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Has anyone got proof of a fire at the Savage Ammo Plant in
the late twenties, several people have talked about it but
I have been unable to find any written facts.

No, but you might try the town or city hall, town library or town historical society with a phone call to start. If there was one, bet it made the papers at the time (though the exact paper may no longer be around)

Who knows, could even be some pic's floating around in one of those venues.

i belive this was discussed about 2 months ago when we were talking ammo and ammo boxes..

I've heard it mentioned once or twice, but I've never been able to find any mention of it in written material.

I can't find any mention of them stopping production of ammunition either, which I'd expect to see something in one of the trade rags of the time.

I always thought that Savage contracted to have their "house-brand" ammo made by a major ammunition manufacturer, just like all of the big discount retailers like Sears, Wards, and Western Auto have done.

Jeff

Jeff, They did roll their own. There was thread about two months ago on it. Cannot recall exactly the date. I would cut and paste it, but I cannot seem to get my computer to cooperate. Maybe its me. Jim
checked and it was Mar 16 2010 by ctw

Would this be the thread???

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth...3901044/Savage_ammo_question#Post3901044

LBK,
That be the thread. Thanks for the help. Somedays I wonder about me. Jim
BTW: Love your tag line.

Savage started out sub-contracting with UMC. Then around 1897 the big ammunition manufacturers blackballed Savage, so they rolled their own until 1927'ish as far as we can tell. After 1927'ish they sub-contracted again.

I've found documentation stating that powder was purchased overseas but kept on site in quantity (5 tons or more) at the factory for at least part of the time after 1897.

So.. everything points to Savage doing their own for a while. But not sure what all that entails. Maybe they contracted the brass/primers/bullets out and just assembled them? Maybe they made one or more of those onsite and contracted the others. Don't know.

Wonder if JTC would have any information on purchase orders / sales orders for ammo from that time frame?

I just searched the New York Times archives for 1925-1930 a couple different ways and only came up with a Remington munitions plant explosion in 1929.

NYT link

For some reason I thought the fire was in the mid to late 30, hence the reason for the 30's rifles with little or no information. Also I thought during the fire that the work orders all burned, also limiting the information available when lettering. I have a few with work order numbers on the ledger but the work orders are long gone to find out what was done.

Blair

Yep that's what they say. About the work orders that is.

Ok, I live 3 miles from Utica...I belong to the Oneida County Historical Society (Savage Arms was both in Oneida & Herkimer counties) and have spent dozens of hours at the Utica library researching Savage History via documents and the local newspapers. I've been lucky enough to visit the Savage Arms buildings/grounds. (all of them) I have talked with ex-employees and their families. To date I cant come up with info of a an ammunition plant fire. ( I have found other fires on the grounds). A fire of that magnitude certainly would have made the locals.

Anyway, as Fug asked, does anyone have any documented evidence of a fire???

tjw

I wonder about the Utica Fire Department.

http://www.uticafire.com/

They might have some history.

Blair

Maybe the "FIRE" was nothing more than a piissingg match? However I have always found it odd work orders are mentioned with no other info. Wonder where that info is?

On the phone with Barkeater he asked about my Savage Fire Dept.
badge? Savage had its own in house fire dept. in Utica could
they have handled the fire in house????????

probably make sence ,factory pretty spread out,lots of hands on deck.

A fire in the ammunition works would have been a hell of a big deal, what with all that ammo stacked up, not to mention 5 tons of powder in storage. I can't imagine any fire dept. back then (in-house or local) rushing into those pyrotechnics to be heroes. Everything would have gone up while they busied themselves preventing it spreading to the rest of the works. I can't imagine a blaze of that magnitude not making it into all the big city papers in the Northeast. That leads me to believe (purely surmising without benefit of any primary resource) there wasn't a catastrophic blaze. Maybe a small blaze, quickly extinguished but scaring the bejapers out of management, causing reconsideration of in-house ammo manufacturing?

But, other questions come to mind: Were the ammunition works a part of, next to, or widely separated from the gun works? Could there have been another kind of Act-of-God catastrophe to so severely damage the ammo works (flood, hurricane, etc.) as to force them to throw up their hands in disgust and seek help from the other major manufacturers? Maybe they just weren't selling enough to make manufacturing it profitable? Sales figures of Savage ammo vs. Remington, Winchester, Western, Peters, et al?

definately more questions than answers.

I'm remember a discussion a couple years ago regarding powder storage at the plant. I was under the impression that there was a powder bunker in the middle of a pond on site - totally separated from the manufacturing building. Anyone have a set of blueprints of the site? They would only move enough powder to the plant for the day's production.

Has anyone checked the Sanborn maps? They were maps made by insurance companies of major manufacturing areas so they could assess risk.