Powder Went Bad
- Thread starter Ganderite
- Start date
The magazine has milk crates of jugs of powder. Every once in a wile I go there and get a jug of something and develop loads for it to use it up. If I live to 127, all will be good.
The powder is mostly left overs from larger loading events where 100's of pounds were used, or jugs or drums of powders given to me to try out.
Some were fantastic, so not so good.
One of the best was Bofors RP28, one notch slower than their powder sold as RL-15. Slightly faster than 4895. Made great 308 match ammo.
RangerPark
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Near Edmonton, AB
You know a guy means business when he literally buys powder by the truck load! And there I was thinking that buying 16 lbs of Varget at a time was a lot...
I was the technical director of a small ammo company making ammo for the police and our military.
This is a timely thread.
Not meaning to hijack here.
I was routing through some stuff recently and found some old powder and primers.
I have a 1lb jug of 4198 and 1lb jug of Varget. Both jugs are still factory sealed and capped. I have a 1lb jug of W231 that was opened but kept capped.
That powder looks as it should, doesn't look out of the ordinary. I'm thinking of using this powder but reduce the loads slightly until the powder
has proven reliable. The original boxes the primers are in are good shape, so I'm not too concerned about those.
Both powder and primers were stored in a cool, dry and somewhat dark spot for most of the time.
Opinions?
Thanks.
Not meaning to hijack here.
I was routing through some stuff recently and found some old powder and primers.
I have a 1lb jug of 4198 and 1lb jug of Varget. Both jugs are still factory sealed and capped. I have a 1lb jug of W231 that was opened but kept capped.
That powder looks as it should, doesn't look out of the ordinary. I'm thinking of using this powder but reduce the loads slightly until the powder
has proven reliable. The original boxes the primers are in are good shape, so I'm not too concerned about those.
Both powder and primers were stored in a cool, dry and somewhat dark spot for most of the time.
Opinions?
Thanks.
Those are basically new powders. Use as usual.
I don't consider a powder old unless it is older than me. (I am 75)
nowarningshot
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Now that everything is coming in plastic, i am both skeptical and reverent in using tin containers. I have pitched some small amounts before, usually when i pull apart someone elses reloads that came with trades. The garden receives them, maybe one of the reasons i have a brown thumb.
what? Throw out pulled powder? What do you use for fire forming brass? A 30/06 case full in my new 9.3x62 did a nice job of reforming brass to this caliber.
- Location
- The Conservative part of Ontario
Not using H4831 in that kind of volume, I just dump it. Better safe I figure.
Mixed with horse manure it makes dandy fertilizer. The manure that is.
It's more likely than not that it would have worked, and I could have chrono'd the loads to check. But having a fresh can available, it wasn't worth it.
I'm just small potatoes compared to Ganderite, but I'll need to live well past 100 (70 now) to use up my powder, provided I concentrate on shooting a fair bit. The 44 I was concerned about is okay. I've loaded some up in .303 and 30-06 and fired it off. I only have 15 lbs, plus a bit to use.
This will draw a bit of rancor.
When I fireform a case I just use a load that's as close as what I expect to shoot in the reformed case as I can get. It's always confused me why people do otherwise.
I've tried filling cases with powder and wax or cereal to bring up the pressures but it's never been very satisfactory IMHO.
When forming a case, I also wouldn't use powder I wasn't sure of. When powder goes bad to the point you can smell it, it will ruin your bore if it isn't cleaned properly, say in the same manner as surplus with corrosive primers.
John Y, It isn't a big deal one way or the other but Ganderite is correct. If you had mixed that pound of powder with the other pound you had on hand, you would have two pounds of powder with exactly the same character burn wise.
I have mixed "new manufacture H4831 with 75 year old 4831 surplus powder and checked them against unmixed powder from each type and the results were less than 1% different, or in Ganderite's measurement about a grain.
As Ganderite stated one of the biggest issues with old powder is when it's been allowed to DRY OUT. Even then, when you mix a pound of DRIED OUT powder with 9 pounds of fresh powder there isn't a noticeable difference that I've been able to detect.
I ran into this with a large lot of 3031 made in 1945. I picked it up cheap and the containers looked good. I put them into the powder magazine and promptly forgot about them as I had a container of IMR 3031 open and at the time it was my go to powder for 308 Win and 303 Brit. About five years later, I took one of the 25 pound, laminated paper containers off the shelf with the idea of splitting it in half and selling one half to a friend.
Being careful, I wanted to make sure all was well. It wasn't. The powder just wouldn't give velocities near the newer IMR 3031. I set it aside for later evaluation. I tried the other container, which had the same lot number and it performed just fine. I spit that container in half and sold that to my friend.
I looked at the other container and noticed a hole about the size of a dime on the bottom edge. Mouse/rat????? Something had chewed that hole. Likely done before I bought it at the auction and I just didn't notice it. Nothing had gotten inside the container and the powder had clumped together enough to stop leakage. That's the only difference. I did use up that powder as well as give it to people for shooting cast lead in centerfire rifle cartridges. It did get used and when used in the latter application, it was just fine.
Well I'm close to 70 and I've started selling off some of the powder lots I won't be using anymore to people that are local. I ended up with a bunch of powder from an estate recently and some of that will be at the Vernon Show later this month. Aug 24-25.
There comes a time in everyone's life when they realize it's now up to someone else to enjoy some of the things we accumulated when we thought we might live forever.
TURF THE LIBERALS IN 2019
Last edited:
Ganderite you are a wealth of knowledge. You sound just like a fellow who would be great to have a cup of coffee or tea with.
I sure do miss Thomas as well. He was great to talk to over the phone. Never in a rush and selling powder till his last days. He would always throw in a pound or two of extra powder to “try out”. I sure do miss the days of cheap surplus powder. Unlike some of you folks I was was not smart enough to stockpile. Well not to the same extent.
This site is full of knowledgeable and very interesting people.
I sure do miss Thomas as well. He was great to talk to over the phone. Never in a rush and selling powder till his last days. He would always throw in a pound or two of extra powder to “try out”. I sure do miss the days of cheap surplus powder. Unlike some of you folks I was was not smart enough to stockpile. Well not to the same extent.
This site is full of knowledgeable and very interesting people.
I traded a large timmies triple triple last year for about 18 pounds of old powder. Mostly rusty IMR dupont tins from the early 80's how ever there was 3 or 4 carboard containers of H4895 marked "this is WWII surplus powder. Shelf life not guarenteed" ha original powder for the garand i thought till i opened it immediately learned what bad powder smells like. One can disintegrated in my hands. In the end most of it went into an empty 8lb keg then down a badger hole wih a length of cannon fuse. I did get 3 good sealed pounds of IMR4227(which i have use for) and 1 IMR4350 out of it.
- Location
- The Conservative part of Ontario
those old cardboard cans marked 'Ammomart' by any chance? I inherited a few of those from an old friend who passed on, unfortunately, they were in terrible shape, pretty much a solid lump in the can. Would not even burn. Also got and still have a number of his IMR powders in the metal cans. They are excellent. Along with some Hercules powders and some discontinued stuff. Most of it that I have left, was and is fine, though some of it must date from the 1950's.
