Fire/explosion at Bullseye Indoor Range, Tacoma

[bradsteen]

Bad news for Bullseye Indoor Range. Wonder what caused it?

1 dead, 1 hurt after explosion, fire at Tacoma gun range

Witnesses reported hearing an explosion before the fire erupted, causing ammunition to pop from the heat.

www.fox13seattle.com

Read More

 

[Bacchus]

Bad news for Bullseye Indoor Range. Wonder what caused it?

1 dead, 1 hurt after explosion, fire at Tacoma gun range

Witnesses reported hearing an explosion before the fire erupted, causing ammunition to pop from the heat.

www.fox13seattle.com

Is there any reason that they might store gun powder at the range?

 

[VinnieBoomBah]

There was a fire IIRC at Sierra bullets a decade or so back and they determined it was a build up of unburned powder on the range

 

[Certaindeaf]

Assembling a bomb? no idea

 

[bradsteen]

Is there any reason that they might store gun powder at the range?

There was a fire IIRC at Sierra bullets a decade or so back and they determined it was a build up of unburned powder on the range

Vinnie beat me to it. If I had to hazard a guess it would be unburnt powder in front of the firing line igniting. Indoor ranges are supposed regularly clean downrange to mitigate that risk.

That said, it's just a guess. There's no other info available about it that I've seen so far.

 

[RVTECH]

Assembling a bomb? no idea

Or planted? (tinfoil hat time)

 

[VinnieBoomBah]

Or planted? (tinfoil hat time)

Someone once told me that "getting things to blow up on accident when you don't want them to is easy, getting them to blow up on purpose when you do want them to is much harder"

 

[Alexx1401]

Damn, I have LONG been a yearly member there. Going to have to find a new range now.
If I was to hazard a guess sounds like it may be gas. They had gas heat on the range and the building is OLD. It started out life as a frozen food warehouse LONG ago. sure sounds like a gas leak.

 

[RVTECH]

If I had to hazard a guess it would be unburnt powder in front of the firing line igniting.

Where would all this 'unburnt' powder be coming from? The few flakes from some rounds that might not ignite completely? Heck what little unburnt powder there is usually stays stuck on the gun.

sure sounds like a gas leak.

This sounds pretty plausible.

 

[DirectDrive]

Where would all this 'unburnt' powder be coming from? The few flakes from some rounds that might not ignite completely? Heck what little unburnt powder there is usually stays stuck on the gun.


This sounds pretty plausible.

I could see unburned kernels of powder (especially ball powder) getting blown out of the muzzle and accumulating downrange.
We'll have to wait for the Fire Marshal's report. Those guys are pretty good at determining cause.

 

[Alexx1401]

I could see unburned kernels of powder (especially ball powder) getting blown out of the muzzle and accumulating downrange.
We'll have to wait for the Fire Marshal's report. Those guys are pretty good at determining cause.

Smokeless powder will not blow. You can pour several pounds of it on the ground and light it and all you get is a fire. Black powder will blow but you would have to have a hell of a lot of it to do what happened here.

 

[DirectDrive]

Smokeless powder will not blow. You can pour several pounds of it on the ground and light it and all you get is a fire. Black powder will blow but you would have to have a hell of a lot of it to do what happened here.

Any reloader knows that it's a propellant not an explosive.
But when contained, it can explode.
Again, we'll have to wait for the Fire Marshal's report. They are good at determining cause.

 

[MymuttBear]

I shop at Bullseye a fair bit and I've got to know the guys there quite well. Reports are one person dead, saddens me to think it could be someone I know.

 

[Alexx1401]

Any reloader knows that it's a propellant not an explosive.
But when contained, it can explode.
Again, we'll have to wait for the Fire Marshal's report. They are good at determining cause.

Have you ever been to an indoor range? You could pour multiple pounds of it on the floor and light it and you will not get an explosion. There is not enough powder in the state to get this to happen. How anyone could really think the flakes coming off the firing line could cause this? They have to have never actually seem powder burn.

 

[gmerkt]

A couple of local station news articles stated that the explosion area has been narrowed down to a classroom / storage area. Not the firing line area, it would seem. For a fatality to have occurred, that person was likely to be in the more immediate proximity to the explosion. That is, the classroom / storage area. I'm guessing that the cause of the explosion was related to what individual(s) were doing in the classroom area, not the firing line. If initial fire authority impressions are borne out.

 

[VinnieBoomBah]

Digging through old news stories in the fire I was thinking of was at the Nosler plant and it appears that unburned powder in a test tunnel ignited, causing a fire that led to igniting contained powder in a storage area. So I guess that is how powder on a firing line can cause an explosion.
My apologies for not getting the correct information earlier, I was multitasking while hosting a webinar on how to convince people not to vote

 

[Certaindeaf]

If reloading was done on the premises I can perhaps see a primer tube perhaps somehow being set off and getting fragged through the eye or into an artery.

 

[Member 53867]

How long has Bullseye had a classroom, and where in the building was it? It's been 10+ years since I stepped foot in that place, so things have probably changed (and my memory is out of warranty by a number of years). Bought a few guns and etc. from them. Sorry to hear about this happening.

 

[Heyjoe]

Damn, I have LONG been a yearly member there. Going to have to find a new range now.
If I was to hazard a guess sounds like it may be gas. They had gas heat on the range and the building is OLD. It started out life as a frozen food warehouse LONG ago. sure sounds like a gas leak.

People keep voting for it.

 

[bradsteen]

A couple of local station news articles stated that the explosion area has been narrowed down to a classroom / storage area. Not the firing line area, it would seem. For a fatality to have occurred, that person was likely to be in the more immediate proximity to the explosion. That is, the classroom / storage area. I'm guessing that the cause of the explosion was related to what individual(s) were doing in the classroom area, not the firing line. If initial fire authority impressions are borne out.

Didn't realize it originated in a classroom. Thanks for clarifying.