Utah shooters spark 20 wildfires -- and a gun rights controv

[Hush]

Utah shooters spark 20 wildfires -- and a gun rights controversy

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nati ... 4086.story

Like I said the other day, bullets only spark in tv movies, I wish they would educate themselves but they haven't yet and I doubt they will in the future, they want guns and shooters to be the bad guys so they can regulate all the more.

[rogerme]

“Now is not a good time to take your gun outside and start shooting in cheat grass that’s tinder dry,” Republican Gov. Gary Herbert said Friday

People are just stupid. My home is in the woods! I shoot almost daily and I even have a field of brush behind my steel gongs. I have never even seen a spark form a bullet hitting something.

[morris]

Funny, thing is I had a small grass fire this weekend that started from shooting tracers out of my 300 blackout. Thankfully I put it out without much issue but I was surprised that it even occurred it was about 6 feet in diameter and green grass was burning.

[driver6814]

Tracers, and smoke grenades always start fires

[rogerme]

You mean to tell me a round that is burning as to see it's flight path could ignite a fire?

[docwalker]

I have seen many more brush fires started by cigarette smokers tossing out their still lit butts. Or, tractor trailers blowing a tire and keep driving until disintegrates.

[doubloon]

Tracers, and smoke grenades always start fires

There's a indoor range south of here in Spring that caught fire from some idiot shooting tracers. They now have a sign up that says no incindiary rounds, I think they used to have his picture up since he was banned from the range.

[ick]

This doesn't pass the smell test for me. Haven't there been countless attempts to ignite flamable containers without success? I think it was even on mythbusters, standard FMJ and HP don't generate enough to spark a fire in a flamable gas let alone brush. Didn't they have trouble lighting a volatile highly flamable liquid like gasoline even with a tracer round?

http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/10/epis ... viste.html

Sounds like some dolt set fire to the woods with their cigarette whilst shooting... and decided to "blame the bad gun" because they thought they would get in less trouble.

Not believing the story here. Doesn't add up.

[MV10]

I remember reading about a study that used an IR camera to peg the temperature of a 5.56mm round at something like 500 degrees (F) when it exits the barrel, but it cools quickly and is down to only about half that temperature at about 200 yards.

Frankly I was surprised it was even that hot considering the very brief amount of time the bullet is in the barrel. Consider a worst-case scenario, a low-velocity round in a long barrel. That only puts the bullet in the barrel for 1/700 sec if you figure 1500 FPS with something crazy like a 26" barrel.

However, I could see this happening if the shooters were repeatedly shooting a lot of ammo into the same small area. This is the reason shredded rubber is no longer considered a good backstop. There are a lot of range fires on record caused by exactly this.

[calinb]

This doesn't pass the smell test for me.
<snip>
Sounds like some dolt set fire to the woods with their cigarette whilst shooting... and decided to "blame the bad gun" because they thought they would get in less trouble.

Not believing the story here. Doesn't add up.

I agree. Tracers? Sure--I can believe that, but otherwise, I think this might be more "under the radar" gun control. Like hunting lead bullet bans, this smells like another gun-grabber "false flag" to me!

[Libertarian_Geek]

Everyone should pound the Mythbusters (using the forum link below) to do a followup to their bullet & gas tank myth. They love gun myths + it would be a good opportunity to get proper media coverage on the factual side of the false-flag story.

http://community.discovery.com/1/OpenTo ... 2991937776


The test scenario would be an plastic enclosure (clear poly sheeting over a wooden frame) of super dry grasses and well oxygenated air w/ various types of rocks commonly found in Utah. They'd then use various types of bullets in an attempt to ignite the grass.

When that doesn't work, they could step it up to a proper stoichiometric ratio of propane and O2 w/ the same various rocks as targets.

I'd bet that neither would cause ignition. (until they opted for tracers and/or incendiary)

[doubloon]

I believe the only reason tracers made a difference at the indoor range in question is because they use rubber mulch to capture the projectiles. If it had been a plain steel backer I don't see how tracers would have started a fire.

[MV10]

Not sure what you're referring to... what indoor range?

I mentioned rubber berms, so I was trying to figure out if you were replying to what I wrote. It is thought that they catch fire because repeated firing into the same location creates a "hot spot" which ignites untreated rubber (the outside of the rubber chunks are treated but they do eventually break up and require replacing), bits of paper carried into the rubber from targets, and accumulated unspent gunpowder. No tracer required.

A couple of buddies and I have been talking about opening an indoor range on and off, and various bullet trap options are just one of all the things that must be considered. Action Target is a big name in bullet traps and they used to run this very dramatic picture of a rubber berm fire. I don't see it on their site any more (and I noticed they have started selling treated rubber berms, I don't think they used to sell them...) but Google found the same picture elsewhere:



Yowza. I'd hate to have to make that call to the insurance company.

[TonyT]

I have fired in excess of 10K rds of tracer over the last few years, and I can attest to the fact that not only are they fun, but you can set pretty much anything on fire with them, especially .50 tracer. I have always put out fire that I have started, but it is an eye opener. I once fired a 50 tracer from a .510 whisper into a wet log laying in my back yard (which must have been dry inside) and it caught fire!

[700PSS]

Mythbusters?

Apart from tracer or incendiary ammo, I find this "theory" hard to believe. I see this as the latest anti-gun lie fad.

[Libertarian_Geek]

Mythbusters?

Apart from tracer or incendiary ammo, I find this "theory" hard to believe. I see this as the latest anti-gun lie fad.

I'm w/ you 700PSS. That's why it'd be good to play the media against the media.

[700PSS]

Or it could be al-Qaeda. They have been threatening something like this for a while now. Blaming it on the shooting public only accomplishes another goal-disarming America. Just like Fast and Furious. Manipulate the situation to make us look bad and blame us. Then, call for more gun control.

[Blaubart]

It's absolutely possible to set fires with tracer rounds or reactive targets. I've seen it happen many times while shooting at ranges in the Army. I went to the Silencer Shoot back in 2009 or 2010. How many times did they have to call cease fire because of a fire on the range? At least 4 or 5 times that I remember.

Do we really need a law that says you can't shoot tracers or exploding targets during certain months? Or whenever the fire danger is high? It's possible to do it responsibly, but when they pass a law banning it, it won't matter if you're doing it responsibly.

Stupid people are the reason we have stupid laws...

[Libertarian_Geek]

I'm personally not saying that it's impossible that tracer rounds could have that started the fire.

I'm saying that the news media will conveniently overlook such points and will instead promote the flawed idea that shooting (implied any bullets at all) will cause fires if they hit rocks.

[doubloon]

Not sure what you're referring to... what indoor range?
...

It was one in Spring, tracers caught the rubber mulch on fire, I was replying to someone else but I forget who now.