POWDER WENT BAD

Ganderite

Ganderite

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Farm south of North Bay
I spent the afternoon in the powder magazine, cleaning up and organizing.

This involved finding a number of cans and jugs of the same powder (like RL15) and combining then into just a few full jugs.

I found a 4 pounder of 4350 that was just a solid blob.

And a can of N160 that had eaten trough the metal can and dumped all over the place. It did not have the usual strong smell of bad powder.
lbTgh8d.jpg


I was pleased to find that I had several jugs of 4895, RL15, H335, 748, 760 that I had forgotten about. Christmas came early ...

And the primer shelf filled to over flowing. Over 50,000 primers.
E0IyAJF.jpg
 
Ganderite said:
I spent the afternoon in the powder magazine, cleaning up and organizing.

This involved finding a number of cans and jugs of the same powder (like RL15) and combining then into just a few full jugs.

I found a 4 pounder of 4350 that was just a solid blob.

And a can of N160 that had eaten trough the metal can and dumped all over the place. It did not have the usual strong smell of bad powder.
lbTgh8d.jpg


I was pleased to find that I had several jugs of 4895, RL15, H335, 748, 760 that I had forgotten about. Christmas came early ...

And the primer shelf filled to over flowing. Over 50,000 primers.
E0IyAJF.jpg
Click to expand...
50k of primers…. Damn good for
You!!
 
Must be nice.

No I'm just joking I didn't mean for that to be rude. There has been a few times I found a half pound of power I forgot about or a pack of 100 primes I didn't know where there.

But I've never had more then 15 pound of powder or 3k primes at one time
 
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Ganderite, most folks don't have enough powder or primers on hand to run into these situations.

Many on this site do, but not as many as some might think.

The days of cheap/bulk powder buys seem to be over.

50K primers are a gold mine these days, but when they were $20/brick, if you bought them in 25k lots or even 50k lots, and were used to having 100k on hand, that's when 50K primers was the time to start looking at stocking up again. Not at today's prices.

Like you, I don't shoot as much as I used to, so 50K primers would likely be enough to get by for a while.

I recently went through my powder mag as well and found my last bit of WWII "4831" had gone "rusty" and lit a small fire to dispose of it.

"Rusty" would be putting it mildly. Last fall, the powder was still usable, it "turned" and I doubted its ability to be consistent, in just a few months.

When powder breaks down, the process is "fast"

Thanx for posting this. Checking powder is something that should be a ritual of sorts, especially when making bulk purchases of surplus powders. Many surplus powders may not be designed to be stable for extended periods. Often, they're "commercial surplus" powders, left over from "commercial lots, blended for specific orders in a proprietary manner" for use in extreme conditions or just to keep costs down.

One thing I found with the surplus military powders I purchased, even if they had the same product description, they would often be extremely different from one lot to the next.

The "description" was a safe place to start with a minimum charge of powder.

Word is that the "cannister grade" powder available to handloaders today has a definite "shelf life" So checking powder condition is going to be a priority, no matter how well stored.
 
I can help a bit with that.

I had a bunch of powder that may have come from the same surplus batch of VVN160 that went bad on Ganderite.

I had a case of 5000 primers on the shelf above the powder, and the fumes from the deteriorating powder caused the cardboard box to start disintegrating. The cartons of primers were also starting to crumble. I took a couple from each carton and loaded some ammo with them to check consistency, etc. They were fine, although a couple had what appeared to be rust starting to form.

I pulled all of the "trays" of primers from their cartons, and stored them in a sealed "Tupperware" container, with a note to use them first.

I don't remember any issues with them. It would be something I would have taken notice of.
 
The degradation products fuel further degradation. It can be quick when it starts. I would expect the smell to be gone if it were all over. Looks like that can was toast a while ago. Is 50k primers supposed to be a flex? I guess with the ''shortages".
 
Ganderite said:
I spent the afternoon in the powder magazine, cleaning up and organizing.

This involved finding a number of cans and jugs of the same powder (like RL15) and combining then into just a few full jugs.

I found a 4 pounder of 4350 that was just a solid blob.

And a can of N160 that had eaten trough the metal can and dumped all over the place. It did not have the usual strong smell of bad powder.
lbTgh8d.jpg


I was pleased to find that I had several jugs of 4895, RL15, H335, 748, 760 that I had forgotten about. Christmas came early ...

And the primer shelf filled to over flowing. Over 50,000 primers.
E0IyAJF.jpg
Click to expand...
50k primers… You are going to be banging for a while.
 
Actually, 50,000 is a bit low compared to what I used to have on hand. And now I only have about 20 jugs of powder, too. Back in the day I used to buy powder 1300 pounds at a time, because that is all my truck would carry. It came in 20kg drums.
a613YML.jpg


Powder cost about $8 a pound. Primers (Federal) were about $10 per 1,000.

I used to carry a reserve for at least 100,000 rounds, in the theory that components were like gold... except that gold sometimes went down in value. When I see something on sale I stock up. Have never regretted it.
 
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Man! I really hope I’ll see the days where primers are cheap cheap. Where I can just catch a sale and buy a shwack and stack them somewhere just so they are out of the way. Only to find them way later and say to myself. Oh ya, I forgot about them. Oh the absolute glory that will be!
 
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