Good friend of mine just called to tell me about a fire in his reloading supplies. He did some rifle reloading is his younger days, but has not reloaded for probably the past 30 years.
He had all his reloading equipment including six canisters of powder, press, dies, manuals, and some gun cleaning supplies…oil, grease, patches, rods, etc. all stored in a locked steel case measuring 14 in. x 16 in. x 30 in.
After packing this steel box around for the past 30 years, imagine his surprise when he woke up this morning to see smoke rolling out of his garage. The fire was mostly out when he discovered it and was contained to the steel storage box, although the garage wall it was stored next to had some scorch marks.
He told me it appeared that one of the metal cans of powder had apparently rusted through on one side, which allowed some contaminate to mix with the powder and cause it to spontaneously combust. This apparently set off another can of powder in a metal can and melted two plastic cans of powder enough to set them off. Amazingly, two canisters of powder stored in glass did not burn.
Any ideas on what could have mixed with the powder in a rusted out can to cause it to combust? Would gun oil do it? I’m more inclined to think maybe an oily rag was included in the box, but one would think it would have spontaneously combusted before this.
If anyone has some powder that has been stored a long time in metal containers, it might be worth checking on it to insure the cans are in good condition.
