I see your point.. I trust you are storing that mass appropriately. The oil spot on the one container is worth looking into. But I see your point. Being a cheap a$$ myself.. I would have done the very same thing as you.. I wish I could do that.. but its not reasonable at this time and in my circumstance. If I had property backed onto crown land... There would be a lead and copper mine out back!
I can only imagine all the fun you've had over the years... and at a price far less than a lot of others here have had to pay.... Good on ya for such a lucky score!
I figure you have enough there for some 200,000-225,00 rounds of modestly loaded 308... that's a lot of trips to the range! and that's just a days worth of production for some factories out there!
My powder is stored in a magazine that used to be inspected twice a year. I say "used to be" because it no longer has tons of powder. The oil stain on the drum is because the drum has been empty for years. It is just one of many such empty drums around the farm that got used for storing tulip bulbs, bird feed, etc. That one is turned upside down and I use it as a work station for servicing my chain saws.
When you load 308 ammo by the hundreds of thousands and a lot of 50 cal ammo too, powder does not last long. Some powder was sold very cheap or just given to me free because I used to share my research results with the powder companies. Some powder companies are just chemical manufactures. What they know about how and why we use it you could stick in your ear and still have room for a banana.
Short story. I was begging a company, who shall remain nameless, to short cut long powders like 4064 and 4831 so it would meter better. They did not know what I meant by "meter". I asked to visit their test lab where they loaded their test ammo. The guy had a cereal bowl of powder, a beam scale and teaspoon. On the next visit I gave him a powder thrower. he was like a dog with 2 dicks.
Anyway, they made up a batch of short cutted powders. 4831, 4895 and another. They gave me the 2000 pounds of shot cut 4895 and told me they had tested it and it was no good, because it was identical to regular 4895. Of course to you and me, if it gave identical results, we would consider that a perfect outcome. That was good powder and it did not last very long. I may have only 2 pounds of it left. Too small a quantity to load in anything.
Here is what the short cut powder looked like. I called it 4896 just to differentiate it from the regular powder.
The story has a terrible ending. I shared that powder with a lot of target shooters. They loved it. One of them was an American shooter, who in his day job was involved with the procurement of powders and ammo for the US Army. He wrote a letter asking that the "failed" powder not be destroyed, suggesting the idea was worth pursuing. He was also interested in a test we had done where we added moly to the final step of manufacturing, in addition to the graphite. They ignored him.
I have a copy of his letter. I never told the powder company (who shall remain nameless, of course) who he was and the significance of his day job. He was a target shooter and did not want it generally known.
