Bad Powder pictures

[milkman]

I had a pound bottle of powder go bad once before, but nothing this dramatic. What looks to be the lid is only the paper liner under the metal lid. When I peeled the paper back there were evil looking and smelling brown fumes curling up from the powder. It was badly clumped and much of it was a dirty brown color. The fumes had a very strong acid smell which would burn the nose. All that was left of the metal from the lid was an oily feeling residue and a ring of crud on the bottle. It appears that the acid fumes are attacking other metallic objects around the powder containers. What a mess !!

When inspecting the pictures I noticed the second bottle, both of which were surplus 4895 had also gone bad, I went and removed it and cleaned off the shelf --- And I just now noticed the red looking liquid under the 7383 bottle. Dang, I have to get some better lights in there.
Milkman

[7x57]

Wow, I have heard of powder going bad, but never seen it before. It looks like it turned liquid.

[williamwaco]

Those evil brown fumes were Nitro Glycerine.
The liquid is quite likely the same.


You need to dispose of that VERY CAREFULLY.



.

[milkman]

7X57
The powder itself did not turn liquid, It just turned colors, stank like sulpheric acid and gave off brown fumes. I assume it was the acid fumes turned the metal lids on the powder jars to some kind of liquid and brown rust crud. The liquid, whatever it is, ate the paint off of the shelving I had stored it on.

As a further note, the powder was surplus IMR 4895, purchased about 6 years ago and stored in my shop which is not climate controlled. We have had a couple of bad summers here in Arkansas, which I am sure did not do it any good.

Shortly after I purchased the powder I had separated it into the 2 one pound jars with part remaining in the Plastic 8 lb jug. The powder in the jug was also bad. Both jars and the Jug going bad at the same time --- they were the same lot and stored in the same conditions, but I didn't expect that.
milkman

[milkman]

WilliamWaco

You mean Shaking everything to break all the clumps wasn't such a good idea ???

[fatelk]

I have seen that before. Coincidentally enough, also old surplus 4895. It gave off a nasty brown gas. For a year afterwards I was finding various ammo that I had loaded with it before I realized what was going on. The ammo was easy to ID as it corroded from the inside out, eating through everything. No components were salvageable, except as scrap lead and brass.

[milkman]

I haven't used much 4895 in the last couple of years hand what loaded ammo I have has been stored in the house in the air conditioning, but I had better pull a few boolits to check it out. Thanks for the tip, I hadn't thought of that.

[williamwaco]

WilliamWaco

You mean Shaking everything to break all the clumps wasn't such a good idea ???


not so good.

I have seen this three times in my life, every case was with military surplus powders.

I never saw the liquid but Hogdon's told me it could form. They said to IMMEDIATELY pour it out on the ground and spread it over a very wide area. Since I lived in the country, I walked out to the middle of the dirt road and sprinkled a one pound can over about 100 feet of dirt road.


.

[Elkins45]

I have about 10 cans of IMR4831 that is slowly doing the same thing.

I'm still trying to figure out how to separate out the brown grains.

[Frank46]

Thanks for posting this. I've never seen anything like that. I had a one pound can of IMR 4320 that I bought some years back. When I went to use it the small screw top was very badly rusted and when I got it off the entire inside of the can was also badly rusted. Fertilized the lawn with the powder and when empty the interior was covered with heavy rust. Rather be safe than sorry. Frank

[milkman]

WilliamWaco

The liquid only formed on the bottles with the metal lids. The 8 lb. plastic jug with plastic lid, like a purex bottle, was ok other than smell and color. the powder all went to fertilize apple trees. The liquid was diluted with lots of water for clean up.

[popper]

sprinkled a one pound can over about 100 feet of dirt road. i.e.d.?

[Rocky Raab]

You should send those photos to Hodgdon. If you still have the bottles, record the lot numbers; they will want those. Powder in those plastic bottles isn't old enough to have deteriorated in the usual way. Hodgdon will be VERY glad to know about his.

If you don't have a contact there, PM me and I'll give you one.

[wallenba]

Yeah, HEHE. I found an old metal cone top and cardboard type cannister of W296 in a corner of the garage years ago. looked like that.

[milkman]

Rocky,
That was surplus powder bought in an 8 lb jug that I had transferred into a couple of empty bottles. Same powder but not original to those bottles. I had only had it about 6 years, but It may have come out of WW 1 ammo for all I know.

[Rocky Raab]

Ahhh. Never mind.

Run, do not walk, to get that stuff out of the house.

[AggieEE]

I have heard of certain lots of war time powders not being washed enough to get the nitric acid out of the cellose after the nitraction step. Hence the powder breaks down over time and we see the results above. Yes, handle carefully and get rid of it. AggieEE

[km101]

Wow, thats nasty looking! I have some surplus powder that I have had for several (10+)years. This inspored me to check all my powder stock for degradation. I did not find any problems, even though my reloading shop is not climate controlled. And we routinely have Many 100+ degree days here each summer. But I will be checking my powder more often after this!

Thanks for the warning!

[leadhead]

I had the same thing happen to a 8# jug of military 4895.
When I unscrewed the lid, a liquid droped on my brand
new jeans. The brown fumes were sulfuric acid and very
nasty. Guess what happened to the jeans? Big holes.
Wife was really pi$$ed about that. Like I did it on purpose.
Damn near died when I had to dump it.
Denny

[Dutchman]

Reloder 7 from 1984 went bad a couple years ago.

http://images12.fotki.com/v197/photos/2/28344/1676633/DSCF1542bp-vi.jpg

http://images38.fotki.com/v1213/photos/2/28344/1676633/DSCF1544bp-vi.jpg

Older metal keg of SR4759 is still good.

http://images26.fotki.com/v887/photos/2/28344/1676633/DSCF1546bp-vi.jpg

[Cherokee]

Now I've got to check my stock of milsurp 4895......Never seem anything like that before in 50 years of reloading.

Edit: 4895 looked and smelled fine.

[Rocky Raab]

By the way, single-base extruded powders are the ones most likely to go bad this way. It's the result of residual acids, they think.

Double-base powders are much less likely and no spherical powder has ever been known to go bad. (Poor storage conditions could change this, of course.)

[243winxb]

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/th_IMR4895_20090928_1.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/?action=view&current=IMR4895_20090928_1.jpg) http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/th_IMR4895_20090928_2.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/?action=view&current=IMR4895_20090928_2.jpg) http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/th_IMR4895_20090928_3.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/?action=view&current=IMR4895_20090928_3.jpg) Dupont IMR 4895 The Manufacture of Smokeless Powders and their
Forensic Analysis: A Brief Review http://firearmsid.com/Feature%20Articles/McCord_gunpowder/index.htm These photos & more albums at > http://www.photobucket.com/joe1944usa

[fatelk]

Wow, that's pretty bad. I've only had the bad surplus 4895, some dusty 4064 that I threw out, and some WWII surplus 4831 that was really on the edge so I dumped it too.

My experience with powder starting to go bad is that it "lost power" and smelled bad when shot. I tried working up a load with the 4831 and got erratic and low velocity over the chronograph.

I was at an estate sale last year, bought some old loading gear and the guy asked if I was interested in some old powder. He pulled three old brown bottles out of a drawer, labeled in sharpy but I forget the powder. I was immediately uninterested but opened them to look out of curiosity. The first one was clearly two powders mixed. The next one hissed and let out a brown gas when opened. I didn't open the third one. I told him he really should dump them out on the lawn so someone didn't get hurt. He agreed with me when he saw the toxic-smelling brown gas seeping from the one bottle.

It is weird how some goes bad while some seems to last forever. I have some other WWII era powder that still seems fine as I slowly use it up. I guess it's all in how it was made, and how it was stored. The surplus 4895 I had that went bad had been stored in an attic before I got it.

[sbeatty1983]

Hmmm Ive got some blue dot and bullseye in the same canisters as the RE 7 that duchman posted. Some of my grandfathers stuff he gave me. Guess I should load and shoot it before it has a chance to go bad. He was an employee at the Hercules plant in Hattisburg MS, guess he could probably get a good deal on the stuff.

[mdevlin53]

Today i found some bad powder in a new box of cartridges. I was at the range and got a squib on a new round of 7.7 Jap. had to dislodge the bullet rom the barrel. When i dumped out the remaing powder from the case a large lump fell out on the ground. Two shots later it happened again but this time i saved the powder. Stopped shooting the gun and packed up the box of cartridges. I called the fellow who sold me this box and cautioned him to take these off the shelf
,http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_237435037e4e1b5d14.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=6405)

[milkman]

mdevlin53

were those factory loads or commercial reloads?

[mdevlin53]

How would i check that i know they were shiney new looking. The primers were not crimped and the jackets on the bullets looked like they were made yesterday

[milkman]

I can see that the box says new ammunition, but If reloaded I would think that it should have some kind of disclosure statement. I have never seen that brand before.

[mdevlin53]

norma brass is 27 bucks from midway so i took a shot with the cost of this at 24 and change i figured it would be worth it for the brass alone. When i unload the unfired cases i will send in a picture of the powder i remove.

[Gisli]

This is very strange. Could it be that high temperature is spoiling the powder ? I am using Hodgdon H-335, that I bought around 1980 and Herco from ca 1976. Nothing wrong with them.

[milkman]

Gisli

I have some HS6 that has a price tag of $3.59 on it and an 8 lb container of Herco from 1977, stored in the same conditions, and both are still good. I am pretty sure that being stored in climate controlled conditions wouldn't have hurt it any though.

[gamma50]

I have a pound of H-450 that I bought 20 years ago? its a metal can, yellow and black and cost $8.50. years ago I was loading 30/06 and tried this powder, didnt get a clean burn, BIG spherical lumps, not balls, odd shaped lumps. so I leave it there with other forgotten powders, and now the odd shaped balls that are lumps are all cracked into flakes, odd shaped flakes, smells ok, but looks alot different, I guess it will go to the garden, also found a old H-110 metal can lid metal, but it was red and smelled bad burned my eyes, torched a nice line for the kids,but I have W231 that is 30? years old and still a sgood as the day I bought the 8 pound keg.
just starting cleaning area after 33 years, oh I cleaned but just lost track of stuff I collected

[felix]

231 has 25-30 percent nitroglycerin, a strong preservative, and assumes no solvents are remaining after washing them out (chemically). Solvents, above a certain threshold, in ANY powder will make the final powder deteriorate much faster than normal. This was shown in a picture above having two single base powders side by side approximately the same age. One good, one bad. ... felix

Older RL7 had only approx 5 percent nitroglycerin, instead of the approx 10 percent within the latest lots. ... felix

[Mal Paso]

I thought Sulfuric Acid was only used in very small quantities to absorb water from the Nitric acid used to process the cellulose or glycerin.

[HangFireW8]

Those evil brown fumes were Nitro Glycerine.
The liquid is quite likely the same.


You need to dispose of that VERY CAREFULLY.



.

If it was 4895, no it wasn't, H4895/surplus 4895 was a single base powder, and that single base was nitrocellulose.

HF

[dickttx]

Interesting topic. I have about 20 cans of powder I bought in the late 60's and early 70's. Over that 40 year period it has been stored in non controlled temps ranging from -20 to probably 150 degrees. A few of the square metal cans with the pop top have rusted thru the tops and a few others a sour smell. Others seem to be OK. I have a 4# cardboard container of Unique that had bee opened those many years ago but very little used from it. I loaded some 41 Mag rounds from it a couple of years ago, and could not tell any difference between it and some new Unique.

[209jones]

I just tossed some Imr4895 last year that was up in the 20-25yr old range, and some Imr4831. Both were a pale grey and left red dust on a glass measuring cup. My nose is terrible, so the smell was not something I could tell much difference in, from any other powders I had.
It didn't look as bad as the pics above though. Other powders I have that are older, were fine

[fatelk]

Bad powder- the gift that keeps on giving.

I had some surplus 4895 go bad years ago. For a long time I would find the occasional ammo I had loaded with it before I realized what was going on. I thought it was all gone, until today.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm274/fatelk/011.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm274/fatelk/014.jpg

[BLACKTALON]

Wow, I feel fortunate. I have stored an old can of Winchester 748 for over 30 years and just used it to load up some .223's. it looked and smelled great

[Bert2368]

The brown fumes are nitrous oxides. Various preservatives such as diphenylamine are added to powder as "getters" for this, eventually all the preservative is used up and then the degradation starts to go pretty fast-

[smokemjoe]

Ihad a few cans of H322 pulled powder do the same, It was in a wooden scotch box and couldnt figure out were the smell was coming from a awhile. When I tiook the lids off smoke came out of the cans, Joe

[Bad Water Bill]

Bad powder- the gift that keeps on giving.

I had some surplus 4895 go bad years ago. For a long time I would find the occasional ammo I had loaded with it before I realized what was going on. I thought it was all gone, until today.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm274/fatelk/011.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm274/fatelk/014.jpg

Does that picture bring back memories.

Several years ago a major dealer was selling SURPLUS KOREAN 30-06 (KA72) ammo.
Minimum order 400 rounds but the price seemed good. Took the ammo and a BRAND NEW Weatherby to the range. With the first shot my son (he was shooting at the next bench) said "Dad I just got stabbed with a piece of brass." Took the ammo and gun to the range masters office. Dusty said "throw all of that ---- in the garbage if you value your life". There had been 2 other cases so far in that week alone with KA 72 ammo being bad.

When we got home I broke a round apart. From the base of the bullet down for over 1/2" there was a very solid GREEN plug of ????.

I can only guess what would have happened if it had been a weaker action.

IF IN DOUBT THROW IT OUT PLEASE.

[DLCTEX]

This thread made me check my supply of H-4831 which is down below 20 lbs. I bought it from the widow of a shooter and it had been in her unheated garage for 25 years. I have kept it in my reloading room which is air conditioned to a max of 80*. It is in the cardboard "tub with a lid and that is in an metal old lard can with with a friction top. Still looks and smell great. The original amount was 50 lbs. and weighed 27 lbs. when I bought it 5 years ago.

[jaysouth]

Shoot more and store less!

[rogn]

I have several old canisters of powder that date back into the '60's, all are are clean and useable. I have however had a dozen separate bottles of GI H322 go sour afetr about 5 years in two separate locations. Black bottles with the tops corroding rapidly are the give aways. For those who care the brown fumes are predominately nitric oxide, the off gassing portion of fuming nitric acid, this stuff combines with water to form plain old nitric acid. Inhalation of this stuff is definitely bad for living things,. So be careful about nose checking. If its brown fumes, you realy dont need to smell it. There is no free sulphuric acid in gunpowder at this time.It is used as a "drier" during synthesis of nitrocellulose or nitroglycerine.

[Cadillo]

not so good.

I have seen this three times in my life, every case was with military surplus powders.

I never saw the liquid but Hogdon's told me it could form. They said to IMMEDIATELY pour it out on the ground and spread it over a very wide area. Since I lived in the country, I walked out to the middle of the dirt road and sprinkled a one pound can over about 100 feet of dirt road.


.

I had that happen to two 8lb. jugs of Mil-Surp IMR 4895 after a few years in an A/C environment. The acid fumes were breathtaking to say the least. I made the mistake of pouring it in the yard like I usually do with unidentified or otherwise unwanted powder. This stuff killed all the grass and weeds graveyard dead. Took several months for the ground to hair over again.

[Vinne]

http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/th_IMR4895_20090928_1.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/?action=view¤t=IMR4895_20090928_1.jpg) http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/th_IMR4895_20090928_2.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/?action=view¤t=IMR4895_20090928_2.jpg) http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/th_IMR4895_20090928_3.jpg (http://s338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/?action=view¤t=IMR4895_20090928_3.jpg) Dupont IMR 4895 The Manufacture of Smokeless Powders and their
Forensic Analysis: A Brief Review http://firearmsid.com/Feature%20Articles/McCord_gunpowder/index.htm These photos & more albums at > http://www.photobucket.com/joe1944usa

The pic of that 40cal case with the blown case head is the exact same thing that happened to my 9mil case in a S&W Segma. I sent it back with the case and they said they repaired it but I never trusted it again!!

[oldarkie]

i just opened a lb of imr 4350 made in 08, had yellow dust in it,called imr and they want it back,they will send me a new lb and pay for all shipping.then i checked the rest of my powders ,2 cans imr 4895 about 12 lbs same thing bought in 94. every thing else is ok.it has all been in a controled enviroment , i hate to but i guess ill pour it out.

[Desertbuck]

I have not had powder go bad on me YET! Even the powder I saved from some 40's 7.92 Turk ammo I pulled down when I was 15yr old is still good. Will powder keep longer if it is stored in a cold environment such as a freezer, Or is it best to keep it at room temp?

[orthophonic]

That's some really rough looking stuff! I have some old powder, Alcan #5, #7 and various Hercules powders. None of them that are open seem to have anything wrong with them other than the 3 pounds of Alcan #7 has no smell whatsoever. The oldest Winchester powder I have is WSL and I'm using up the first can up since it was rusty on the outside. Reckon I must be pretty lucky!

[Swamp Man]

Anyone have any idea how long you can store 2400 powder? I have not yet started reloading for my 410 but was wondering if I should buy in bulk for the long haul or stick to smaller containers of powder. If it will store well bulk would give me more price control but if there is a chance of it going bad bulk could end up costing me in the long run.

[Bad Water Bill]

Not sure you have enough years left in you to worry about that.

Some of mine is 40 years YOUNG and still sends PB to the berm every time the hammer falls.:bigsmyl2:

[Swamp Man]

Good to know it will last for a good while I think I'll go ahead and buy in bulk. Thasnks

[Case Stuffer]

Just because powder has nito in the name of its makeup does not make it subject to the same dangers ad Nitro as use in blasting / dynomite.

Here us a thought , powders now have a shelf life limiter added to them so that we can not store them for 50 yeras or more.

[HangFireW8]

Here us a thought , powders now have a shelf life limiter added to them so that we can not store them for 50 yeras or more.

Thank you for your thought. I will give it all the consideration it deserves!

HF

[manomet]

I bought a 1lb can of Varget that I didn't open for a few years and found the seal broken when I did. I poured some out and it had yellow/brown color but I loaded some any how. BIG MISTAKE! It was my one learn the hardway experience. Don't do it throw it away and chalk it up to a bad day!

[243winxb]

IMR 4198 (Dupont) 1 lb can, just opened last week. Has the brown/redish dust. Smells ok. Looking into the can, shows small spots of rust. Outside, pouring from one container to another to let the wind blow dust away. This is can #9 of 10, but a new lot number. Other 8 cans, no problem. Did notice this rusty lot, by volume, was almost 1 gr lighter at the same measure setting. Loading my standard 21 gr charge, placed the groups a little higher on target. Bolt took a little more effort to open. Groups were normal. http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n420/joe1944usa/FirearmsReloading102/SavageAxis223R.jpg

[Bayou52]

All interesting stuff.

I've got metal cans of Win. 231, Win. 296 and IMR 4198 that are 35+ years old. All powders have been stored in a south Louisiana attic for about the last 20 years during which I'd gotten out of reloading. Having now resumed reloading, I reached for the old powders and the old primers which are also about 35+ years old.

Despite their age, all of the powders look, smell and feel like brand new. Primers look new, also.

All of that notwithstanding, the final test is the performance. All powders and primers perform like new. In short, they go bang real good.

I only wish new containers of powders and primers would have price tags with numbers like those on the old ones!

[LeftyDon]

During the Vietnam War our ship got a load of made in the 1930's 5"-38 shells that had a tendency to blow up as they left the barrel of our guns. I had to duck a few times while standing bridge watch. One shell darn near took out our supply officer when some of the shrapnel poked a hole in the ship and gave him a deep cut on his nose. Just inches from going home in a body bag! The remaining shells were given to Davy Jones.

[Maximumbob54]

I notice that most of these posts report powder stored in some hot areas for a long time before use or unknown stored milsurp powders. I store all mine in the back bedroom closet the same as my grandfather used to do. I took in his old powder collection when he passed and have just recently used the last of his stash. I had some older metal can powders and I'm not sure when 2400 was rebranded as Alliant but this was a lot of older Herc powder. Not a bit of it was bad and everything went bang with the pull of the trigger.

[detox]

I'm not sure when 2400 was rebranded as Alliant but this was a lot of older Herc powder. Not a bit of it was bad and everything went bang with the pull of the trigger.

Alliant began relabling canisters in 1995. I once worked for Hercules until they sold.

[w5pv]

Thanks for the heads up,I will have to check the powder I have.

[ell198679]

Another reason, people should stop buying 20+ pounds of W 231 etc. That they likely won't use for 20 years plus.... Hoarding is not that great apparently. Anyways, yea if you have dry relatively cool conditions, your powder should be fine. Just sucks not being able to buy any pistol powder at all.

[Farmer&shooter]

Over the years I have had some old 4831 start to DUST, after being over forty years old, but NOTHING like those first pictures! Mine probably enjoyed the best possible storage conditions, while the powder in those horrific pictures must have been stored under the BBQ!

[Farmer&shooter]

I have 2400 that is about forty years old. I have carefully stored it, and it is just fine.

[Bad Water Bill]

I had to quit reloading for over 30 years.

I stored my powder in the freezer section of an old junk refrigerator.

The fridge was in the gun room along with all of my moulds and other steel goodies like guns,dies and presses.

When I started back again there was not one speck of rust on any piece of metal and the temp in the room had never been over 75 nor below 70 some powder survives till this day but others went directly out on the rose bed and what was left of the metal cans went into the garbage.

Why some survived and others that were stored only 1/4 inch away went bad still remains a mystery to me.

[Ricochet]

I've read what Dr. Tenney L. Davis's 1942 textbook "The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives" has to say about this, and I have a US military article that I downloaded before they took their technical stuff offline or at least blocked it from search engines. Nitrocellulose is inherently unstable. You can't make it stable, but you can reduce conditions that make it more unstable. There is a small amount of water left in all powders, and this gradually reacts with nitrocellulose by hydrolysis, a molecule of water reacting with a nitrate group on the nitrocellulose to produce a molecule of free nitric acid and restoring the original hydroxyl group of cellulose at that site. Nitric acid catalyzes more rapid hydrolysis of other nitrate groups, which accelerates exponentially. You might think that removing all the water would be a fix for this, but it's not practical and a very thin film of adsorbed water on the surface of the powder grains actually helps extend the powder life. Nitric acid decomposes to produce nitric oxide, which is clear, and nitrogen dioxide which is the nasty brown gas. Same stuff that makes smog brownish. The nitrogen oxides also catalyze more rapid breakdown of nitrocellulose. Lots of things have been tried or used to block these reactions, but two have been widely used. Diphenylamine reacts with the nitrogen compounds to form nitrodiphenylamine, and can react once more to form dinitrodiphenylamine. When all of the diphenylamine is used up this way it no longer helps to preserve the powder. Usually about 1% diphenylamine is used. More than about 2% diphenylamine deteriorates powder faster itself. The other acid neutralizer is calcium carbonate in the form of chalk, put in the aqueous phase during Ball powder manufacture to clear out residual acids from either newly made nitrocellulose or old deteriorated powder being recycled. Some of it gets into the powder, where it can continue to absorb nitric or nitrous acids released from deteriorating powder. That residual chalk has also been reported to cause gas system fouling and bore deposits in some cases, so since the mid '60s the amount of it in the powder has been reduced. The other big thing that deteriorates powder is heat. Like most chemical reactions, these reactions occur more rapidly as the temperature rises, often exponentially. Powder lasts much longer with cool storage. The military has used a system where a sample from each batch of powder used is kept, referenced to the ammunition lots loaded from it. These samples are kept at an elevated temperature around 150 degrees F if memory serves me, and they have a formula for this more rapid aging to convert to expected ammo life in normal service. They watch for red fumes, and when that starts the powder is done. When they predict a lot of ammo has expired according to the test they retire it, it's pulled down and that's where much of our surplus powder comes from so it's already on a short expected life. Furthermore, the decomposition reactions are exothermic, releasing heat. If powder is stored in large bulk amounts the heat can't escape, the rising temperature makes the powder decompose faster releasing more heat, and eventually the powder autoignites. This has caused major disasters with battleships, ammo dumps etc. blowing up. That's a possible consideration if you have barrels or cases of powders in close storage. One more thing about deteriorating smokeless powder: It loses chemical energy as the nitrate groups are lost, but often old powder makes erratic, unexpectedly high pressures. The reason, according to the Army ballisticians, is that the long molecular chains of nitrocellulose break into shorter molecules. This makes powder more brittle. Powder grains shatter during firing, exposing much more surface area to burning, making it burn faster and raising pressures. That is a major reason they retire military ammo when it reaches the end of its "best used by" life. Very old ammo may exhibit this. I've seen signs of higher than normal pressures including perforated primers with early 1940s Turkish ammo, which has likely seen high temperatures in storage. So check your powders now and then for the red-brown fumes. If you see any it's time for that powder to be safely disposed, and you'd better make sure any ammo loaded with it gets used quickly or broken down.

[Bad Water Bill]

Thanks for posting the explanation and warnings.

[John Boy]

Ricochet - Excellent post!

[BwBrown]

Reloder 7 from 1984 went bad a couple years ago.

http://images12.fotki.com/v197/photos/2/28344/1676633/DSCF1542bp-vi.jpg

http://images38.fotki.com/v1213/photos/2/28344/1676633/DSCF1544bp-vi.jpg

Older metal keg of SR4759 is still good.

http://images26.fotki.com/v887/photos/2/28344/1676633/DSCF1546bp-vi.jpg

Wow! I've never seen stuff like that - and I have powder on my shelf that is, in a couple cans, 30+ years old - price stickers like 2.96, 4.35!
I've always been sort of careful about wild temperature variations, sealed cans, low humidity...

I bought from a friend this week an 8# container of 4756, commented as we parted that it felt good to be buying in 8# containers again.
Had a bout with cancer a couple years ago, and for awhile wouldn't even buy a green banana!
Let's hope that 2016 is a good year - and keep your powder dry, of from whatever makes that brown gunk! Yuk!
Bob;

[Bad Water Bill]

When it looks like this
http://images12.fotki.com/v197/photos/2/28344/1676633/DSCF1542bp-vi.jpg

It has AGED enough to make great fertilizer for moms favorite flower bed.

[HangFireW8]

Those evil brown fumes were Nitro Glycerine.
The liquid is quite likely the same.


You need to dispose of that VERY CAREFULLY.



.

Sorry, both powders are single base and have no NG content, nor is NG a decomposition product.

[Col4570]

Just thinking if any unburned Powder is left in the Rifle Barrel and it has the same corrosive tendencies,it may well ruin a good Rifle.Since Steel Cans are rusting it stands to reason that barrel Steel will be damaged.

[JeepHammer]

I'm still trying to figure out how to separate out the brown grains

:-D Have you tried separating it in water to see if one color floats, like bad eggs or potatoes? ;)

[JeepHammer]

Ricochet,
That is almost exactly what DuPont's handbook says.

Why we all get warned about handling nitrocellulose powder,
From DuPont's 1978 'Handling Of Military Bulk Propellants & Explosives',

"Nitric acid (the 'Nitro' in Nitroglycerin) is a powerful solvent and will easily & ready penetrate skin, particularly thin skin between fingers, wrists, face & neck.
Direct ingestion is possible when touching mouth, nose & eyes.
Studies have confirmed the average human touches their face 3 to 5 times every waking moment.
Nitric acid metabolizes into nitric oxide, a powerful vascular dilator, which will cause spikes in blood pressure, dizzy spells, severe headaches, heart palpitations, heart arrhythmia, strokes and eventually death.
All appropriate personal protection equipment (Chemical PPE) should be worn while handling, and PPE should NOT be handled afterwards until properly cleaned."

They always warned us about the 'Powder High' & headaches...

[Tom W.]

And yet I was prescribed nitro tabs if I felt another heart attack coming on. The good part was if I felt an instant headache it wasn't a heart attack.....

[Blue2]

Last week-end I was at the range testing different brands of ammo in a 22lr. One box of Winchester brand 22lr had several misfires. I turned the cartridges and fired again but no luck. A couple of weak sounding reports and a few normal shots. I used my multi- tool to pull the bullets for recycling and the powder in the failed ammo was black and clumped together . I disassembled a dozen more and encountered some that was half light gray fluffy and half black clumped and some that we're fully gray dry powder and a few that were completely black and wet looking. This was all from the same box that looked completely normal on the outside. I came by it frm an estate so I do not know the history behind its storage. First time I have encountered anything like this.

[odfairfaxsub]

So the solution is store climate controlled at somewhat lower temps?

[GONRA]

GONRA sez - almost certainly - YES!!!!!!

[AllanD]

Those evil brown fumes were Nitro Glycerine.
The liquid is quite likely the same.


You need to dispose of that VERY CAREFULLY.



.

those evil brown fumes were certainly NOT NitroGlycerine,
and almost certainly Nitrogen Tetroxide. (aka the anhydrous form of nitric acid)

[drac0nic]

Adding my pics. This is AA 3100, lot 01994. Not listed in their recall. Didn't get any visible fumes but man it burned the eyes. Cap was really faded out and the paper in the cap was really yellow as you can see in one of the pics. I wound up with this fabulous ball. It has grey crystals on it. This was super yellow as I added water to it.

251025

[rushin4]

Glad my stuff is in climate controlled cabinet in the basement, complete with dehumidfier. Some powder over 20 years old, still looks, smells, and shoots fine.

[GONRA]

GONRA sez the brown fumes are NOx.

[bocash3]

Gents

I was gathering some guns to take to cabin next week including a .223 Ranch Rifle and Ruger #1 in .223.

So, for kicks, loaded some military brass with 55 grain FMJ for the first time ever. When going through some older powder, I discovered a can that was literally beginning to fall apart. SO GLAD I looked up on that shelf and pulled this down. NO, it was not the powder I used today.

Several years ago, I "bought out" a guy who was getting out of reloading and knowing he had good reloading habits, I bought several cans of opened powder. All of it has been good until today...........

Note in the close-up of front, a little finger pressure penetrated the rusty metal.......

This is the first time since beginning reloading in 1969 I ever saw this happen. Am thinking that one can went
through a reaction with moisture, metal, and powder and began breaking down quickly at some point. This can was in that lot I purchased from that fellow mentioned above.

Will open and burn tomorrow. Don't want to throw into the garbage.

Y'all take care, Just call me Rusty

[samari46]

Had a can of IMR4320 go bad. This was around the time Remington shifted making powder from here to Canada. Thia particular can was made here and maybe they skipped a step or something. Spread it on the lawn. Stored in a cool dry place. Frank

[SlamFire1]

I am of the opinion that the shooting community is more than just ignorant of the thermochemistry and dangers of old gunpowder, it is in fact, actively in denial. I accidentally learned about this by an encounter with a Naval Insensitive Munitions expert, and have since then, conducted my own research into this topic. I like to reference Government Documents, and of course, the experience of posters on the web. Not that it makes much difference to a core group of deniers, but it might help others from wasting money on old powders.
The propellant management guide

https://www.osmre.gov/resources/blasting/docs/ArmyDemilPropellantUse/ArmyPropellantManagementGuide.pdf has a section on the US Navy gunpowder surveillance program:

CHAPTER4 NAVY GUN PROPELLANT SAFETY SURVEILLANCE 4-1.BACKGROUND.

Technical Manual Safety Surveillance of Navy Gun Propellant, Policy and Procedures,31August1996, is the best source for detailed information beyond the scope of this chapter.

a. The history of the Navy propellant surveillance program is very similar to that of the Army. Established at Indian Head, Maryland during the immediate post-World War I period, the Navy program was physically and technically a virtual twin of the Army program, which was begun just months later than that of the Navy in the year 1921. The oldest physical remains of both program's early days, the large, circular propellant heat chambers, appear to be built from the same design, during the same time period (1940-1941). Neither set of chambers at Indian Head.
nor at Picatinny are the“original”1920's-vintage structures, which were based on steam heated chambers which proved to be insufficiently reliable.

b. Auto ignition of propellant in the powder magazines aboard ship has caused the loss of many warships from the navies of various nations, most losses having occurred in the first few decades of the 20th century. The risk of unstable propellant aboard ship was so great that, even after more effective stabilizers were introduced during the second decade of this century, close monitoring of all the fleet stocks was considered essential. In fact, prior to 1963, each activity and ship had its own testing oven and was required to run a 65.50C surveillance test for 60 days each year on every lot of propellant in stock. Propellants in many configurations which would be considered safe for use by the Army (such as propellant loaded into fixed rounds) were and are routinely condemned and destroyed by the Navy as too hazardous to be aboard ship, where even a minor deflagration can cost the lives of the sailors and marines aboard, such as that which occurred in the powder magazine of the USS KEARSARGE, killing 10 sailors.

c. Information necessary to assure the safety of Navy propellant stocks(and the vessels upon which they are stored) is provided to the fleet as well as storage installations (Navy coastal and SMCA locations) through the monitoring and testing of all existing Navy propellants. The Navy Gun Propellant Safety Surveillance program produces this information through its two programs, the Master Sample Program and the Fleet Return Program.

The gunpowder used in large caliber weapons is slightly different in composition from rifle powder, the grains are larger, the burn rate slower, but it is all based on nitrocellulose. And it is the nitrocellulose that is breaking down, the day it leaves the factory.
This might be of interest, for the older, accelerated aging tests, where gunpowder is heated in an oven and monitored for red, nitrogen dioxide fumes.

1973 Picatinny Arsenal report AD-763-879 Prediction of Safe Life of Propellants states
Recently the NATO countries were in need of an evaluation procedure that would assure acceptor countries that propellants received from others would have a proven chemical stability for a given period of time when stored at ambient conditions. After many stability tests were reviews and evaluated through the conduct of round robins to insure that strict analytical agreement could be realized among world wide participating laboratories, the above mentioned method for the determination of available stabilizer content was accepted, with the establishment of suitable cut-off points. It was assume that if a propellant withstood a heating period of 60 days at 65.5 ˚C., without undue depletion of available stabilizer content, then that propellant would have a proven chemical stability for 5 years storage at ambient conditions

Dec 2003 Propellant Management Guide:

Stabilizers are chemical ingredients added to propellant at time of manufacture to decrease the rate of propellant degradation and reduce the probability of auto ignition during its expected useful life.
As nitrocellulose-based propellants decompose, they release nitrogen oxides. If the nitrogen oxides are left free to react in the propellant, they can react with the nitrate ester, causing further decomposition and additional release of nitrogen oxides. The reaction between the nitrate ester and the nitrogen oxides is exothermic (i.e., the reaction produces heat). Heat increases the rate of propellant decomposition. More importantly, the exothermic nature of the reaction creates a problem if sufficient heat is generated to initiate combustion. Chemical additives, referred to as stabilizers, are added to propellant formulations to react with free nitrogen oxides to prevent their attack on the nitrate esters in the propellant. The stabilizers are scavengers that act rather like sponges, and once they become “saturated” they are no longer able to remove nitrogen oxides from the propellant. Self-heating of the propellant can occur unabated at the “saturation” point without the ameliorating effect of the stabilizer. Once begun, the self-heating may become sufficient to cause auto ignition.

I used to consider it remarkable that the shooting community is totally ignorant of all things related to gunpowder lifetime, until I came to the conclusion, that the shooting was actively ignorant on this topic. The community as a whole just does not want to know. Fighting the desired world view of the shooting community is pointless, and profitless, so industry reinforces the Agnotology, and tells the community what it wants to hear.

The Propellant Management Guide was written for Department of Defense personnel in a class room setting. These are individuals perusing a career in ammunition surveillance. They are being made aware that gunpowder deteriorates, and that the deterioration is unpredictable, and therefore their job is to constantly monitor, measure, and get rid of propellants that show deterioration. There is no discussion about whether propellants deteriorate, it is taken as a fact that they do. And the guide presents a short list of auto combustion events, to emphasis the seriousness of the job:

During the period 1984 through 1997, seven propellant autoignition events occurred at U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) installations.

1. 1984: Lake City AAP
IMR powder that was only 5 years old autoignited and the above ground magazine & its contents were destroyed. More than 100,000 lbs of powder deflagrated.

2. 1984: Lake City AAP
The same lot of IMR powder, a fragment quantity isolated and saved for critical production testing, autoignited two months after the previous fire. Only a small quantity of powder was lost, but another magazine was destroyed.

3. 1985: Blue Grass Army Depot
The local-stocks storage magazine use for demilitarization activities contained high explosives material as well as unmonitored M10 propellant powder. Autoignition of the powder and its resulting deflagration gradually ignited the other energetic materials present. The earth covered magazine and its contents were destroyed.

4. 1987: Lone Star AAP
Benite was stored in a heated magazine so that it could be temperature conditioned prior to loading into production items. The building became overheated which accelerated the rate of decomposition of the benite to a point that autoignition occurred. The structure and contents were lost.

5. 1989: Hawthorne Army Depot
8-inch, 55-caliber propelling charges loaded with single-base propellant autoignited in an earth-covered magazine more than one year after the Navy ordered the lot destroyed due to low stability. The magazine contents of 30,715 lbs of various propellants were destroyed, and the magazine was heavily damaged.


6. 1996: Red River Army Depot
Expulsion charge assemblies for large caliber artillery rounds, each charge filled with only one ounce of M10 propellant and stored 250 to a box, autoignited. The earth-covered magazine and its contents were totally destroyed.

7. 1997: Hawthorne Army Depot
M9 flake propellant bags that had been removed from 81MM mortar rounds were bulk-packed and placed into long-term storage. A container of unstable propellant auto ignited, and all 20,000 lbs of propellant inside the earth-covered magazine were destroyed. The magazine was severely damaged. Value of contents lost was more than $3,000,000, while the cost to repair the magazine was $164,000.

d. Accidental auto ignition of propellant occurs at other than Army facilities, too. During the same time period as the incidents above, propellant self-ignition accidents have occurred at Navy facilities and at privately owned industrial storage sites. If you consider the number of accidents versus the limited number of locations that store artillery and small arms propellants, you begin to realize that the chances of having an accident happen at your installation are not as unlikely as you may have imagined


This paper is from an agency that is conducting propellant testing

Field-Portable Propellant Stability Test Equipment
by Elena M. Graves
https://alu.army.mil/alog/issues/JulAug08/propellant_stab_eq.html

The safety of ammunition stocks has been improved with the development of field-portable propellant stability testing equipment, which allows more ammunition samples to be tested.

The U.S. military has stockpiles of ammunition, new and old, that can present safety hazards. The primary ingredient of the propellant used in these rounds, nitrocellulose, can deteriorate with age and become prone to autoignition. To avoid the destruction that could occur from the self-ignition of this propellant, the Department of Defense (DOD) has established a program for testing ammunition stocks to determine the thermal stability of the nitrocellulose propellants they contain.

History of Nitrocellulose

Shortly after French chemist Theophile Jule Pelouze nitrated cotton in 1838 and created the world’s first batch of nitrocellulose, potential users recognized that it could be a dangerously unreliable explosive. Practical use of nitrocellulose began in the mid-1840s with the advent of Christian Shönbein’s improved manufacturing process. However, its use was short-lived because of frequent explosions of the impurely processed batches. It was another 20 years before Frederick Abel of Britain produced a good quality, commercially viable nitrocellulose known as guncotton.
Unlike black and brown powders, the new nitrocellulose powders had the desirable characteristics of being relatively smokeless, powerful, and nonhygroscopic. [Hygroscopic items readily absorb moisture from the air.] However, they still decomposed at an unreliably fast rate, causing so many accidental explosions in storage and among gun crews that black and brown powders remained the favored gun propellants on land and sea through the end of the 19th century.
Nitrocellulose-based powders finally replaced black and brown powders in the early 1900s, first at sea in the world’s navies and then on land. Since reliable means of stabilizing the nitrocellulose propellants had not yet been developed, these powders were still in danger of decomposition and, thus, instability. Devastating accidents, like those aboard the French battleships Liberté and Iena and the Russian Imperatritsa Mariya, lent urgency to the search for an effective stabilizer.

Propellant Stabilizers

As nitrocellulose-based propellants decompose, they release nitrogen oxides. If the nitrogen oxides are left free to react in the propellant, they can react with the nitrate ester, causing further decomposition and additional release of nitrogen oxides. The reaction between the nitrate ester and the nitrogen oxides is exothermic. (It produces heat.) Heat increases the rate of propellant decomposition, and the exothermic nature of the reaction may generate sufficient heat to initiate combustion.

Stabilizers are chemical ingredients added to propellants at the time of manufacture to decrease the rate of propellant degradation and reduce the probability of auto ignition during its expected useful life. Stabilizers that are added to propellant formulations react with free nitrogen oxides to prevent their ability to react with the nitrate ester. The stabilizers are scavengers that act like sponges, but once they become “saturated,” they are no longer able to remove nitrogen oxides from the propellant. At this point, self-heating of the propellant can occur unabated and may reach the point of spontaneous combustion.

Propellant Stability Testing

Propellant auto ignition accidents continued to occur after the introduction of modern stabilizers during and after World War I, but at a vastly reduced frequency. Most early propellant powders were stabilized with diphenylamine or ethyl centralite. Later 2-nitrodiphenylamine and Akardite II also became common stabilizers in the United States. The type of stabilizer used depended on propellant formulation.
Shortly after the end of World War I, the Navy and the Army each established permanent propellant surveillance laboratories to monitor the safe status of their propellants throughout their entire life cycles. Both services adopted the 65.5 degrees Celsius surveillance test as their primary tool. This test is a type of accelerated aging test and is known as the fume test. It is designed to preempt the auto ignition of propellant in storage by forcing it to happen much earlier in the laboratory. When a tested propellant lot’s “days to fume” reach a defined minimum level, all quantities of that lot, wherever stored, are ordered destroyed. Until 1963, Navy ships had propellant labs on board to conduct this test. Although techniques have improved over the years, the accelerated aging test is still conducted by the Navy service lab at Indian Head, Maryland, and the Army lab at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey.

Anyone if they have the intellectual urge, and the mental energy to do so, can go to the US Defense Technical Information Center at https://discover.dtic.mil/, and type in the words “propellant stability”. And from there, I have been able to access a lot of material on the lifetime of smokeless propellants., Such as the excerpts in this document:

1996 DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN METHODS FOR DETERMINATION OF
STABILIZERS IN PROPELLANTS. DTIC
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Propellants stored in bulk (prior to filling) or in ammunition are among the biggest
items in the DND inventory. These propellant formulations contain nitrate esters, such as
nitrocellulose (NC) and nitroglycerine (NG), which tend to decompose with time, releasing
nitrogen oxides. If not removed, these nitrogen oxides react catalytically to accelerate the
nitrate ester's degradation and, as a result, heat is produced. Therefore; self-ignition may
occur and several disasters that have occurred throughout the world bear testimony to this.
To remedy this situation, stabilizers such as diphenylamine and ethyl centralite are added to
gun propellant formulations. These stabilizers react easily with nitrogen oxides and prevent
self-ignition from occurring. However, with- time there is a depletion of the effective
stabilizer level in the gunpowder. Therefore, an effective surveillance program , that
periodically monitors the stabilizer content of propellants, is essential for the maintenance
of safety and the maximum use of resources.
1.0 INTRODUCTION

Gun propellant formulations contain ingredients such as nitrocellulose (NC) and nitroglycerine (NG). These nitrate esters tend to decompose with time, releasing nitrogen oxides. If not removed, these nitrogen oxides act catalytically to accelerate the nitrate ester's degradation. As a result, spontaneous ignition may occur and the several disasters that have occurred since the introduction of NC-based gun propellants in the last century bear testimony to this.

For instance, in 1905, on the Japanese battleship "Mikasa", some English nitroglycerine powder exploded with the loss of 600 lives . An explosion of the ammunition magazine of the French battleship "Jena" in 1907 resulted in the loss of 110 lives and a similar catastrophe occurred on the battleship "Liberte" in 1911. After World War I the storage of unstable powders caused several catastrophes e.g. in Poland there were explosions of the magazines in the Warsaw Citadel in 1924 and at Witkowise in 1927, and in France at Bergerac in 1928 . Recent fires in Finland , in Australia and in Sweden were also caused by the spontaneous ignition of gun propellants. To prevent such disasters from occurring, stabilizers such as diphenylamine (DPA) or ethyl centralite (EC) are added to gun propellant formulations.

These stabilizers react easily with nitrogen oxides and prevent auto-ignition from occurring. The reactions of these compounds are complex and many daughter products are formed. Some of these products act as stabilizers, but others do not and there is a depletion of the effective stabilizer level in the gunpowder with time. Therefore, the stabilizer content of propellants must be monitored periodically to assess their remaining "safe life" and to dispose of those lots that are likely to undergo auto ignition.

I think the history is interesting. More than one battleship blew up with old, deteriorated gunpowder. I may discuss depot blowups later. But this sort of information is available at the fingertips of anyone, and yet the shooting community is more than just ignorant of this, it has deliberately purged this information from itself.


Individuals who sell surplus powders have a financial incentive to ignore the risks of old gunpowder and so does industry. Industry only wants to educate you on what to buy. They are not going to spend time teaching you what not to buy. And, the community really does not want to know. So shooters buy old, military surplus powder, think it is day old bread, but it is anything but. Rest assured, ammunition that comes out of military bunkers has been discarded because the stuff is no longer safe to issue, or store. Some military ammunition specialist determined that per his written procedures, that lot had to be removed and was sent to a demill facility. And that stuff has, and will, burn houses down.

[SlamFire1]

Military Surplus Powder autocombusting

http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=6&f=3&t=248538

I run a long range shooting club here in NM. Yesterday a member approached me with a question about a powder he is using. He said " it's fuming" ........What?
I walked down and sure enough the powder was outgassing a very heavy oder of ammonia and Nitric Acid fumes. The powder was slowly turning sticky and had,from over night, corroded the brass cases and the projectiles.
This powder is milsurp pull down IMR-5010 powder that was sold in bulk from the long gone Talon company. Weidners and Pats reloading sells this powder in black plastic 8 pound jugs. There are no lot numbers or dates on the label.
I have been reloading since 1964 and have never seen this happen before. As you know nitro-cellulose uses Nitric Acid to make the propellant. Some how the acid was not neutralized correctly. When the acid is not removed from the powder grains, the deterent coating will break down and uncontrolled burning will happen. The powder may detonate rather than burn
If any of you have any powder that was OK a few months ago you may want to check it again. This powder was normal just last winter. Now it is breaking down. It was stored in a cool room. It was not left in the sunlight.
Chris at Weiders has been notified.
This was purely a PULLDOWN powder issue. NOT a Virgin IMR-5010 issue. I know the guy this allegedly happened to (Paul A. of Albuquerque). I suggested he post the source, acquisition date, etc but to date he has not. He told me the powder was PULLDOWN IMR-5010 from www.wideners.com. Wideners allegedly told him they would not replace the powder as his storage of it was beyond their control. Also, he had no direct status with them as he obtained this particular jug from another guy that had bought it from wideners.
I personally know the guy this happened to and unless you see some sort of acrid fumes coming off your powder, I wouldn't worry about it. Paul is a real cheap skate. He was loading $2.00 Lehigh 800 grainers with surplus powder. Silly way to save $0.25.
http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?52892-Warning-surplus-IMR-5010-powder-users
1. 10-02-2009, 11:02 AM#6
Cincinnati Kid
Cincinnati, Ohio

That IMR 5010 powder that came from Talon has caused several large fires here in Ohio, two of them locally to a friend of mine, and one large fire in Northern Ohio that I know of. Anyone who has any of that 5010 powder that came from Talon needs to dispose of it if it shows any signs of breaking down. I wouldn't trust any of it.
Many reloaders post pictures of their WW2 era surplus powders, and are proud of their hoards
https://i.imgur.com/7iewHbH.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/8kBGxXg.jpg

They don’t know what they are dealing with. The stuff is sealed, and it is in the house!

The outrage that I have, is that information removed from the shooting community, that if known, would prevent property damage, fires, and deaths. The posters above really don’t know what they are looking at, what they are doing, and they store this dangerous stuff in their houses. And when this old, deteriorated gunpowder bursts into flame, the rest of the residence goes with it. And if the owner happens to be asleep, well lots of people have died in their sleep when their residence burst into flames.

But, more useful to reloaders and hoarders is predicting the safe lifetime of ammunition. Everyone wants to know this number, if anyone could have by now provided a simple, testable, repeatable method of predicting propellant lifetime, that individual could sell that method for vast wealth. . The lifetime of nitrocellulose based propellants is a most unsatisfying answer. It is un knowable. A common term used is indeterminate. Unfortunately indeterminate is confused by deniers to mean, infinite. I am serious, when deniers read or hear the word indeterminate, which means “unknowable” they will see or hear the word infinite. A search of DTIC will reveal all sorts of presentations and papers from researchers trying to convince the money men to fund computer models, test techniques, into predicting the future lifetime of propellants. From what I read, I see is a shift in testing as microprocessor revolution created more precise tests. Material from the 1960’s and earlier, the services were trying such things as vacuum tests, but pretty much the standard at the time was heating a sample in a test tube at 50ºC or 65 ºC, and determining the amount of time till the sample fumes. If you are interested in period gunpowder/propellant tests, look for

TM 9 1300 214 U S Military Explosives https://bulletpicker.com/pdf/TM%209-1300-214,%20Military%20Explosives%20(1967).pdf
TM 9-1300-214 has this section on nitrocellulose

Section 7-7 Nitrocellulose


q. Nitrocellulose, even when highly purified, is much less stable than most of the non initiating military high explosives , as judged by elevated temperature tests. It appears to under go very slow decomposition even at ordinary temperatures, the rate of decomposition in*creasing 3.71 times with each increase in temperature of 10°C. The presence of moisture increases the rate of decomposition considerably and the presence also of free acid or alkali has an even more pronounced effect.

This is from the early 1960’s

https://i.imgur.com/HgPaI1J.jpg

This may be beyond the conception of some, but Militaries have a lot more explosives and propellants to worry about than what is used in civilian thunder sticks.


In more current presentations, I see gas chromatographs being used to estimate the amount of stabilizer left in propellant. I consistently see the 20% stabilizer left as the threshold for discarding smokeless propellants. This document explains what the US military considers to be acceptable levels of stabilizer.

Ammunition Surveillance Procedures SB 742-1
Chapter 13 Propellant and Propelling Charges
page 13-1
WARNING
Nitrocellulose-based propellant can become thermally unstable as the age. The normal aging process of the propellants involves deterioration of the nitrocellulose with an accompanying generation of heat. At some point, the propellant may reach a state where heat is generated faster than it can be dissipated. The accumulation of heat can lead to combustion (auto ignition). Chemical stabilizers are added to propellants to slow the aging process. In time, the stabilizer levels will drop to a point where the remaining effective stabilizer (RES) is not sufficient to prevent an accelerating rate of decomposition. When this point is reached, the propellant may auto ignite, with possible catastrophic results to property and life. Monitoring the stability level of each propellant lot is essential for continued safe storage.

Page 13-5 , Table 13.2 Propellant Stability Codes.

Stability Category A 0.30 or more Percent Effective Stabilizer

Acceptable stabilizer loss: safe for continued storage

C 0.29-0.20 Percent Effective Stabilizer

Significant stabilizer loss. Lot does not represent an immediate hazard, but is approaching a potentially hazardous stability condition. Loss of stabilizer does adversely affect function in an uploaded configuration. Disposition instructions will be furnished by NAR. All stability category “C” assets on the installation must be reported in writing…

One year after becoming stability category “C” a sample of the bulk propellant lot or the bulk-packed component lot will be retested. If the lot has not deteriorated to category “D”, it will be retested each year until it has been expended, or it has deteriorated to category “D”, at which point it will be demilitarized within 60 days.

D Less than 0.20 Percent Effective Stabilizer

Unacceptable stabilizer loss. Lots identified as stability category “D” present a potential safety hazard and are unsafe for continued storage as bulk, bulk-packed components , or as separate loading propellant chargers. Bulk propellant, bulk –packed components and separate loading propelling charges will be demilitarized within 60 days after notification of category “D” status.


It is too bad that the mobile, high pressure liquid chromatography developed by this Dutch company, for stability tests of propellants cost a quarter million dollars.

The delicate matter of lifetime TNO

https://www.tno.nl/media/2756/def_lucht_levensduur_em4200716173.pdf

I don’t have that sort of money. No one I know is going to buy one of these things. All normal people have is the five senses that God gave them, that is sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing. And my hearing and sight are not that good anymore. But, everyone should be popping the seals on their kegs of gunpowder and taking a periodic sniff.

[SlamFire1]

If your powder looks like this, get rid of it immediately

https://i.imgur.com/KYSquJE.jpg

This is dangerous.

https://i.imgur.com/p3BUwl9.jpg

https://www.chemistryscl.com/reactions/nitrogen-dioxide+water/index.php

Nitrogen dioxide gas reacts with water to produce nitric acid and nitrogen monoxide.
NO2 + H2O → HNO3 + NO
• NO2 is a brown color gas. It's brown color is disappeared when NO2 reacts with water.
• This reaction is industrially used for nitric acid production from ostwald method.
• Also, this is the reaction which causes acid rain from nitrogen dioxide gas in the atmosphere.
• This reaction is a disproportionate reaction because nitrogen on nitrogen dioxide molecule is reduced and oxidized.
• Due to reaction with water, nitrogen dioxide dissolves very well in water.

So, if you see nitrogen dioxide in the air, (that red stuff) then the colorless gas that you don’t see, is nitric acid gas. This is in fact, an industrial process called the Ostwald method. If there is nitrogen dioxide in the air, it will combine with water molecules (called humidity) to produce nitric acid gas. This is going to be a double whammy to gunpowder and its container.

Fuming red nitrogen dioxide gas and the invisible fuming nitric acid gas, will absolutely knock your socks off if you sniff it. It is beyond bitter. I have been told, it is very bad to breathe, like if you get enough of it in your lungs, it will rip the tissue out of your lungs. Whatever the real dangers, if you smell it, you won’t forget. Any gunpowder that is fuming a red, bitter smelling gas is just at the point of instability, and it should be removed out of the house before the house burns down in your sleep.

So to sum this up, pop the seals, sniff your powders, on a regular basis.

Look for signs of deterioration in your loaded ammunition.

I decided to pull the bullets on a bunch of ammunition because the case necks were cracking after firing and found this:
https://i.imgur.com/04zbEQh.jpg

The powder in these cases may or may not have came from a can of N140 stored in my house.
https://i.imgur.com/vPmf99m.jpg

But these cracks prompted me to sniff my Vihtavuori cans and kegs. And I tossed out a four pound keg of N140 that smelled bitter and vinegary.


The active deniers, and sellers of old surplus ammunition and powders have been very successful in establishing a myth in the shooting community that gunpowder and ammunition lasts forever. I purchased a lot of surplus powders, because I did not know what dangerous crap I was buying. Because of that, I wasted hundreds of dollars discarding military surplus powders that had gone bad. It took time to learn what to look for, and what deterioration looked like. But once I understood what I was looking at, which were case neck cracking, body splits, under bullet corrosion, those positive physical signs of powder deterioration, convinced me those powders were deteriorating. I also had the occasional hard extraction and strange sounding retorts. Even though my kegs of surplus AA2520 did not smell, frequent case neck cracks informed me that the powder had deteriorated to risky levels. You experience enough of this, you ought to reflect upon what could be causing it:

https://i.imgur.com/1GYBWdC.jpg


It is not worth loading cases with bad powder. It will crack the case necks on cases, and it will do other bad things, which I will discuss later.
.
https://i.imgur.com/qmx3vQL.jpg

I pulled the bullet on this 1988 LC 308 ball, just to see what was inside. Guess what I found

https://i.imgur.com/aez1i91.jpg

This is something I recommend doing on any old “mystery” ammunition. Pull a bullet, dump the powder out, and look for signs of corrosion. Corrosion is positive proof of risk. I cannot say that lack of corrosion means ammunition is perfectly safe. Wish I could. Old ammunition has risks, risks that I cannot quantify. The safest thing to do with old, mystery ammunition, is to pull the bullets, discard the powder, and look for evidence of corrosion in the case. If the cases are perfect, then reload with nice new powder and use the old bullets.

The smartest thing to do, is not load your ammunition and have it sit around for years and years. Now, I size my rifle cases, trim them, and prime them. And I only load ammunition I plan to shoot within the next couple of years. And I am shooting up the stuff that I loaded years ago, and finding the brass is ruined.

https://i.imgur.com/4mhdPOz.jpg

If I had only known at the time, I would have still have use of those cases, because I would not have put powder in them. Vocal liars and deniers have cost me a lot of money over the years. And they cost others too. Ignorance is profitable to industry, but not to the consumer.

[SlamFire1]

I used to collect accounts of firearms blowups with old ammunition. Understand, because of the Agnotology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology on this topic, the posters often don’t know why they had a kaboom. But a pattern emerges: everyone is firing old ammunition and having pressure problems. I don’t know if the links are any good, links change so frequently I got tired of trying to keep them current.

Remington 700 Overpressure with 20 year old factory ammunition

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=527519


I'm sighting in my Remington 700 BDL .270 / Nikon 3X9 BDC today, and I decided to rotate old stock ammo. In this case, brand new (20 years ago), 130 grain ammo by a well known US ammunition Company. I bought several boxes of this brand, same lot, back in the early 90's after I discovered how wonderful they worked on woodchucks.

So I'm firing my 2nd round... WHAM! My mild .270 rifle bellows and whacks me in the glasses, odd I thought, as my .270's never kick like that.

The bolt won't open. I mean it is JAMMED. So after 5 min of banging on the bolt with my hand (HARD),it opens Ok, now the bolt draws back hard and the brass feels like its WELDED to the bolt face. I had to use a leatherman tool to pry it out. Rim was damaged, blackened, primer floating around, etc. Bolt appeared ok (Thank the Good Lord for Remington's 3 rings of steel protecting me!), and after switching ammo and using newer stock, the rifle functioned and sighted in 100% perfect. Scared the hell out of me though! This was factory ammo too, not reloads.


Ok, so I called Remington (ammo was early 90's vintage 130 grain Rem bronze point). They only back their ammo for 10 years (expected shelf life according to Remington). Note* I kept this ammo in a cool, dry place, sealed in a US Military ammo can for the past 2 decades. I have ammo from the 50's and 60's that still shoots fine. I guess with gunpowder, it's like rolling dice.

So, I'm glad the rifle is a Remington, as it was strong enough to take the hit without any damage, otherwise it would be my dime (and hide). I had our armorer (LEO), check it out as well. The bolt face appears ok, and I pulled the firing pin, ok as well. Damn strong rifle.

That brass was warped near the rim, I hate to guess what the PSI was, I'm betting well over 80,000 PSI, given how stiff that bolt was to open. If I can get a photo posted, I will. Now I have several boxes of old .270 ammo to dispose of, as I'm not going to shoot it through my cherished 700 BDL anymore. At least the brass is still good and my right hand is still attached to my arm!
Time to go out and stock up on .270's!!!

Picher; Yes, bore was / is like a mirror. The rifle is a MINT early 80's BDL 700. No rust or pitting. She is one sexy rifle, it was love at first sight... The high gloss wood and rich, deep blue steel.... MMmmmmm!!!!

It was close to 90 on Sunday in Maine, and humid. The ammo has been stored correctly, but, after all, it HAS been 20 years or so. I know my knees are not the same as they were 2 decades ago, so I guess I can't expect the ammo to fair any better. It just caught me off guard, as I stock up on (and shoot), old ammo, and NEVER had any issue. I guess I need to rotate my supply more often...

HK Blown up with Brazilian Surplus

http://www.jerzeedevil.com/forums/showthread.php/90285-Gun-Blown-up


Hello gang i was just wondering if any of you guys have ever blown up a gun while shooting. I had the unfortunate luck of blowing up an HK-91 back around 1989. Me and a buddy of mine were buying cases of mil surplus from a company in ohio at the time in 1000 rd. cases. We had gotten a few cases from said company and never had any issues. Well the last case we got from them was from brazil cbc i believe it was. He called me and said he was having jamming issues with this ammo in his sar-48 bush gun. I told him well i'll go out with you and run some through my 91 it'll eat anything. Well the third round out of the 91 "BOOM" pretty scary it was.
I think you can have or get a bad round or lot of ammo with any manufacturer. That being said the ammo that blew my 91 up was military surplus from brazil. Thats the problem with mil surplus its put onto the market because its deemed not worthy of use for the military of said country.

So you get some good some bad you take your chances. But when your setting off small explosions with each trigger pull in your weapon anything can happen at any time with any manufacturers product.
Just be sure to wear eye and ear protection and good gloves are'nt a bad idea either. "**** HAPPENS" you know, don't you just love that saying.
Be safe and have a great weekend.



'Tailgunner', on 17 Jul 2012 - 13:16, said:

http://www.usrifleteams.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=21886
Posted 17 July 2012 - 01:29 PM

I picked up some surplus ammo a couple of years ago and had a couple of hang fires. The hammer would drop and a second later the rifle would discharge. After that happened a couple of times, I decided I wasn't going to shoot that stuff any more. So I took the ammo apart, thinking I'd at least salvage the brass. After I'd pulled all of the bullets and dumped the powder, I tried chucking the primed cases in a vice and then hit the primers with a pin punch and a hammer. I found that some of the primers would "pop" but others would just sizzle and smoke. I'm pretty sure those were my hang fires. It was an interesting experiment.

The last surplus ammo I had looked so bad that I never fired any of it. Like you, I took it apart. The powder was clumped together. The base of the bullet was green with corrosion. I decapped all the brass, burned the primers and powder outside when burning rubbish, and sold the brass and bullets to a scrap company. Recouped a very small amount of initial price. That was the last time I got fooled on surplus ammo crap.

My guess is that most of the foreign countries that are selling surplus goods to the USA, don't care much about how they handle or store the items, as long as it gets on the shipping container and they pocket the purchase price, they are happy. Caveat emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware." It especially applies to surplus goods that have a shelf life. Where was it stored? How was it stored? What temperature? Subjected to water or salt air? Exposed to a structure fire? How was it transported? Etc. etc...too many unanswered questions. A deal that is too good to be true, usually is too good to be true.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=7756780&postcount=6


Although it's remotely possible that a defective load (very unlikely if factory ammo) or poorly stored ammo that had deteriorated. I had some H450 go bad and an "accuracy" load from a .30/06 w/180gr bullet locked up the bolt and removed case looked like a belted magnum...... but gun was unharmed.... primer was blown however and pitted the bolt face...... I pulled down the rest of the ammo and powder "stunk" like vinegar and inside of cases were turning green from acid corrosion..... Ammo had only been loaded 6mos earlier... and powder looked and smelled "ok" then.

Garand Blowup with WWII ball

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=7870113&postcount=13

I have an old shooting buddy who some years ago was shooting some WWII ball (don’t know whose) but his M-1 was disassembled in a rather rapid fashion. He was lucky only his pride was hurt. He said he took a round apart and found rust looking dust along with the powder. Bad powder. Just sayin…..The op rod can be rebuilt which might be a good way to go. Op Rods are getting harder to find and when you find one a premium price is required so it seems. Garands require grease. I’m not sure if you are aware of this. If you are, please no offence taken.

Garand Blowup with old US ammunition.

http://www.socnet.com/showthread.php?p=1344088


There was a thread on another forum titeled “What’s in your ammo can” and many guys had old surpluss ammo so I told this story. Ty (arizonaguide) asked that I come put it here also so here it is boys, draw your own conclutions.

Back in the mid 80s my Dad and a bunch of us went shooting in Arizona. Dad had a couple thousand rounds of WWII surplus .30M1 (30-06) ammo that looked great on the outside cut his M1 in half in his hands. He was kneeling with elbow on knee when the first round of this ammo went BOOM! We were all pelted with sand and M1 shrapnel.

When the dust cleared Dad was rolling around on his back with buttstock in one hand, for stock in the other, barrel and receiver hanging by the sling around his arm trying to yell “mortar” thinking he was back on Okinawa in battle. The blast had removed his ear muffs, hat, glasses, and broke the headlight in my truck 15 feet away but Dad was only shook up and scratched a bit once he got his wits back. It sheared off the bolt lugs, blew open the receiver front ring, pushed all the guts out the bottom of the magazine, and turned the middle of the stock to splinters.

After a couple hours of picking up M1 shrapnel we headed to the loading bench and started pulling bullets. Some of the powder was fine, some was stuck together in clumps, and some had to be dug out with a stick. It didn’t smell and was not dusty like powder usuley is when it’s gone bad. Put it in a pie tin and light it and it seemed a tad fast but not so you would think it could do that, wasent like lighting a pistol powder even. He had 2000 rounds of this stuff and nun of us were in any mood to play with it much after what we watched so it all went onto a very entertaining desert bon fire. I got the M1 splinters when Dad died last year and will post pix here below for your parousal and entertainment.

Anyway, I no longer play with any ammo I am not 100% sure has always been stored properly . . . cheap shooting ain’t worth the risk to me anymore! I still buy surpluss if the price in right but I unload and reload it with powder I am sure of or just use the brass.

She was a good shooting servasable Winchester M1 before this.


Catastrophic Failure

http://www.jouster.com/forums/showthread.php?43897-Catastrophic-Failure

Had a bad experience a week ago. Went to the range to test fire some handloads through a Springfield M1 and ultimately it blew up.

Details: Rifle - M1 Garand, Springfield manufacture receiver (1942) rebarreled in1947.
Ammo: 3-rounds. Reloaded - full-length sized once fired Federal brass, 163 grain mechanically pulled surplus bullet, Winchester Large Rifle primers, 46.5 grains of IMR4895 powder. Powder was dispensed/weighed using RCBS Chargemaster system calibrated immediately before use. Brass was checked for OA length and was within specs. prior to loading. Bullets were seated to crimping groove but not crimped.

Third round fired and rifle disintegrated through magazine well area.

Later analysis of rifle indicates bolt face fracture and case head failure. Lower front of bolt face sheared off around ejector hole causing passageway for hot gases and fragments to enter magazine well area and blow out stock and triggerguard floorplate. Receiver held and bolt frozen in place. Bolt has been removed and shows fracturing of both locking lugs as well as longitudinal fracture back from ejector hole. Extractor has backed out. Last round/fractured brass still stuck in chamber.
Post 151
Original loads were:

1) Primer seating depth was checked by visual and finger feel.
2) The original powder was old - still in metal can and starting to show brown dust (on retrospect).
3) Pulled bullets were GI AP.




HXP at Perry . . .

http://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?t=115939

HXP 77 was the culprit. I won't shoot that stuff. A whole bunch of heavy bolt handle lifts in the 03 matches when it was issued at Perry. I have fired a lot of HXP 70, 72 & 73 with no issues at all, 03's and M1's.

Tombguard, What Ceresco is implying is that while HXP 77 ammo exhibited frequent and sometimes severe issues (excessive bolt lift force, dismounted op rods, duds, hangfires, etc.) there is the concern that other lots will have the same issues but with perhaps lesser frequency. If a manufacturing process doesn't have robust QC practices, more issues are lurking out there like snakes in the grass. I am not saying that you should avoid HXP ammo - I'm just saying that one should be aware that systemically the issues might extend beyond HXP 77 ammo

In the 2007 Perry matches it was '88 dated ammo that gave a lot of 03A3 fits on opening. I keep the saved round I had in rapids beside the silver medal I earned with 29 rounds. Believe me when I tell you it was locking those bolts up TIGHT. (As in roll out of position and beat them open.)

Stiff Bolt Handle on SC 03a3
http://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?t=92269&highlight=high+pressure+greek


Took my SC 03a3 to the range a week ago, shooting fairly good groups at 100yds (~2MOA) with unsorted HXP. Had a problem though - occasionally the bolt handle would be VERY difficult to lift open. Never had that before with new production ammo, other sessions with HXP, and never had a problem when dry-firing (snap caps, etc). Didn't break anything evident, and everything APPEARS to function correctly. The brass all looks like I expect (There is some minor pitting in the chamber which shows on the brass, but does not effect extraction), it just felt like I needed a hammer or a crow bar to lift the bolt handle sometimes (but not always). Any ideas as to what is going wrong

Typical HXP problem. It will often be hard to chamber some rounds as well. I had 3 saved rounds in 2006 at the Western Games 1903 match when round 7 could not be extracted from the chamber and no one had a BFH handy. A wooden mallet later helped extract the round. That was in a pristine M1903 Remington with a perfect chamber. All other ammo I feed it functions perfectly. I have a 1903A3 that also has issues with HXP. About 10-20% of some lots are very long in the shoulder. I have a couple rounds that won't chamber in a 1903 at all. It almost looks like I put a No-Go gage in the chamber.

If it is only when you shoot HXP new ammo that is your problem and your answer. It's a problem that has existed with a great many bolt guns since the very first day that CMP began selling HXP ammo and has been much discussed in this forum and others for several years (and see, even today). It was a common complaint among shooters for years at the regional CMP Games and the Nationals when CMP was issuing HXP as the required ammo to use. As I stated before, in 2006, if you walked the line in every relay of the 1903 match you would see shooters having to slap bolts closed and struggle to get bolts open. Many saved rounds in rapid fire were the result and the reason for the many complaints for several years.

I doubt there is a single thing wrong with your rifle or anyone's rifle that is experiencing this problem with HXP in bolt guns. If other ammo feeds and extracts without problems you have the answer already. The long and short of it .....no pun intended....is the ammo, not the rifle. HXP brass is some of the greatest re-loadable brass out there but, it often sucks the first time around through a bolt gun. Nature of the beast.


Why would the Army want an intermediate caliber?
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=7142227&posted=1


As an MOS trained ammo handler, I've walked into enough bunkers just in training to know 85 degrees is a paperwork temperature. You get what you get, depending on the sun load, wind direction, amount of time the main doors are open, etc.

Not to mention the huge number of varmints living in there who found access through the cross flow ventilation. Bunkers are NOT sealed air tight. They are just resistant to forced entry.

Ammo does have a specific shelf life clock, even when stored in military containers. It can and does deteriorate to the point that it would be detrimental to soldiers in combat to use it. There are numerous examples of that in history, it was the main impetus to the invention of the brass case or paper shell. And old shotgun paper shells were a known compromise, those were loaded in high wall cases and moved to polymer as soon as it was practical. So has centerfire ammo, just to reduce costs.

With documented experience dating over 200 years, the Army is very aware just exactly how long to keep ammo, and inspects it regularly to check the condition. Once evidences start stacking up, it either moves to the front of the next-issue in line to consume it for training, or is put up for sale as is. It's aged, out or spec surplus unfit for combat use, irregardless of the civilian standards that it "seems to be ok." No, it's not. We don't sell off hundreds of thousands of rounds because it's "ok." We sell it because it won't be safe to use and will cause our troops to get killed due to malfunctions.

If you shoot surplus ammo, you should be aware of the risk to your firearm, and yourself. Glossing it over with personal anecdotes isn't a valid pronouncement of the risk. What part of "Not Good Enough For Real Combat" isn't understood? Storing out of date surplus another 10-15 years isn't the best way to handle it.

As for look alike and production reject military ammo, that stuff is known, documented, and identified by lot number also. The competition three gunners pass the word on bad lots that kaboom guns. Not being in that loop and never hearing about it doesn't mean it's not happening. If it has an X in front of the military designation, it's not milspec. It's out of spec, or at best, production overrun, which is really hard to fathom when most ammo makers for the .gov are whizzing along with a 24/7 schedule.

Take the same attitude shooting surplus as you would eating out of date MRE's or canned goods past the expiration date. If everyone treated ammo the same way, there wouldn't be any sales at all. Fortunately the track record shows kabooms in the action at far less frequency than kabooms from last years burritos found in the back of the refrigerator. Just don't fool yourself into thinking a highly volatile chemical compound containing enough oxygen to completely fuel the chemical reaction won't be affected by long term deterioration, or that it's always stored perfectly preserved for 25 years.

[SlamFire1]

To reinforce the anecdotal evidence of people’s experiences in the real world, data on how pressures increase with old deteriorated gunpowder can be found on DTIC. You just have to look for it.

This is very old data, at the time ball powders were new, and the Army was making comparisons between double based ball powders and the single based IMR stick powders

https://i.imgur.com/x5aFdDH.jpg
Something that is important, the shelf life of double based powders is considered to be less than half that of single based. Double based powders have nitroglycerine in the mix. Nitroglycerine attacks nitrocellulose. I also found something interesting, water molecules, which are polar covalent, wick nitrocellulose to the surface. Now I can’t see water molecules in the air, like I can’t see fuming nitric acid, but there are millions of billions, of trillions of water molecules in the air. It’s called humidity. And when air borne water molecules land on a grain of gunpowder, nitroglycerine is attracted to the polar covalent end. And when the water molecule leaves, it drags nitroglycerine with it. Given millions of billons of trillions of landings and take offs, the surface becomes nitroglycerine rich. That will spike the pressure curve.

This data shows that heat is used to artificially age gunpowder. The Insensitive Munitions Professionals know, have known, that heat ages gunpowder, and heat ages gunpowder at an exponential rate. Basically, the hotter it is, the faster the gunpowder deteriorates.

This came from a UN report
https://i.imgur.com/rPNzqCj.jpg

I took off the link because many liars and deniers associate the UN with the devil, and the discussion goes down a rat hole.

This I pulled off DTIC

https://i.imgur.com/EECPFU8.jpg

This one too.
https://i.imgur.com/Sae48nz.jpg

I think what the different temperatures mean, is that the company ran aging tests at 60 ºC, 70 ºC, and 80 ºC, and they have computer models which correlate time at temperature, to years. So what you see is that gunpowder combustion pressures increase with time. You can find the presentation on DTIC by searching with the name on the upper left. Rheinmetall is making a sales pitch, their gunpowder is better than anyone else’s. I can’t explain why they show some gunpowders dropping in pressure, the “propellants aged in ammo”. These charts are from a sales pitch, not a scientific paper, go call Rheinmetall for more information.

This is also from a DTIC presentation.

https://i.imgur.com/CZps3uJ.jpg

Now what I was told, was that as gunpowder deteriorates, the grain breaks down. The burn rate becomes unstable because of the chaotic interactions between pressure waves on the surface of an irregular powder grain. Of course, if the surface is nitroglycerine rich, that cannot be good for the pressure curve. And, if the gunpowder has broken down and leaves dust in the case, that dust has a huge surface area.
I was surprised to find how dangerous cotton dust is to companies that make thread, fabric, etc. And then there are coal dust fires. Lots of kaboom with coal dust fires on you tube. When gunpowder breaks down to a dust, I am sure that the resulting pressure will be very high on ignition. It won’t be a burn, it will be an explosion.

This is well known to the Insensitive Munitions professionals, the civilian shooting community is clueless. First world militaries trains individuals, pays them to conduct surveillance, and remove old ammunition before it blows up in the hands of its troops. The shooting community is ignorant of this. The community is unaware of the vast quantities of munitions that are being demilling and scrapped . When I present data, I get denial. The shooting community does not want to know, for if it did, it would know. I can only conclude the shooting community has made itself deliberately stupid.

This is an older chart I found on DTIC

https://i.imgur.com/qTKdEtd.jpg

I have found the best, open source information on the vast quantities of munitions which are demilled to be on http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/ Unfortunately they change they links faster than the weather changes, so I stopped trying to link to specific information. However, they have really interesting reports like “Unplanned Explosions at Munitions Sites” , “Chapter 9. Burning the Bullet: Industrial Demilitarization of Ammunition”. I suspect no one is going to look, so this is all wasted, but the information exists, and the scale and quantity of munitions being scrapped is totally beyond the comprehension of the vast majority of shooters. But this is what you expect from a community that does not want to know.

I talked to Clark Guns, they are a precision pistol organization, has retired military as employees. They are right next to Camp Minden, which has demilling facilities. The employees at Clark Guns can hear the explosions from old, deteriorated propellants auto combusting. There are more kabooms than reported on the internet. And yet, I don’t think they understand why. And the community around, does not understand the thermochemisty, but they do hear the booms. And they are concerned about the toxic fumes that result from open air burning of real nasty explosives and propellants.

New Information: Bunker blast at Camp Minden
By USAHM-News on October 19, 2012
https://usahitman.com/nibbacm/

6 arrested in Camp Minden explosives investigation
http://www.fox8live.com/story/22637088/la-company-managers-indicted-in-explosives-case

Camp Minden: From blast to possible burn
http://www.ktbs.com/story/28065933/camp-minden-from-blast-to-possible-burn

[0verkill]

I have some Accurate 2495 that smells like mold and Vic's vaporub. Looks fine, no fumes, no rust. Is this bad powder?

[dnegative]

https://i.ibb.co/8zkwd4D/2201-1.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/v1Sc90r/2201-2.jpg

[high standard 40]

I discarded about two pounds of VV N-133 powder today. I didn't think to take a picture. When I opened the first container red vapor started rising up from the container like steam. There was a sharp, burn your nose smell. I quickly took this outside. The powder inside looked like it had been painted candy apple red. The second container had the bad smell but hadn't turned red yet.

[pcmacd]

Those evil brown fumes were Nitro Glycerine.
The liquid is quite likely the same.

You need to dispose of that VERY CAREFULLY.

.

I expect that the evil brown/yellow fumes were some kind of acid, because that's exactly how they felt to my sinuses when I was stupid enough to put my schnozzle into a decaying kilo of VV133.

Acid fumes, likely sulphuric due to the yellow color.

Acid fumes, w/o a doubt.

~~~~~
I had been smelling something a wee bit off-kilter in my "stationary cabinet" stash of propellants for several months, around 2016 in my old Commiefornia home.

It got funky enough that I finally went cannister by cannister to suss it out.

When I got to the VV133, a VERY. distinctive yellow cloud came out the top.

I might have missed self-combustion by only days???

Nowadays I make it a habit to put my nose into my powder stash once/week.

After all, some of my IMR 4895 pulldown propellant is over 70 years of age?

If I smell any iffy thing, I take the top off each container and assess.

~~~~~
Furthermore, I now live in Greater Phoenix, where it gets a bit warm in the summer months.

I have an old 4 drawer file cabinet which I put on serious ball bearing wheels from a medical cart in a saddle of my design, in which I keep my propellants. The first three drawers are full; around 100# of propellant. Don't ask me where it came from.

The wheeled cabinet is in the laundry room (ask me how wifey likes that?) close enough to the front door that I can wheel the whole shebang out the door in 20 or so seconds if I am having issues.

My loaded ammo remains in the garage. (Sigh.)

Can't go wrong with that strategy.

...

[pcmacd]

If you can smell it w/o pain it is likely fine, unless.... it looks like somebody poured rust into the container.

Then it will smell normal. The clue is the red dust you will see when you pour it.

I've seen nasty decomposing VV133 with yellow clouds of sulphuric acid flowing off the top, and an IMR propellant (for 30-30, can't remember the exact propellant) that looked like half rust inside, with red clouds of dust pouring out if you poured it.

The IMR had been in a CA desert mobile home. The VV133 had been in my garage, which got to 105F from time to time in the summers and was around 12 years of age.

Iben reloading for 35 years, and those are the only two failed propellant experiences I have had.

...

[pcmacd]

I have some Accurate 2495 that smells like mold and Vic's vaporub. Looks fine, no fumes, no rust. Is this bad powder?

Yeppers. Absolute gone south, judging from all of the red I see in your image.

[Dutchman]

Military Surplus Powder autocombusting
snipped



Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to share all this information.

Dutch

[BlueSmoke]

What is a safe way to dispose of deteriorated powder?

Thank You,

BlueSmoke

[pcmacd]

Glad my stuff is in climate controlled cabinet in the basement, complete with dehumidfier. Some powder over 20 years old, still looks, smells, and shoots fine.

Igot wwII/korean conflict pulldown IMR4895. Still rocks.

I had a kilo of V133 go south after ten years. Reamed my sinuses when I sniffed the bottle. Duh?

I had smelled something funky in the cabinet for a month. I'm lucky it didn't catch fire.

[pcmacd]

If it has gone acid, I'd burn it. If it is fast burning, don't make the mistake of having your face above it when you light it. I had some spilled 231 or bullseye, about a cup, put up a 10 foot flame and toast the bottom of the bball net - I barely got my face out of the way. A rifle powder can be hard to light, not so with pistol propellents.

If you just spill something and it is not gone south, it makes a great fertilizer. Just don't dump it all on one plant, that's a LOT of NITROGEN there!

[uscra112]

What is a safe way to dispose of deteriorated powder?

Thank You,

BlueSmoke

Makes excellent fertilizer. Lots of the nitrogen plants need.