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gtkupiec

32 Cal
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Feb 6, 2020
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I have a friend who has a cabin in the north country. He is totaly a traditional black powder hunter. He stores a couple of 1 pound goexx powder in the cabin through out the season. He heats the cabin by a wood stove. If, God forbid this cabin caught on fire, would the cans explode, or burn .
 
If he stores his powder away from the stove and is safe with both, then it's really not much different than the rest if us. I mean, I see your point in terms of the risk of open flame. I suppose storing them in a powder magazine (i.e., wooden chest or other box that is not air tight or made of metal) would he a good precaution.

If they are the newer plastic cans, they'll melt and the powder will just burn quick. In the old metal containers, I don't actually know. What I do know is that BP cans should NEVER be stored in a sealed metal box like a gun safe. That essentially makes a bomb.

But if there is a fire to a wood cabin, I don't know whether a couple pounds of loose black powder will be significantly worse once the dry wood of the structure catches.
 
ok, thanks.It is away from the stove in another room. Have a Happy and safe, healthy Holiday!
 
If they are the newer plastic cans, they'll melt and the powder will just burn quick. In the old metal containers, I don't actually know.

The metal can seam ruptures easily and the powder burns. It was designed that way. Store it properly and it's no more dangerous than things already in your house.
 
BP cans should NEVER be stored in a sealed metal box like a gun safe. That essentially makes a bomb.

Actually that makes a damaged "gun safe" and contents. An ammo can, especially the smaller one, could be a problem.
The powder must be "tamped" a bit for the force of the reaction to get going....so as long as the gun safe wasn't filled from top to bottom with nothing but full plastic canisters of BP..., the OP's two, 1 lb. cans in something the size of an 8 gun steel "gun cabinet" would not blow the thing open. ;)

With a fire in the cabin in the OP's premise...., more damage will be done by the large fire to the car parked outside, from the heat, and more danger from the fuel in the car, than from the two pounds of BP.

LD
 
Back when I was young and foolish( now I’m old) I had to set off a couple of cans. It was only $3.50 a can then. I was expecting a cannon like boom, what I got was a phooooofe, and a goodly size cloud of smoke.
It takes about four hundred degrees to set off black powder, if his wood stove lights off a can nought will be alive in the room.
 
I once participated in a shoot where for the novelty of it a pound of goex was set out at 50 yards and all participants shot at it simultaneously. The result was a huge poof of smoke with much less noise than expected. The can was ruptured along all the seams. It was sorta anticlimactic. :)

Lawnmowers, other gas powered tools and propane tanks are far more problematic.
 
The metal can seam ruptures easily and the powder burns. It was designed that way. Store it properly and it's no more dangerous than things already in your house.

Yep,

All smokless powders that I know of are shipped in containers that rupture under fairly low pressure. I assume that all real gunpowder containers perform in the same manner.
 
I once participated in a shoot where for the novelty of it a pound of goex was set out at 50 yards and all participants shot at it simultaneously. The result was a huge poof of smoke with much less noise than expected. The can was ruptured along all the seams. It was sorta anticlimactic. :)

Lawnmowers, other gas powered tools and propane tanks are far more problematic.

Anticlimactic, but educational. An aerosol can is far more dangerous than a pound can of powder. People have many things in their homes that are far more deadly and dangerous, We just take them for granted.

The top five most fatal household injuries in the US are (in order from most fatal to least) poisoning, falls, choking or suffocation, drowning, and fires or burns
 
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