I have a couple of RED TIDE laundry soap containers that have been used to store powder in for over 20 years.
I had several pounds of 4831 I had purchased surplus in large 50 pound paper drums and 25 pound paper drums. Yes, they were all purchased legally from a surplus dealer in Idaho back in the early seventies. This stuff never had any other markings on it other than the jobber that manufactured it and four inch tall, black "4831" numerals along with a manufacture date which indicated it was made in 1942.
I am using up the last of it now but there is still enough for about five more years. This stuff is slower than the newly manufactured Hodgdon's H4831 and quite a bit slower than IMR4831. Hodgdon and others used to sell the surplus 4831 under their own brand names up to the mid seventies. Of course it was a very popular powder as it was so forgiving and was actually quite stable in different temperatures. I remember paying $20 for the 50 pound kegs and $10 for the 25 pound kegs. There were also larger containers but they wouldn't fit in the back of my car.
To show how well this stuff stores, Hodgdon's used to store it outside under big hayshed style roofs with open sides. The powder was all in large wooden crates that were made out of some sort of treated hardwood with heavy treated paper on the interior. These large crates were approximately four feet square. If memory serves the ones I remember were packed with large paper drums of different sizes, likely for easy loading into feed hoppers at loading facilities.
At any rate, the powder I am still using is over seventy years old and because it has been stored properly and because of the way it was manufactured it is still just as consistently reliable as it was when I purchased it in the late sixties.
