Boxes of ammunition in transport present a fatal hazard in the case of a fire, right? Well, no: outside of a gun, ammunition is relatively harmless. To help get this message across to firefighters, SAAMI has recently published a DVD that shows what happens in practice The Sporting Arms & Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute (SAAMI~R) recently completed a new fire training safety video, Sporting Ammunition and the Fire Fighter. The video seeks to dispel myths about the hazards of sporting ammunition, which includes rifle and pistol cartridges as large as 50 calibre and shotshells up to 8 gauge. The video demonstrates that, when outside a firearm, sporting ammunition is difficult to ignite, and that when ignited does not propagate in a chain reaction. When involved in a fire, large amounts of burning ammunition can be safely and quickly brought under control by firefighters. A number of extreme scenarios demonstrate that sporting ammunition is hard to ignite. These include drops from 65 feet (20 metres), bullet impact from a .308 military rifle, attacks with blasting caps, impact by a forklift and crushing and grinding with a bulldozer. Ammunition is unlikely to ignite when impacted, penetrated, sheared, crushed or blasted. If it does ignite, the surrounding cartridges do not ignite, and there is no chain reaction.
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