Nosler Explodes

[cascade_matt]

Just saw this here in Bend. <broken link removed>

Glad everyone was able to get out in time. Could have turned ugly real quick.

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[PBinWA]

"Witnesses said there was a flash in the ballistics-testing tunnel area of the facility, and everybody apparently got out before the blast hit"

Sounds like something went wrong in their powder storage area.

Glad no one was badly hurt.

 

[dragonsden73]

BEND — All 100 workers at a Bend bullet plant evacuated safely just minutes before an explosion rocked the building Wednesday.



The Nosler Inc. plant was evacuated at about 2:15 p.m., after a worker saw smoke and pulled a fire alarm. No injuries were reported.
“From the information we have, everyone was out of the building at the time,” said Bend Deputy Fire Marshal Jeff Bond.
About 10 percent of the 80,000-square-foot building collapsed, Bond said. The one-floor structure has a test shooting range in the basement, but Bond said he didn’t know where the fire began.
KTVZ-TV reported work was under way in the ballistics tunnel, a testing area for ammunition, when there was a flash, followed by an explosion.
The blast shook the ground and rattled windows blocks away.
Barb Gonzalez, who lives near the plant, said the blast was like “feeling a bomb inside your house.” Gonzalez told KTVZ-TV that she saw dense plumes of orange smoke above the plant.
“All of a sudden the house shakes, and the glass is rumbling in all the windows, visibly — all the glass shook,” Bend resident Bella Blackney told the television station. “(It was) really intense. For a second I thought a bomb went off.”
Nosler is a small-arms ammunition manufacturer founded in the late 1940s by John Nosler. It reported annual sales in 2008 between $20 million and $50 million.
The company’s website says it manufactures rifles as well as ammunition. Attempts to reach a company spokesman by The Associated Press were unsuccessful Wednesday evening.