I am pretty sure I know the answer to this but would really appreciate some more input.

I keep my BOB in the trunk of my black car. We have had weather in the mid 80's as of late. I keep about 100 rounds of .22 with my BOB. Should I have any concern about ammunition exploding at high temperatures? I am sure it is well over 120 degrees in the trunk.

Also I shoot a little trap. Any outstanding concerns about 12 gauge shells in a hot trunk?

Thanks

Cameron

For what it's worth...I've seen ammmo in varying calibers (5.56 all the way thru .50 and 40mm) sit in ammo cans, magazines, weapons, and in HMMWVs for hours on end in the sandbox with nary a cookoff.

In 1943 a B-24 liberator called “Lady Be Good” went down in the north Africa, in Libya. It was found in the 1960s by an oil company prospector. All the windows were still intact as most of the plane was. None of the ammo self detonated, in fact the people that found the plane test fired the 50 cal Browning’s and they all worked.


It gets very hot in Libya, inside a metal can. Your ammo will be fine in your trunk.

The .22 stuff, no worry. The 12 gauge, could possibly be effected by the heat, but probably not. Before I retired, I worked in the central valley of CA, where 100+ temps are the norm in summer. We left Remington 870's, with four rounds of 00 buck in the mags, in the vehicles all the time. That is, 'til we discovered that the heat, combined with the tension of the mag spring, was causing the rounds to become deformed, or "bent" a little bit, right above the brass. Some to the extent that they would not chamber. Time for a policy change. But I doubt that loose rounds, or rounds in a box, would be adversly effected...

.22 rimfire cartridges are prone to degradation over time compared to centerfire. Think white wine vs red.

Gentlemen,

Thank you so much. Very helpful!

Cameron

My dad and found an open tin of 22 lr ammo in my grandmas garage that was sitting for years (since the 1950s we think) I shot it in my Ruger 12-22, if cycled the action fine and seemed to shoot just as well as new ammo. For any situation ammo will ever see, it will work fine when shot at a later date. Being under water is the only thing I would worry about.

I wish I could remember my source but I read this quite a few years ago.
Ammo will degrade if exposed to heat over time. I don't konw exactly what happens when but the short version is
you loose speed, muzzle velocity.

The story on the “Lady be Good” B-24 came from a book I read about it when I was in high school. The ammo worked good 15 to 20 years after the crash., It’s got to be mighty hot in north Africa inside a metal plane…

PS they took parts off the Lady Be Good and put them on other planes, and they crashed. One time the only thing that washed ashore from a crash into the water was an arm rest from the Lady Be Good. Kinda spooky if you believe those things, I don’t, but I also would not want to fly in a plane with a part from it on the plane…

I think you will find most ' lost plane parts on other airplane' stories are apocryphal, with or without Ernie Borgnine playing a ghost smelling of Bay Rum. In WW2 a Blimp crashed ashore here in Southern California without it's crew.The best explanation ( after the usual UFO had their say later)is one crewman was leaning out to make an emergency repair, got in trouble and when his crewmate tried to help both fell to their death. I got to ride one of the Goodyear advertising blimps years ago. In fact, San Pedro even in the mid 1950s was still scene for the last blimp operations and much of the equipment went into Goodyear's fleet- including the gondola from that crashed blimp I was later to ride in.

When I worked in South L.A. and Goodyear had one of their blimps based right alongside of I-405, we used to have a lot of crashes, caused to tourists looking at it instead of the road ahead. I came to really dislike blimps...

Heat degrades smokeless powder. I doubt there is a hazard (
see Hatcher's book about heating cartriges to pop), but
you may see decrease in consistancy over time.

This issue is not only applicable to ammunition. Withing a well equipped kit there are a lot of things that could be potentially damaged by the heat. Food and medicine degrade with heat.

The heat in a car, short of the vehicle actually being on fire or the ammunition being placed directly over a defective catalytic converter installation, wouldn't likely cause the ammunition to cook off and short of that it should remain usable for a long time. That said the heat certainly isn't doing the cartridges any good. For a critical one-time-only shot and a choice between ammunition stored in a controlled atmosphere or ammunition stored in a car trunk for a year I wouldn't be reaching for the stuff that had been riding in the car. Common sense.

I have found that if you are going to store things in a vehicle you can limit the heat exposure by storing materials as low as possible and using insulation to moderate the temperature fluctuations. An inexpensive Styrofoam cooler kept low is good. There is a common building insulation available in many hardware stores based on foil and bubble-wrap. This can be used to make pouches, envelopes and bags and it can be doubled or tripled to get significant amounts of insulation in small areas and with little weight.

http://www.reflectixinc.com/images/uploads/allpdfs/f8%20retail%20product%20guide%200107.pdf

You can also include bottles of water in these packages to further moderate the temperature extremes. Just make sure they are sealed and kept upright if possible. This lets them do double duty. Your going to need the water anyway. If the other supplies are very sensitive to water you might leave out the water or, perhaps, substitute gel packs.

When storing supplies on a vehicles floorboard be aware of the location and routing of the exhaust system and catalytic converter. These components get hot when the engine is running and stay hot for a time afterward.

Also, particularly if you traverse deep water, drive a junker, or simply have leaks, portions of the floor of a vehicle may get and stay wet. It wouldn't do any good to prevent damage from heat only to see your supplies damaged by water. A cooler or ammo can may be a good way to keep any water out.

Some years back, I stored 500 rounds of .38 Special cast bullet handloads in my car trunk. After several weeks, not one round would fire! The cast bullet lubricant had melted and contaminated the powder and primers. The lesson is that any ammunition that is lubricated and which which seats the bullet inside the case can be subject to this kind of contamination. There may be some commercially manufactured bullets that use lubricants that are resistant to melting, but I am not willing to take the chance. In summary, excessive heat and humidity do not do anything good for ammunition.

I'm curious, were they stored bullets up, or bullets down?

This is one reason to use Lee alox for your bullet lube.
They show a picture of a bullet under a propane torch and
the bullet melting while the alox stays put on the bullet.

Or buy cheap FMJ bullets in bulk...