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Thread: Major Powder Score, Includes 8# of "Mystery Powder"

  1. #1
    Boolit Master
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    Major Powder Score, Includes 8# of "Mystery Powder"

    Yesterday morning, before I was really wide awake,there came a knock on the door. Turned out to be a casual acquaintance bearing a deal for me. Ok, been there, seen the deal, butt still hurts from the last one. But, can't hurt to hear him out.

    Deal turned out to be a BIG box full of smokeless powders in mostly unopened cans. Some of it dates back to when the various IMRs could be had for $4.49/lb. One big (8#)canister right in the center with no markings on it but I will deal with that later.

    There is B'eye, Unique, 452AA, 473AA, 4-5 varieties of IMR and 4 of Hodgdon. Pics when I get the time.

    Between the full and partial cans there is somewhere very close to 19#. If I can figure out what the mystery powder(MP) is that brings it up to 27#. Four full cans of B'eye in there, the last I bought was a little over $26 with tax. Right there more than pays for the lot of it.

    The MP is dead ringer, appearance-wise, to IMR-4320. However it is roughly 20% heavier, by volume, than 4320. So, the search shall continue. I haven't tried visual comparisons of ever other powder I have on hand. That will be a long process so will probably wait until next week.

    Now I just need to see several cases of primers fall off a truck.
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  2. #2
    Boolit Grand Master

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    I can remember seeing IMR4895 and 4831 sold in paper lunch bags or white plastic gallon jugs. The shops had a big keg sitting in back you ask for it and it was weighed up in the sack or jugs. No markings on the container makes it rough to determine its more a guess

  3. #3
    Boolit Grand Master tazman's Avatar
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    This idea may get you closer or at least trim down the possibilities.
    Lee puts out a VMD table that gives the weight of a powder in grains by volume. If you could run some of that powder through one of their measuring devices or even their scoops, and get a weight, Lee provides an equation using the weight and the volume to give a number. Track that number down one the table and you have the powder. There may be more than one powder with a very close value but should not be more than3-4 I would think. At least it would give you some closer ideas.

  4. #4
    Boolit Master
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    A mystery powder 20% denser than 4320? I don't think such a powder exists. Maybe find a fair sampling 2% denser, but not 20% denser.
    I think 4895 might run 2% denser and most of the Reloader series.

    What does the cannister look like? Might be some clue there...

  5. #5
    Boolit Master
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    earl, that weight discrepancy has been bothering me as well and could be operator error.

    To get my samples I used one of my Lee dippers, 4.3cc. Scooped it full to over flowing, tapped it once with my little 6# Starret rule and struck it level with that same rule as a straightedge. Five of those scoops went into the scale pan to check weight. At that point I was not concerned about absolute weights, just relative weights. Now to throw a little potential operator error into things; the wife and I have been swapping some sort of miserable "bug" back & forth between us. Tuesday, when I did the measuring I would not have felt comfortable doing reloading since I was aware I was not 100% "with it". Considering that the difference in sample weights is also what could be expected if I added an extra scoop to one sample it is highly possible that I scrod up quite nicely.

    Thanks to who contributed links to other information, every little bit helps!

    On edit; I just went back over my numbers. First error was that the mystery powder was lighter than "real" 4320. Average weight for 4.3cc of the real stuff was 56.88 grs., if I used a sample size of FOUR scoops of mystery powder the weight for 4.3cc was 57.00. Coincidence? I tend to think NOT! I'll run the whole sampling bit again when I am in better command of my wits.
    Last edited by Alan in Vermont; 11-01-2018 at 02:32 PM.
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  6. #6
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    You might try taking a magnifying glass and under a strong light take a close look at the "container" to see if there maybe any markings in pencil or something else indicating what it might be. Even an ultraviolet light may shine more on a pencil number or letters. Of course it may be some historical WW-II powder that was never available to the shooting public. Except by companies like Hodgdon who thought up some numbers to classify the powder into type. Rifle, pistol, shotgun, slow rifle, fast rifle, etc.

  7. #7
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Even marked cans that have been opened can get you into trouble. No guarantee the can holds what is marked or that is was not contaminated by someone dumping some different powder in by mistake.

    I know someone who buys opened cans at gun shows and mixes them all together to get a mystery powder for his shotgun loads. There are people that stupid out there.
    Don Verna


  8. #8
    Boolit Master
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    While trying to figure out just where I'm going to store all of this. I was already pretty well set up for rifle powders so a lot of this is duplicate. The shotgun & pistol powders go pretty fast but right now I have a huge, for me, stash of loaded ammo from heavy loading sessions last winter.

    Here's what I added, in 1# cans, by brand.

    W-W
    231
    473
    748
    540

    Hodgdon
    BL-C Lot 2
    H380 X 2
    H4895 X 2

    Alliant
    Bullseye X 4
    Blue Dot

    IMR
    4350
    3031
    4064
    4320

    Partial cans of Unique, IMR 4895,4320,4831,4350 & 3031 and the infamous 8# hit of Mystery Powder.

    Some of the W-W powders are like old friends, I was loading them when I was shooting trap back in the mid-70s. IIRC there is one of the the 500 "series" powders that worked with data for RL-6 or -7. Memory is fuzzy, I used up the last I had a few years ago, I'm almost thinking it was 571, if there was a 571, but it might have been 540. Can anyone help with that?
    Last edited by Alan in Vermont; 11-01-2018 at 06:40 PM.
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  10. #10
    Boolit Master
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    The fellow you got this stuff from did use 4320. If the mystery powder looks like 4320 it probably is 4320.

    Find a 4320 starting load for a likely rifle, reduce it 10%, and go fire some over a chronograph. That's why God invented bolt-action rifles -- so us fellers would have a virtually indestructible platform that would let us test out mystery powder and identify it so we can put it to good use.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by dverna View Post
    Even marked cans that have been opened can get you into trouble. No guarantee the can holds what is marked or that is was not contaminated by someone dumping some different powder in by mistake.

    I know someone who buys opened cans at gun shows and mixes them all together to get a mystery powder for his shotgun loads. There are people that stupid out there.
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  12. #12
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by earlmck View Post
    The fellow you got this stuff from did use 4320. If the mystery powder looks like 4320 it probably is 4320.

    Find a 4320 starting load for a likely rifle, reduce it 10%, and go fire some over a chronograph. That's why God invented bolt-action rifles -- so us fellers would have a virtually indestructible platform that would let us test out mystery powder and identify it so we can put it to good use.
    Since there are both pistol and rifle powders in that bunch I wouldn't bet my life on that. I most likely would start by matching it to others in the group and then small charge in my Blackhawk working from that with a chronograph.
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  13. #13
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    I think you'll find WIN 540 is Hodgdon HS6
    Charter Member #148

  14. #14
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    Fertilizer, 8#s is not worth it. Throw it on your garden and not worry about guessing wrong.

  15. #15
    Boolit Master
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    Ha! So Alan you have a good range of "advice". I'd probably start by pouring it out into one of the wife's big measuring bowls and making sure the stuff is a uniform stick and not a mixture of "leftover stuff". Then if it all looks like a 4320 stick I'd go ahead and test load like I said with a bolt-action rifle, as it is not a pistol powder in that stick configuration.

    But my formative reloading years were back in the days when the LGS had a big keg of stuff labeled "4831" which he would sell us budget-minded college boys for $.50/lb measured out in a paper bag. And it could vary from approximately 4320 speed to more normally 4350 speed on up to slower than present-day 4831 speed. And we loaded it in surplus 303 British and '06 rifles quite happily. And no chronographs -- we just listened to the "loudness" and watched for reluctant bolt-lift. So testing out a mystery powder doesn't seem such a huge deal to me.

    And it would be a could day in a hot place before this old Scotsman would empty a jug of rifle powder out in the garden just because I wasn't totally sure of its burning speed.

  16. #16
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    Naramore’s Principles and Practice of Reloading Ammunition has a section on how to develop loads with unknown powders.

    I would second earlmcks’ advice that you check the stuff for homogeneity. If it’s a mixture of sticks, flakes and balls, you’ll never get two charges the same.

  17. #17
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bent Ramrod View Post
    I would second earlmcks’ advice that you check the stuff for homogeneity. If it’s a mixture of sticks, flakes and balls, you’ll never get two charges the same.
    If it was I wouldn't be considering using it. There doesn't seem to be anything else in there but short tubular, extruded powder. I did more visual comparisons with every other extruded powder in inventory. I also put another small sample of both the real 4320 and the mystery powder on a white background under very good light and there is no discernible difference.

    I have loaded 5 rds of 6.5mm Remington Mag. with "real" 4320 over 100gr hollow points at 47 grs which is a nice mid-range load. I also loaded 5 with the same bullet but with 37grs of mystery powder. It's supposed to be raining hard tomorrow but I plan to fire the 4320 loads & at least one mystery powder, all will go through a Remington 600 as that is the only(OK, I do have two of them) strong action I have. If there are no bad vibes I will start sneaking up on full loads.
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  18. #18
    Boolit Master
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    There ya' go Alan. I looked at QuickLoad and it thinks your 47 grain load should be around 3000 fps and dropping to 37 grains of 4320 would be around 2400 fps. But if the 37 grain load gives velocities up around 3000 fps you would have another beast -- maybe AA5744. Now that would be an interesting find! (It would still be below SAAMI max pressure by the way).

  19. #19
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    I once heard some advice on how to identify an unkown powder. Spread it evenly on bare ground and with a long match light it! After all the `OOOHS and AAAAHS` are over with your problem about what it WAS are done with.Robert

  20. #20
    Boolit Master

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    There are methods of attempting to discover the burning rate of a "mystery" powder...

    I am pretty sure that one of them is NOT to assume it is, in this case 4320, and start 10% below suggesting charges from a reloading manual. If the powder you have is faster than 4320, a 10% reduction might not even be near enough...

    I'm not sure I would even have good enough measuring tools to attempt to measure the kernel sizes even as many are described in Powder Profiles. Volumetric method can be iffy also, but at least a good powder measurer might drop charges consistent enough to check density. Maybe not too, depending on powder sizes...

    As mentioned, there are other methods and Ken Waters described on many many years ago. I've used that method with a good strong Ruger handgun and the results were basically, I knew what burning rate, within reason, I was dealing with, but still no actual proven reloading data...

    So, it can be done, but one must use considerable common sense and I don't think assuming falls into that category...

    Good-luck...BCB

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check