the powder in the original containers they just go PHoooooof in a house fire, primers just go bang and cause no damage as long as they are not contained in something and if the loaded ammo goes off it won't even penetrate you skin unless your sitting on it.

Stored properly none of the items pose any sort of a problem. Keep in mind if you put a padlock on the fridge you're going to produce more pressure than you would have if the containers of powder were sitting in the open.

Maybe put biohazard stickers on it.

If the garage is attached it's a moot point

I fertilized my lawn with a pound of 4F black powder I’d had sitting around for years. I had bought it years back when I first got into flintlocks to prime the pan. I quickly figured out I could use 3F for most everything.

Unlike smokeless, black power WILL explode in a house fire.

You can add local sprinkler heads to your normal plumbing.

Basically... you tap into your existing plumbing... run a new line and install the heads.

Won't meet NFPA code but it works just fine.

I was going to comment on the security aspect. Yes, you've got a lot of money tied up in powder, components, and handliads but who's gonna steal that stuff?

If my house starts on fire, I don't want it to stall, I want it to burn to the ground. I've seen the devastation the fire departments cause to structures trying to put out fires. I'd rather it all go.

Insulation!

The garage is well insulated, with an insulated door. But it still suffers pretty severe temperature swings from night to day. Day time temp is aggravated by two working freezers and a refrigerator in the garage.

Storing powder and ammo inside a refrigerator will stabilize those temp swings.