Don't drop that ammo box!

[phorvick]

Grand Forks Herald
Published Thursday, March 06, 2008

GRAND FORKS – John “Jack” Hammen, 54, stood waiting for the person who had invited him to do some practice shooting Wednesday morning. The Grand Forks certified public accountant had his .45-caliber handgun and a box of ammunition.

As he waited, the box of ammo slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor. Somehow, a round went off, blasting a hole in the carton and sending a slug flying.

It sounded, Hammen said later, “like a .45 being fired in an indoor stairwell.”

If it had happened anywhere else, Hammen probably would have had a better day Wednesday. But this was the lobby of the Grand Forks Law Enforcement Center, home to the city police and the county sheriff’s office.

Officers came running, weapons at the ready.

Police closed the lobby about 10:05 a.m. and used yellow tape to further close off the area near the stairwell while they searched for the spent round. Doors were locked at both the main and Fifth Street entrances until about 11 a.m.

“We heard a shot go off in the hallway,” said Capt. Kerwin Kjelstrom, one of about five officers who responded. “A number of us ran out and found sitting on the stairwell a gentleman who said he dropped a box of ammunition and one round went off.

“You hear a round go off, and everybody wonders, ‘What are we going to find when we go out the door?’ Fortunately, nobody was hurt, (and) there were no injuries.

“It sure got my heart started, though.”

Detectives questioned Hammen in an interview room while other officers searched for the .45 slug, which they found behind a row of seating near the center’s main entrance on the west side.

It was undamaged and appeared not to have struck anything hard before settling behind the window seating. When a round goes off outside a gun’s chamber, the force behind the slug may be dissipated, officers said.

[Srigs]

Now that could be called a accidental discharge!!!

Thank god it missed everyone.

[cobb]

When a round goes off outside a gun’s chamber, the force behind the slug may be dissipated, officers said.

There is no maybe too it, there is nothing to contain and direct the pressure so it is more like popcorn popping.

I am surprised, I would think the casing would travel a distance of maybe several feet and the bullet almost nothing from what I have seen.

[JohninMinnesota]

Thinking - this would be a good reason to carry ammunition in a ballistic bag, or a steel box. I always cringe when I drop a round...

[rtk]

I dropped a box when I was waiting to check out at Dick's last year, it hit the ground and spilled out helter skelter across the floor. A woman standing next to me in at another check gasped in horror at what had just happened and made the comment " Will that stuff blow up?" Trying not to be to much of a wisecracker I said to her as I was policing the floor, "yes, eventually it will....but not here"

rtk - that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[jdege]

There is no maybe too it, there is nothing to contain and direct the pressure so it is more like popcorn popping.

There are plastic ammo cases that constrain the cartridge fairly closely. They won't hold the pressure a proper chamber will, but they might hold enough to result in the bullet being ejected with more force than if the cartridge was sitting out in the open.

[Andrew Rothman]

I am very, very curious to know how this happened. Did he have the box full of loose rounds and carpet tacks?

[cobb]

I am very, very curious to know how this happened. Did he have the box full of loose rounds and carpet tacks?

You mean as a kid you never cut the end off of a shotgun shell to remove the shot, tape a sharp rock to the primer and throw that shell up in the air at night to see the flash and hear the bang when it hit the street????

Oh, never mind, off topic........

[Fast351]

Could have been 45 LC where a rim from another cartridge got caught under the primer of the one that went off.

One of my Federal buddies says when they're dumping shotgun rounds into a bin sometimes one goes boom, presumably from a rim from another shell hitting the primer of one. That must be exciting.

[cobb]

One of my Federal buddies says when they're dumping shotgun rounds into a bin sometimes one goes boom, presumably from a rim from another shell hitting the primer of one.

Really, and I am serious about this, call it a learning moment. How does this work? When you say dumping rounds into a bin, is this like from a container into a larger container? As I mentioned, a round going off would be like popcorn and most likely the brass would fly instead of the bullet, but with a shotgun shell????? Is this bin protected or has some type of chamber or deflector so that if a shell does go off the shrapnel cannot escape the bin and cause damage?

I would seriously like to know how this works, and as of now, they couldn't pay me enough at Federal for that job.