bought some vintage powder today

[funnyjim014]

Fellow at the club sold me an 8oz can of red dot ( square can with pop top) and a 8oz can of dupont 5066, rectangle can with tiny screw cap. I bought em for 5 bucks each and low and behold the powder looks brand new. Going to have to load some .45acp and see how the old stuff performs. I hope it's not supper good as I'll never find it again lol

[Bent Ramrod]

5066, and its predecessor, DuPont No. 5, were good powders. Both of them worked well for standard loadings in a .32-20 revolver. I still have a partial can of No. 5 and use it occasionally.

[Cary Gunn]

Funnyjim,

Your square tin can of Hercules Red Dot sure brings back memories.

I was in my early teens when I bought my first square pop-top of RD. That would have been in the mid-'60's when RD and its sisters (Bullseye, Green Dot, Unique, Herco, 2400, etc.) were made by the Hercules Corp.

If my aging grey-matter ain't too broke to correctly recall, my favorite "secret recipe" in those days was 16 grains of the old RD in a 16 ga. paper shotshell, with card overpowder and felt filler wads, topped with an ounce of chilled "sixes."

That load in my Stevens 311 doublegun would tumble gray and fox squirrels from the tallest of hickories, roll the fastest of cottontails into balls of fur-wrapped tasty tablefare, and stop the flight of rooster ringnecks like a yank from the hangman.

Switch out the No. 6 shot for No. 8's, and the side-by-side 16-bore fueled with RD would do fine for doves, pigeons and quail, too.

In the many years since, I've happily used lots of RD (now from the Alliant Company) in 12 ga. trap, skeet, sporting clays and doves loads, and tossed many pistol bullets, cast and clad, downrange with the wonderful stuff. It's worked fine in .380 ACP, .30 Tokarev, 7.62x38r Nagant revolver, 9mm Makarov, .38 Special, .357 Mag., and the .41 S&W Mag.

For light cast-bullet rifle loads, I've enjoyed RD in the .270 Win., 7x57 Mauser, .308 Win., 30-06, 7.62x54r Russian, 8x57 Mauser, and the 8x56r Austrian Mannlicher cartridge. And, I've probably left out some others.

Ya might say it's sort of versatile. And, when mixed with a dollop of butter, it makes a fine spread for crackers.

Oh, and -- unlike us -- the stuff never shows it's age. Alliant claims their lab still occasionally loads perfectly functional test rounds from a container of more-than-century-old Unique powder. Red Dot hasn't been with us as long as Unique, but its basic formula is similar and will likely stand the test of time just as well.

So, assuming your square can of RD wasn't stored in hell or high-water, it should make you smile just as much as it has me.

By the way, hold on to the empty powder can. I wish I'd kept one of the old "squareheads," just so I could put it on display as a reminder of a good times past.

Happy trails,

-- Cary Gunn --

[richhodg66]

Red Dot is very good stuff in a lot of cast applications. I shot a whole lot of it in light .45 Colt loads a long time ago. It also worked fine in .38 Special and .45 ACP as well as some reduced rifle loads too.

[M-Tecs]

Some of the older cans are starting to have fair collectors market. I would check into it before you get rid of them. If you don't want the empty cans I may be interested.

[Dale53]

A few days ago, I had a visit from an old friend from out of state. Amongst the reloading stuff he brought along to sell, was a couple of four pound caddies of 5066. He offered it to me at a very reasonable price and I added it to the stash. 5066 was discontinued in about 1964. However, my experience with this powder has been uniformly good. It is a great target powder for center fire handguns. My favorite target load for .45 ACP is 4.5 grs. It also works just fine in the .38 Special for standard and target loads. It was highly prized "back in the day". It seems to have nearly unlimited life IF it has been stored properly (cool, dark area).

FWIW
Dale53

[Mauser48]

Someone gave me a 5lb can of 700x with the pop top and it shoots just as good as the new stuff. Smells like vinegar but there's no rust in it and it shoots fine. The can is in good shape too and will make a nice decoration once the powders gone.

[CHeatermk3]

Cary Gun,
I just tried your spread recipe and..it ain't all that wonderful...

:kidding:

[Cary Gunn]

Sorry CHeatermk3,

Tastes vary, I guess.

Happy trails,

-- Cary Gunn --

[10x]

I am using DuPont Bulk in a 22 hornet with a NOE 37 gr. PB bullet. Velocity is consistent and it is quieter than 22 long rifle

[Les Staley]

Got this pop top can at a small gun show in Potlatch Idaho this spring. $10 and almost full of good smelling powder.

[Shiloh]

My 5066 had red dust in it. Lawn fertilizer.

Shiloh

[TCLouis]

LS 10 bucks???

I got ripped off on my purchase then . . .

12 bucks,, but it is still sealed after all!

Wonder if our steel cans are old enough to be collectors items.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Someone gave me a 5lb can of 700x with the pop top and it shoots just as good as the new stuff. Smells like vinegar but there's no rust in it and it shoots fine. The can is in good shape too and will make a nice decoration once the powders gone.

I was going to say smokeless powder can last a long, long time - some of it, some of the time - but you should check for either reddish dust or an acrid smell, which accompany deterioration. A vinegar smell alone isn't necessarily evidence of serious harm, and getting worse will reduce its energy yield not increase it. But I wouldn't trust it in rounds I was going to leave for years, and trust my life to.

[runfiverun]

700-x always has a pungent solventy smell.
it used to make me wrinkle my nose and get a little nauseous if I got a good whiff of the burnt powder when using it in shot shells.

[Bent Ramrod]

An ether/acetone smell means the powder is still fresh. It gradually goes away on storage; faster if the can is opened frequently.

What I watch out for is a sour, "nitrous" smell, and stickiness and clumps in the powder. If you've ever gotten a whiff of nitric acid, or the air after a good thunderstorm, it smells like that. I periodically go through my powder cans and give them the "smell test." Oddly, the only container that went bad (so far) was an unopened round plastic jar of modern made slow burning stuff. Hadn't had the seal under the cap broken yet. I got it at a gun show, so it's anyone's guess how it was stored by the table holder. Smelled to high heaven, and gooey and clumpy. I had a fireworks party in the charcoal grill with it.

I've used up odds and ends of powder that I've had to sift the rust out of, and it all shot fine for me. The powder itself was dry, not sticky, and had no smell, so I went ahead and used it, after the standard load development work. The cans had rusty spots on the inner surface, but no holes rusted through.

Just my experience; "past performance does not guarantee future results."

[Texas by God]

Well written Cary Gunn. Best, Thomas.

[DSRichert]

Just opened and loaded a couple hundred 357 full power magnums from a square can of 2400 from the early 70's shot some on Sunday still snappy.

Sent from my LG-K330 using Tapatalk

[Ithaca Gunner]

Got this pop top can at a small gun show in Potlatch Idaho this spring. $10 and almost full of good smelling powder.

I have almost a half dozen of those square cans of 2400, only one open. I'll use it up in .44 loads.