Open Forum

Mandy - 

It sounds like you are already on the right track.

To let you know where I am coming from, years ago, I was curator at the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Huge gun collection and huge ammunition collection. During my tenure there, we instituted several policies related to the subject of arms and ammunition in collections and exhibits. I have been fortunate to be able to spread the word to others in our industry. 

My goals are to preserve history appropriate to the mission of the museum while preventing bad things from happening to the humans around the collection. 

The basics:

1. Never load ammunition into a firearm in a museum setting.
2. Keep ammunition and firearms separate from each other in storage. 
3. If it is desirable to have ammunition on exhibit, either segregate ammunition from firearms by way of case design or produce dummy ammunition (various ways to do this).
4. There is no need to mark the ammunition as "hazardous". So long as it not loaded into a firearm, cased ammunition is safe on a shelf or cabinet. Treat it like you would any other object. 
5. Muzzleloading arms - run a rod down the barrel to ensure they are not loaded. If you are not comfortable with this, there are muzzleloading groups all over the country. They can show you how. Do this to all muzzleloaders in the collection - especially guns that have been there for years. Some impressive museums have found loaded guns (and cannon) in this manner. 
6. Related objects: powder horns and powder tins - carefully shake powder horns and tins to determine if there is anything in them (does it feel/sound like sand shifting?). If something is in them do the following outside:
   • fill a 5 gallon bucket halfway with water. 
   • pour the contents of the container into the bucket
   • stir
   • pour out on the grass
   • If it was black powder, you have just created a type of fertilizer - potassium nitrate, sulfur, and carbon. If it was any other type of propellent, this should disable it into its components as well. 

FYI - ammunition is not a fire hazard. Yes, primers can cook off, igniting the propellent. However, with no gun to control the expansion of the gasses, there is no means to direct/accelerate the projectile. Ammunition ignited in this manner cannot penetrate standard turnout gear for firemen. 

I hope this was helpful! Good luck and please feel free to contact me! 

Cheers, 

Dave K.

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David Kennedy
Curator of Collections and Exhibits
US Marshals Museum
Fort Smith, AR
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-08-2023 02:34 PM
From: Mandy Langfald
Subject: Live ammunition

We have a fair amount of live ammunition in our collection. Small stuff for revolvers, rifles, and shot guns.

The live ammunition is stored separately from everything else and the cabinet is clearly marked with warnings as to its content. 

We are now wondering if we should somehow mark the record in our database to indicate extra caution needs to be used with these objects. We currently flag objects that have arsenic, asbestos, poisonous, etc. as "hazardous." Opinions on if it would be worth the time and effort to do the same with live ammunition?

How does your institution handle this?

Thanks,

Mandy

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