old powder

[Glen72]

A co-worker asked if I knew any one that needing some reloading equipment? A family member past away and left him quite a list of equipment. There is close to 300 lbs. of powder in everything from 1 lbs. cans to 5 lbs. tins.
The question is how long can powder be store in sealed cans? Any thing that was opened was seal back in it's container and lock in a non running refrigerator.
It's been setting close to 30 years. This gent had quite a bunch of reloading equipment, ovens casting molds and lots of dies and several presses.

I asked for a list or to see the equipment, and the answer was yep some day I'll get to it?
Off topic, I just picked up a new computer an it has windows 8, DAMM..I'm to old for new things..

[Rem700]

I think alot will depend on stored temperatures.
I have some powders that are still good after 20yrs.

[Glen72]

Ya I don't know, I'll ask if the building was heated.

[Seismic Sam]

30 year old powder is fine, provided it's been sealed properly. The way you can tell is to take off the lid, and stuck your nose in the can, and see if you detect a slight odor of ether, which is used to make smokeless powder. If it still has that smell, then it's good. Another way to look at it is that the powder in those RA 42 45 cases that you find lying around at Oakdale occasionally has now lasted 70 years. Never found an RA 42 dud on any range yet.

BTW, back when I got into reloading about 1972, the H4831 powder that was being sold was leftover from WWII. IIRC, it was originally made for 37mm Okerlion AA shells. If it's a metal container with a screw cap like the IMR series of powder that are sold, it's almost a sure thing that it's still good. If it's a cardboard cannister, chances are not so good...

[Seismic Sam]

Oh, Windows 8 sucks worse than a n00b asking you to find out how much stuff costs on the MidwayUSA website. I't more repellant than my Bridge Odor after a long winter... It actualy sucks as much as a high capacity magazine ban in the MN Legislature!! Basically it's an operating system designed for the iPhone and people who tweet and text all the time and want to be able to keep track of whether J Lo or Justin Bieber is trending at any particular time. The fact that they forced this teeny bop OS on the whole computer world is pretty Orwellian, and it sucks. I got a Gamer laptop with an AMD A10 quadcore processor and the Radeon graphics chip IN the processor, and immediately backed it up to Winows 7. It was a bit of a chore, but I started programming computers in April of 1964, so I'm a Gen 1 Rev 0 computer nerd. I was 14 and had coke bottle glasses and zits, too!

Just to give you an idea of how revolting this system is, Best Buy has now changed their strategy completely, and sell computers dirt cheap (my A10 was $599!!) and a 3 year service package with the Geek Squad for $299. If you want them to back up your new computer to Windows 7, it will cost you $140 just to get a copy of Windows 7 that they were giving away last year, and then ANOTHER $140 for them to simply load Windows 7 on your new computer!! In other words, it will cost you HALF of hat you paid for an HP Envy laptop to put Windows 7 on it. Even the HP Tech Service people in China admitted to me that their own home computer systems were running Windows 7.

So you can either wipe Windows 8 off the system and put on Windows 7, or you have to learn enough about Windows 8 to change the system around to put all the stuff in the locations that you are used to with Windows 7, and some people have managed to do this. But to begin with, it's like trying to find bullets and powder these days with Windows 8, and you have to spend a lot of time poking around in the EFFEN system to find out where the stuff you want is located. Good luck!

[Glen72]

Damm new software!! You type out a response and it just goes away!!
Enough on the matter, not bringing it up again..

[FJ540]

A buddy's wife got the exact same laptop as I did, only her's came with 8 and mine was clearanced out because it had 7. I got the better deal. They couldn't get stuff to work so they had me come look at it.

OMFG! What the hell were they thinking??? Did the entire design team at MS get waterboarded instead of raises and decide to take the ship down? I thought vista was a POS. They really outdid themselves with 8.

Speaking of the powder and stuff. I'd be interested in checking it out too if that'd be cool with you and proximities are do-able.

[870TC]

I still have some of that H4831 leftover from the WW2 shells. Still shoots fine in my 30-06 and 270

[photogpat]

Temperature is the enemy of smokeless powders...get it too warm too often, and it degrades whether in a cartridge or can. Keep it cool and dry, and it'll last indefinitely.

I'll have to find the photos, but there was a retailer who was storing boxed loaded rounds in their warehouse right next to a heat pipe. These cartridges were regularly exposed to 150-180F. Pretty soon (6-8 weeks), the warehouse workers started hearing "Pop" "Pop" "Pop" (not bang, mind you).

It was determined that the powder was degrading in the cases, off-gassing, and pushing the bullets out of the case with enough force to exit the cardboard packaging. Ammunition and component comfort levels are similar to human comfort levels. If the temperature and humidity are comfortable for you - your materials will generally be fine.

[FJ540]

Makes me wonder about a certain someone's ammo cache in his trunk... Probably not such a good idea in the summer.

So if the powder has started breaking down, but not so much as to unload itself; how would that affect performance when fired? Would it burn faster/slower/not as much gas/ more? Would it squib or KABOOM?

[photogpat]

Makes me wonder about a certain someone's ammo cache in his trunk... Probably not such a good idea in the summer.

So if the powder has started breaking down, but not so much as to unload itself; how would that affect performance when fired? Would it burn faster/slower/not as much gas/ more? Would it squib or KABOOM?

Modern smokeless has stabilizers mixed with it. These will inhibit degradation for a period of time - more time if the powder is kept cool, less time (in some cases just days) if the powder gets hot. Once you get up into the 100's on temperature, degradation begins to speed up dramatically.

Performance will become much less consistent at the tail end of the stabilizer's life - to the point where inconsistent ignition, squibs, and potential KABOOMS (slight) - are a possibility.

http://www.saami.org/specifications_and ... Powder.pdf

[yuppiejr]

But wait, don't we have guys running around the desert regions of the world where it's regularly in that 100+ degree range without refrigerated storage for their ammo? Does the stock turn over often enough this is not an issue? Seems like we'd be having some much more serious logistical/safety issues in Iraq/Afghanistan if smokeless powder within loaded ammunition were this temp sensitive and started breaking down within days of exposure...

I usually break out my bullet-pulling hammer and disassemble a test sample of cartridges from surplus lots so I can both weigh/measure, sniff-burn test the powder before I put it in a rifle and pull the trigger. It's not the most scientific method though I did cull (pulled bullets for trade, scrapped the rest) a batch of old combloc surplus 7.62x54r light ball after the powder smelled and burned strangely (sputtered, burned slowly, created a gummy residue) compared to other examples of the same type I'd broken down previously. I can't imagine the result would have been positive if I'd just thrown one from that lot in a gun and used the prayer/hope method... poor performance downrage being the best result, facial reconstruction-death being the worst.

[photogpat]

But wait, don't we have guys running around the desert regions of the world where it's regularly in that 100+ degree range without refrigerated storage for their ammo? Does the stock turn over often enough this is not an issue? Seems like we'd be having some much more serious logistical/safety issues in Iraq/Afghanistan if smokeless powder within loaded ammunition were this temp sensitive and started breaking down within days of exposure...

I usually break out my bullet-pulling hammer and disassemble a test sample of cartridges from surplus lots so I can both weigh/measure, sniff-burn test the powder before I put it in a rifle and pull the trigger. It's not the most scientific method though I did cull (pulled bullets for trade, scrapped the rest) a batch of old combloc surplus 7.62x54r light ball after the powder smelled and burned strangely (sputtered, burned slowly, created a gummy residue) compared to other examples of the same type I'd broken down previously. I can't imagine the result would have been positive if I'd just thrown one from that lot in a gun and used the prayer/hope method... poor performance downrage being the best result, facial reconstruction-death being the worst.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply the stuff was overly fragile/sensitive, it's not. Modern smokeless is a pretty resilient propellant if you think about the wide range of conditions its asked to operate under. I was speaking about temperatures in excess of 150F being trouble for propellant stability over a matter of days. I could see 110-120F causing some diminishing of performance after some period of months...but not over days.

As far as "over there", ammo stocks turn over rapidly enough - if we were storing ammo long-term in the sandbox, you'd see climate controlled storage like you do for the more expensive ordinance -- or at least partially/semi buried bunkers out of the widest of temperature swings.

[BuckKlier]

I had 2 pounds of IMR 3031, that was from the 70's it spent 15 + years in the garage. when I went to use it this winter, it had brownish dust in it. It smelled fine but there was also some rust in the can, I called the manufactor and the told me to GET IT OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!! it has started to break down and it is UNSTABLE! So it became lawn fertilizer. I figured with the price of bullets it is not worth my time to load several hundred rounds of questionable reloads, and it is not worth the time it would take to pull them down. I bought new powder.

[Glen72]

So now i'm using my wife's laptop,I took the win 8 back.
I have passed on a lot of info from you guys, he is the type of gent that takes his time. No urgency in life, he's a machinist so he's used to just standing there contemplating life and other thoughts.
As time progress I will post what going up for sale. I only reload pistol ammo, but the ability to make my own projectiles, humm..

Never realized how small her laptop is?