I am only going to post idioms that I have actually heard used, or have used myself. I've noticed that lists of idioms are unreliable--they tend to overemphasize "colorful" idioms that are not really used very often, and sometimes omit idioms that are so short that native speakers don't even realize they are using an idiom.

Be aware that explanations of idioms are unreliable. Often nobody really knows the origin or why they mean what they mean, but people invent folk etymologies to explain them.

"Fly off the handle" and "go ballistic" mean "to lose one's temper explosively, to get angry suddenly over something that seems trivial."

"All I said to her was that the car was low on gas, and she just flew off the handle."

"Stay away from the boss this morning, he just went ballistic during the budget meeting."

In both cases, the idioms can be explained in terms of once having a literal meaning. The idiom refers to loss of self-control. The original meanings refer to things that are literally out of control.

1) A loosely-fastened axe head may fly off the handle when the axe is swung.

2) To "go ballistic" requires a bit more explanation. It emerged as an idiom in the 1980s. "Ballistics" is the study of cannons and artillery. Once aimed and fired, a cannonball is no longer controlled. It flies to whatever point it was aimed, and errors in aim, or deflection due to wind, can't be corrected. Modern rocket-propelled missiles fall into two categories: ballistic missiles and guided missiles. Ballistic missiles, like cannonballs, are aimed and fired, and then travel without further control or guidance to whatever point they were aimed at. If the guidance systems of a guided missile fails, the missile is now a ballistic missile. Thus, to "go ballistic" is a joking or euphemistic way of describing a guided missile failure. It didn't really fail, it just turned into a ballistic missile.