Gun in a hot parked car in the Summer... safe?

[tacotime]

Just wondering about folks with truck guns or car guns that are always in the vehicle, parked in a hot closed-up car in summer...  maybe what, 125 degrees or more in there mid-afternoon on a sunny day?  Worse in the desert states.  Any risk of the gun discharging?

[Conan The Librarian]

No. And the temps are about 145 in a black car parked in death valley during summer. It's been studied extensively by the transportation industry.

[powderman]

I agree with Conan. I've discussed this on another board and the consensus was NO, it's ok. I've never heard of a round cooking off in a vehicle. POWDERMAN. 

[Sourdough]

When I lived in Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, I left rifles and pistols inside my vehicles parked out in the desert.  Never had a problem, even when the heat reached over 115s.  Guns would be so hot you could not touch them with your bare hands without getting burned. 

One night when out on an encampment one dumbXXX threw a hand full of .223 blanks into the campfire.  Only about 1/3 of them went off.  The rest just sat there in the remaining coals and did not do anything.  We sifted the ashes the next morning to remove what was left and was surprised with the number we found unexploded. 

We wanted to stake the dummy out on an anthill that night, but the LT would not let us.     

[quasne.inc]

When I cleaned out my jeep cherokee to sell I found a hand full of .22s some 12 ga shells and assorted other ammo that was fine and I ended up shooting it all.  I lived in Utah and Texas at the time and it got well over 100 degrees quite often. 

[ro]

In my old farm hunting truck there are at least two boxes of 22 lr shells plus all the 20 and 12 ga shells on the dash with all the junk, it gets way above 100-120 every day in the truck all shells are fine, none have ever went off,

[tacotime]

Thanks for the word!  No worry then.

[Doublebass73]

IIRC the flashpoint of smokeless is about 6 times that of the highest temps you'll see in the USA so no worries.

[muznut 54]

The only problem you could have is if you worked up a hot load in cold temps and if the ammo and gun was left in a 120 degree trunk it might not be nice when fired.

[Swift One]

With the exception of the hot load work up, you will have no issues with weapons being stored in the vehicle in hot temps.  Think about a crew served machine gun sitting on top of an armored vehicle all day at an observation post in the hot temps that Iraq brings.

[Blackhawker]

Why would the gun discharge?  The temperature of a chamber from say an auto loading .223, .308 or other gets a LOT hotter than what you are talking about after firing a string of 10 or more rounds and the next round to be fired sits in there just fine.  If there was any danger of a discharge, the whole idea of an auto-loader would have been out the window back in the times of John Browning.

[muznut 54]

I wasn't talking about discharge I was talking about higher pressures when a hot load is fired when the ammo is exposed to heat.

[Brett]

Muznut 54,  I think Blackhawker was answering the OP's question not your post. 

Just wondering about folks with truck guns or car guns that are always in the vehicle, parked in a hot closed-up car in summer...  maybe what, 125 degrees or more in there mid-afternoon on a sunny day?  Worse in the desert states.  Any risk of the gun discharging?