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.
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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.
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.)
[IMG]http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n...20090928_1.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n...20090928_2.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n...20090928_3.jpg[/IMG] Dupont IMR 4895 The Manufacture of Smokeless Powders and their
Forensic Analysis: A Brief Review http://firearmsid.com/Feature%20Arti...wder/index.htm These photos & more albums at > http://www.photobucket.com/joe1944usa
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.
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.
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/imag...7e4e1b5d14.jpg
mdevlin53
were those factory loads or commercial reloads?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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