Guns in safe during fire

S

somedudefromhouston

New member
Hello Gents I have lurked here for months its time I said hi and
asked for the indulgence of those who know. Thats you guys!
After much research on the subject in the archives of this and other sites, I havent seen the exact same scenario posed .
I suffered a house fire a few years ago. All guns were in a Fort Knox safe, in the closet. The heat stratification was obvious, the top shelves held the handguns, a Colt Det Spec there cooked off and trashed itself. A Combat commander also cooked off a loaded mag in the frame. So we have some idea of the temps attained in that region of the safe. Down below, the leather sling of a Garand only got a slight tan color where it was near the wall. All the contents were blackened by the interior carpet smoldering fumes.
More than 65 arms were in the safe. No mfg will even discuss testing them or repairing them, although Ruger made a generous discount on "trade ins".
Some are not worth messing with. I dont care about pretty finishes.
I dont want a hand bomb. So if the springs are soft, yet still "springy" how much risk is present in replacing the springs in a 586 OR 1911? A previously unfired Colt SAA?

The long guns(old Mausers) Garand, had charring of the forends in a few cases.
The shorter ones, or those stored in the center of the safe, such as Rem 700 and Win 101, AK and M1C only got the smoke and crud.
Other posts have mentioned Rc testing, is there a baseline standard that I should be looking for?
 
If the springs are still somewhat springy I'd think they'd be ok to restore but I have no experience in this. I have a Colt 1903 in .32 ACP that was in a fire and the springs are shot but everything still moves. I plan on restoring it one of these days but if it was a 1911 I'd probably not do it.
 
I tried to find what the autoignition temperature of gunpowder, but that information is not easy to find.

You have a real problem. Heat has obviously effected the heat treatment of your firearms.

I am certain there are smart people with programs who could attempt to determine the temperature inside the safe, based on items, location, and physical evidence. But that is something that I cannot do.

And there is the problem. You don't know which firearms got to what temperatures and for how long. If the temperature was enough to anneal the steel, all the firearms are ruined.

To attempt to tell if the firearms were not annealed to a soft state, well you would need to know what the proper hardness of the parts. The factory knows that, and that is after their heat treatment.

A story, a friend of mine has a M1903A3 drill rifle receiver. The barrel was tack welded to the receiver. Small unobtrustive tack weld, about 3/8" on bottom of receiver. No discoloration to the metal.

He ground the weld and installed a barrel. Cut the barrel to minimum headspace. In less than 50 rounds the rifle exceeded the field gage. He scrounged around his parts bin, found an extra long bolt that gaged minimum. Stuck that in and in less than 50 rounds the rifle exceeded the field gage.

I have handled the receiver, it looks great, almost new. But that little heat from a tack weld was enough to anneal the steel and loose the heat treatment.

You have a real problem.
 
I tried to find what the autoignition temperature of gunpowder, but that information is not easy to find.

You have a real problem. Heat has obviously effected the heat treatment of your firearms.
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Thanks Slamfire1, a question to you.
I dont want to sound argumentative, but wasnt cook off a problem with some machine guns? Is the temp high enough on those to damage the metal?
I guess my question is what are the effects of losing the heat treatment?

A loaded gets put in the safe when leaving the house, no loaded guns are left unattended. Nothing chambered,except that revolver.
 
Removing the heat treatment makes one heck of a big difference in the ultimate and yield of a steel. These are the material properties that keep you safe behind that firearm. There are good explanations at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_of_materials
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensile_strength

As an example of how the ultimate and yield can vary depending on heat treatment, I went to www.matweb.com and tried to find something on 4140 to explain my point. 4140 is a common firearms steel, but since firearms are not really a severe application, a lot of firearms are made from lesser grades of plain carbon steel such as 1040 through 1060. I suspect your Mausers are plain carbon steel.


AISI 4140 Steel, annealed at 815°C (1500°F) furnace cooled 11°C (20°F)/hour to 665°C (1230°F), air cooled, 25 mm (1 in.) round

Tensile Strength, Ultimate 95000 psi
Tensile Strength, Yeild 60200 psi

AISI 4140 Steel, normalized at 870°C (1600°F), reheated to 845°C (1550°F), oil quenched, 370°C (700°F) temper, 25 mm (1 in.) round

Tensile Strength, Ultimate 231300 psi
Tensile Strength, Yield 212000 psi

Mind you these are 1” thick round bars, your rifles have at best ¼” thick sections. But you can see, given the same bar thickness, the heat treated bar is more than twice as strong as the piece heated up and allowed to cool down.

This web page is providing data on useable pieces of 4140, so I could not find data on 4140 that was butter soft. I suspect the ultimate and yield of that would be 25% of the heat treated 4140.

Heat treatment is expensive and easy to loose if the part is exposed to excessive heat. Once that happens the piece is no longer safe from a structural and mechanical viewpoint.

As for cook off in machine guns.

Thermal control in fully automatic weapon fire is a real issue. If you examine machine gun design you will see water jackets, multiple barrels, all sorts of things to keep the heat under control. But it is only for a time, keep firing rounds and the barrel will glow red.

Medium and heavy machine guns have massive barrels. The size and the weight of those barrels make it possible to shoot them to a point where rounds will cook off. However, modern machine gun design is such that when barrels are used up, they are discarded. If you fire enough to get to cook off, the barrel is probably worn out anyway, and since most designs have locking recesses in the barrel, when you install a new barrel you install new locking surfaces. It is also possible that the bolt has to be replaced. The receivers in these things are basically housings into which you put replaceable parts. You can talk to any machine gunner and they will have stories where the gun was fired enough that complete machine guns had to be discarded.

You Colt DS was not built that way. You overheat the frame, the weapon is no longer safe.
 
"Heat has obviously effected the heat treatment of your firearms. "


Maybe, maybe not.
Notive the heat treat levels in the post above.
There is no way ANY leather would remain if it hot 1500F, and most of the wood would have been well past some charring at that point.

Is the char damage on the wood tha finish or is the actual wood carbonized?

No one will touch them for liability reasons.

I will nose around my explosives handbooks and see if there is any datq, but the primers are the most likely thing to have cooked first igniting the powder.
 
there are several gun restoration firms out there that can restore your firearms, but they are really pricey and have a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGG wait time, because they are in high demand for restoring high end pieces. Doug Turnbull would be a good one to talk too and if he can't fit you in the schedule then he would point you in the right direction.

Turnbull restored a few of my sharps cav and infantry rifles and they look better than new, but man did it cost me and he had them for i think close to a year, but it was worth the wait.

JOE
 
To the OP,

Sorry for your loss. I hope your insurance will cover some of this.

Thanks for posting this. I have removed most of the ammo from my safe after reading what happened to you and I may move the handguns to a lower shelf.
 
as far as insurance if you are a member of the NRA you are automatically covered for i think 1k, with option for more.

i had previously spoken with my insurance company and they said that firearms and not covered. need a special policy. so they suckered me out of anther 20 bucks a month on my homeowners policy, but now the guns are covered 100%.

JOE
 
The DS is obviously in the scrap barrel. I have replaced the springs in the Commander and it has run 50 rd with no bad result. I mic'ed the OD of the barrel to see if its going to expand. No change yet.
The long guns had varying degreees of wood damage. A Swede 96 has the tip of the forend charcoaled. All there, but black, just for a few inches . Same for a Mosin, etc, the longest guns in the safe. They arent worth the risk,or even the time .
An SKS has been running fine with No repairs at all, but ya cant kill an SKS. Same with the AK, M1c.I guess they are short enough to have evaded the real heat at the top of the safe.
The Garand had a slight wood charring, then the F/E cracked off from the drying. The op rod spring had shortened some. This and a SW 1917, and a Colt 45 SAA and the Rem 700 are the ones I am most interested in the safety of using.The 700 springs are still nice and snappy. I havent measured spring free length, as I dont know where to find a spec on it.
So yes some got hot enough to affect the springs. But it seems that isnt a sure fire clue that it was hot enough to affect the receviers.Big jump from 450F to char wood to 1600Fto anneal(normalise) steel. Slamfire1 theres a bit in this months American Rifleman about soft receivers on 1903s. Maybe your friend has one of those?
I know why smiths are leery, a local smith did inspect the Win 101 and give a written statement that its safe to shoot. He can no longer do that. I am sure its insurance .
So if I was to take one of these guns and tie it to a suitable rest at my private range, where no one could be hurt, fire it with a 100 ft string ,how many rounds would it take to determine its safe? If it made it thru 10,50,100 with no measurable distortion is it still just dumb?
BTW the ins co paid out a total loss on the policy, in the convenient form of a big check , made out to me and the ex to be. Makes it very easy for lawyers to decide what 50-50 means. So although I was paid for the loss, I didnt get any money to fix the guns.If its just dumb to consider this pursiuit I will weld them shut. But it seems that the lower pressure cartridge guns must have a huge safety margin built in.

No one else will ever be at risk from my project. I will weld them if need be.
My next safe will be in the floor, that wont get hot no matter what.
 
Barrels are not normally heat treated.
Stainless gets some special treatment before use to try and control the size of the sulfur inclusions (large inclusions create weak spots at the grain boundaries in the steel.
Carbon steel machines easily enough to not need sulfur added.

Receivers are hardened to add extra strength directly around the chamber and the locking lug recess.
Those are the only areas actually subject to much loading.

Other parts (1911 slides) are hardened to protect the user.
If the slide cracks it could come off the frame and end up in your face.

The whole thing is sort of touchy since surface hardness is all that can really be measured (indenter tests).
If the metal has been heat treated correctly the surface hardness can indicate the process was followed correctly.

The process is tested very carefully including sectioning and testing the internal hardness. If the external hardness of another piece processed the same way is the same, it is likely the procedure was followed correctly.

It does not indicate what the condition is of the underlying steel without knowing exactly what temperature profile the steel was subjected to.
 
So if I was to take one of these guns and tie it to a suitable rest at my private range, where no one could be hurt, fire it with a 100 ft string ,how many rounds would it take to determine its safe? If it made it thru 10,50,100 with no measurable distortion is it still just dumb?
Click to expand...

Actually, that is exactly what I would do for the ones that have no charing, no discoloration of steel, and no spring set.

I would fire at least one hundred rounds in a rifle and measure the headspace before, and the headspace after. If no measurable change, than maybe it will be good.

As stated rifle receivers are heat treated about the locking recesses. I think in Hatcher's notebook that barrels are not so much heat treated as heated and cooled in a controlled fashion, and hardness tested afterwards. If the barrel is of proper hardness it will be strong enough.

Revolvers, the cylinders and barrels are heat treated. The frame is too, but is often not as hard as they cylinders and barrels.

Spring set worries me as springs are highly stressed steel. And they are buried inside the firearm. If they get hot enough to loose temper, that indicates the overall environment was pretty hot. But I don't know the temp at which springs anneal to softness.

If I had a Colt SAA, that is worth having a Doug Turnbull restore it and reheat treat it.
 
Lesson: Get Insurance

The NRA Lofton Insurance policy is one of the best deals.

We discovered it has better coverage than our SFarm homeowners.
 
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