Would you buy opened powder?

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Local pawn shop has around 10 1 lb bottles of opened powder pistol/shotgun and rifle, all felt mostly full, $8 each. No cans, all plastic bottles. None smelled off or had any other signs of deterioration.


The rest of the story:

I passed on the powders. I knew opened containers presented a potential hazard. I only currently use one of the powders (Power Pistol) which does not have a particularly unique appearence. There was also a bottle of Blue Dot, Clays, Lil-Gun, Ramshot (maybe Enforcer?), a few Alliant rifle powders, and a few more I don't recall. None of the powders were obviously mixed (flake and ball etc). While I don't think the guy that runs the gun counter would be stupid enough to mix powders, the pawnshop itself is on the shady side of town and is not what you would call well organized. They were recently shut down for a few days by the fire marshall, until they could get everything picked up off the floor so the aisles would be passable. I do have a chrono and may consider 4 lbs+ of something I use a lot of such as Red Dot that I could work up a load for and use for some time. Thank you for all the replies.

[white eagle]

as long as it was all the same and looked in decent shape
Grab it

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Ehhh, from a pawn shop....no. If someone was selling them that actually did the reloading...maybe. You never know what those pawn shop guys did...if they mixed powders to get them all to about the same level so they could sell them all for the same price??? There may have been 15 partial cans that they condensed into 10. After all, it's all just gunpowder, right? LOL!

Side note: You say the cans felt mostly full...well. with a lot of powders if the can is mostly full, it is well over 1#. Be careful.

[starnbar]

No matter how you look at it its a gamble if you have a way to get the powder checked as to the contents in the can match the name on the can you are in luck.

[C. Latch]

I would and I have. Obviously, you need to do some testing to be sure it's what you think it is before you start using it in full-pressure loads, but, yes, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

[runfiverun]

If I was super familiar with the powder and I could identify it by sight. and it jived with the bottle and there was a few pounds of the same powder (or something definitive like red-dots) I would get it and work with it on it's own merits.

[Bonz]

I would never do it

[hunter49]

That's awful tempting at those prices, imo it would have to be from a trusted souce that I have done business with. It's just not worth the risk of personal injury to yourself or others.

[koehn,jim]

No I would not too much danger of powder having been mixed.

[Clay M]

I wouldn't ,but that is me.. You know what the risks are..

[bangerjim]

me??????????

never.....ever......ever......ever.......I am sure not THAT desparate for powders.

You have absolutely NO idea what is in there, if it is cross-contaminated with other powders, and how it has been stored. Pass on that one. Buy ONLY new unpoened from a reliable source!

banger

[.30-06 fan]

buying this powder could end your life.

[376Steyr]

"Paging Mr. Darwin. Paging Mr. Darwin. Mr. Darwin, please pick up the white courtesy telephone..."

[big bore 99]

I'd walk away from that ---fast.

[Blacksmith]

That is pretty expensive for fertilizer. If someone I knew and trusted probably, from a pawn shop who got it from who knows where never.

[TheDoctor]

Like I tell someone when asked if a circuit has been made safe. It's your life, take my word for it if you want to!

Depends on what the powder claims to be. If it claims to be Bullseye, and I was loading 25 acp, or maybe plinker 38's, might not go wrong. Anything that is supposedly slower? No way Jose!

[Taylor]

Absolutely not, not from a pawn shop.I'm with ICH on this!

[MtGun44]

Sure. Trust, but verify, as Reagan said.

Pour out a significant sample of each, examine for mixed powders, then
check to see if it looks to be correct (ball powder in a Unique can is NOT correct,
for example) and then start way low and see how it performs.

At $8 a can, if mostly full, I'd buy them all.

"could end your life" - Really?? that is ridiculous. Not rocket science, requires
a bit of adult thinking, but so does running a chain saw.

[johniv]

Depends what powder it is. I got a 3 lb can of bullseye this summer, seal broken but nearly full. I loaded it as bullseye in a .38, 3.5 gr It would have to be something much faster than BE to cause real trouble. If it is something slower, I would have gotten a squib. Any how that 3 lb can is gone now and it shot just like the new BE does, so in this case , I don't think there was much risk.
John
P.S It looked just like old bullseye(greenish) and only cost me $10.00 .
P.P.S. If it was the other way around and the can said "2400" you would have to be durn careful as the full charge would be 3 times the full charge of a fast burner like bullseye.
FWIW

[Clay M]

I just don't trust people all that much..They could be stupid and drunk, or they could be evil.Either way.. I won't risk it to save a few bucks..
I never came back to a drink I left at a bar either. Paranoid..maybe.. But I am still alive..

My X brother in Law gave me a 3lb can of 296.. He later told me he had some power in a hopper and he forgot whether it was 296 or 748..
Well I still got that can of 296 and it has been over twenty years..
For some reason it didn't give me much confidence in using the powder.
He was a very deceitful dude as well..