Yes. A good friend of mine who is a skeet Hall of Fame shooter sponsored by Remington (at least at the time) told me a story of his visit to the Remington ammo plant in Lonoke, AR. As they were walking around showing him the plant he asked "what's that small building way over there" and the answer was "its were we make primers and we have had to rebuild it a number of times over the company's history".
As you seem to have some good knowledge in this area, I'm sure you know that smokeless powder is not a high explosive and does not detonate...it just burns VERY rapidly
(deflagration). But the primer material is a different story....absolutely detonates.
I was told they keep a water mist constantly in that small building to reduce the risk of static electricity spark which would be way no bueno.
Cheers
A couple of comments regarding deflagration vs detonation:
Most commercial blasting caps contain what is called a primary explosive, a substances that transitions from deflagration to detonation in VERY small quantities, essentially instantaneously. Lead azide is used predominantly today and in the past it was fulminated mercury. These compounds are also very sensitive to friction, shock and heat. So sensitive that during the synthesis of lead azide the formation of large crystals needs to be suppressed with additives (PVA, dextrose) because large crystals breaking up even in the mix of aqueous solutions can detonate the whole batch. Primary explosive manufacturing is inherently dicey and there is no way around it.
The primary explosive in a blasting cap sits between the initiator (fuse cord, electric match or shock tube) and the main detonator charge of about 1 gram of typically PETN or RDX. That is enough to reliably detonate most commercial high explosives. It is also enough to severely mutilate your hands, so treat the caps with respect. Low explosives like ANFO will get a booster charge (50-200 gram of a cast high explosive) in which the blasting cap is inserted.
Primers, OTOH contain lead styphnate as the shock sensitive compound which does NOT transition to detonation when mixed in the primer compound with barium nitrate (oxidizer), antimony sulfide (fuel), glass powder, etc. This is on purpose as
double based smokeless powders --containing significant amounts of nitroglycerin-- like WW231/HP-38 will detonate reliably when stimulated with a standard blasting cap. Since we do not want a detonation in ammunition, primers are by design unsuitable to detonate secondary high explosives. (There are ways to achieve detonation of secondary high explosives without a primary explosive but they are technically much more complicated compared to just synthesizing and using a primary.)
The problem in the old days with black powder was that it is very flammable and a little bit of static discharge can cause the whole mill to explode (look at "energy" in the snippet above). These explosions of what is classified as a low explosive were not as violent as what just happened in Tennessee with high explosives (TNT, RDX, etc.) but still enough to demolish buildings and kill people.
Various, big explosions of ammonium nitrate over the centuries are classic cases of deflagration to detonation transition by virtue of total mass. If you pile up enough of an explosive it will eventually transition to detonation after you set it on fire. The mass required for this is dramatically less if you confine it. (Non-primary blasting caps use a sequence of high explosive at various densities in confinement to achieve detonation from initial deflagration within an inch or so).
Let's wait what further investigation of the incident in Tennessee reveals and if that does not come forward to the public or does not add up I'll call the Industry Operations Investigator (IOI) who I deal with at the ATF(E) and post what he has learned. The details and causes of these incidents are communicated as fast as determined not just throughout ATF(E) but also to the explosives industry in order to prevent future, similar mishaps.
