Posted: 5/16/2009 1:22:35 PM EDT
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Like everyone on this board, I have been buying extra ammo for the long term. I recently purchased a lot of .22 after getting suggestions from the ARFcomers....My question is how is everyone else storing their ammo??
A large portion on my ammo is in 50 cal ammo boxes locked in a cabinet in my unattached garage. Garage is not heated or cooled. Another portion of my ammo is stored in original shipping boxes in a closet; some paper and a couple metal. Home is air-conditioned during the summer/fall to 65 degrees and heated to 68 degrees in winter/spring. Humidity is not controlled in either case. So is this a good or bad situation for the ammo? What changes should I make or does it matter if ammo will be used in next 10 years or so? Let's hear what you do for ammo storage? BTW, there's little room for ammo in my safe 
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| I think it should be fine. I have shot ammo that was over 10 years old that was only stored in the cardboard retail boxes. Heck some of it was underwater at one time. It all shot fine... Sealed Ammo cans with desiccant is for long long long term storage (like 30+ years). |
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Put the cans on your back porch with the sun on them for a bit... when you see them swell a little bit with the heat, slowly let them vent and seal them back up. When you store them they will shrink in a hair and be good to go. And desicant in the can is always good. I also take a Zip-lock bag and put in a small rag with just a little bit of Rem-Oil and let it slowly vent into the can for long term storage.
Good luck! -joe |
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ammo does not require a whole lot to store well. mostly keep it in a dry environment and out of extreme heat. it will probably outlast you. I just had a mind flash of all my nephews and nieces happily shooting all my ammo through all my guns at the range after I am dead and buried. It made me happy and sad at the same time. Funny that. |
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ammo does not require a whole lot to store well. mostly keep it in a dry environment and out of extreme heat. it will probably outlast you. I just had a mind flash of all my nephews and nieces happily shooting all my ammo through all my guns at the range after I am dead and buried. It made me happy and sad at the same time. Funny that. Yes indeed! |
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I have seen "garage" stored ammo develop lead oxide powder on the lead surface of the bullets.
This would not be an issue with FMJ stuff. But for stuff like 22.lr, it's not a good thing at all. Lead oxide would act like an abrasive in a barrel. Go for the ammo cans or zip lock bags, anything other than the seasonal atmospheric changes in your garage. The worst seems to be when there's a sudden warm up, and humidity condenses on cold surfaces. |
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One thing about bulk ammo storage that concerns me is a structure fire.
I have a crewmate who is a longtime volunteer firefighter around here and he points out that if fire fighters hear ammo cooking off in a house, their operations shift from saving the structure to containing the fire from a distance, I forget his exact words, but basically, they don't like to work in a space where ammo is actively cooking off. Right now i feel like my ass is kinda hanging out on this issue; i don't have fireproof storage and it's very not practical to store it outside my house. I was thinking of building water-jacketed masonry vault/strongbox or other homemade solution ... or maybe just shelling out for yet another moderately sized fire-resistant safe. The safe idea is kind of more appealing anyway due to the high value of ammunition these days. |
| Air conditioning and heat ARE humidity control. Both keep humidity down. The long term storage question has been covered in some depth in the past, and while I'm not sure what the basis was, I'm not comfortable with the outdoor option. Check the ammuntion or survival fora. |
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One thing about bulk ammo storage that concerns me is a structure fire. I haven't looked over in General Discussion, but I bet this has been discussed a time or 100 over there. What I've generally read says that in the event of a fire, loose non- chambered ammo might "pop" off but it's not not likely to going to do anything that would be lethal to an individual. The MythBusters episode supports the above, however I've also seen posts of people claiming otherwise. Mythbusters - Bullets exploding inside an oven http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BX1kvJVrjc |
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now imagine 10,000 or 250,000 of those little f*ckers all jammed together, maybe in their nice waterproof ammo cans, just waiting for one fragmenting shell to take out his neighbors... chain reaction. Its not just the bullets. It's also the blast and the fireball. No thing in a house is worth a firefighter's life: they're gonna split fight the fire from outside the structure unless there's a rescue involved.
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| well i was dumber than alot of you guys i guess when i was younger because me and my buddies used to cook rounds off in the fire all the time and i have seen first hand a .25 round not have enough umph to go through an old budweiser can with the pull tops...im not one bit afraid of ammo cooking off inside of military cans...i love that locker idea... |
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well i was dumber than alot of you guys i guess when i was younger because me and my buddies used to cook rounds off in the fire all the time and i have seen first hand a .25 round not have enough umph to go through an old budweiser can with the pull tops...im not one bit afraid of ammo cooking off inside of military cans...i love that locker idea... hah! I have a couple stupid-kid stories, lke the time i disassembled a bunch of US Army booby trap simulators, made a nice spiral out of the flash powder and lit it off so i could watch it burn like the black powder did in Wild Wild West. Did it in the basement. POOF. Got caught by my mom who noticed this giant smoke cloud billowing out of the basement into the kitchen; "what are you doing down there?" "nothin'" She caught me staggering around the basement, completely blind and missing my eyebrows and proceeded to beat the holy hell out of me. That did not stop me from settng off CN grenade in the basement a few years later... oops... |
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i'm not trying to be argumentative about the fire hazard thing but... when one asseses the threat from burning bulk ammo, one needs to remember that the person at risk isn't the owner. The owner of the ammo will not be anywhere near ammo at risk of cooking off, because the ammo is in the middle of a structure fire. The person at risk is the guy in the Nomex and SCBA, the fire fighter. I don't evaluate the risk of my ammo based on how i feel about it, i evaluate the risk based on what i feel comfortable exposing someone else to.
Now dicking around with cooking off single shells is good all american kid fun, and not particurly risky, but that bulk stuff. .. Here's one of the first pictures i came across when i decided to goog the subject this morning. some guy's shop burned, 23,000 rounds stored, including:  .
I've re-discussed with my crewmate (the FF) and my neighbor who is a St. Chas FD Captain and they again told me: something like that happens while their people are in a house and they're pulling everyone out and hosing it down from safe distance for a Surround and Drown. . Again, i'm not trying to be a dick, but i'm getting a strong impressin that i completely failed to make my point. Common sense isn't so common, and it only applies to things you commonly do, and risks aren't always obvious until after the fact. |
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Thats pretty cool. |
| low i guess you are right i can admit when im wrong maybe i will look around for something better to store the 3 boxes of ammo i keep on hand... a nice little brinks fireproof safe will do the trick i hate to see what you guys that have thousands of rounds are gonna do... |
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One thing about bulk ammo storage that concerns me is a structure fire. I haven't looked over in General Discussion, but I bet this has been discussed a time or 100 over there. What I've generally read says that in the event of a fire, loose non- chambered ammo might "pop" off but it's not not likely to going to do anything that would be lethal to an individual. The MythBusters episode supports the above, however I've also seen posts of people claiming otherwise. Mythbusters - Bullets exploding inside an oven http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BX1kvJVrjc The reason I asked the question was to get new info!! I'm sure a search of the site might have found 100 discussions... While its possible aspects of my question have been asked before, its also true that information changes over time due to technical reasons or new events occur which change accepted practice. After reading some of these posts, I think the ammo I store in the house for more immediate use will NOT be stored in ammo cans. Brown paper wrap won't trap rounds exploding due to heat or force possible interactions between the burning rounds. Fewer exploding rounds might prevent firefighters from allowing your house to burn to the ground. I think everyone should think very hard about their particular circumstances and choose carefully on how to store all their ammo... Good luck 
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