Integrity of black powder stored out of doors?

[Naphtali]

I have an opportunity to purchase a quantity of Goex FFg powder. It has been stored just outside of a barn, unopened in original canisters, for at least 15 years. While the weather here is seldom extreme - that is, only a few days per year above 90 degrees and below zero degrees Fahrenheit - nevertheless, no special care or precaution has been taken to maintain powder's integrity.

Were this smokeless powder, I would almost certain pass on it. Black powder, being an intimate mixture of chemical rather than one integrated chemical compound, renders a potential purchase perhaps more reasonable?

Disregarding price, buy, or not?

[fishhawk]

i would buy it! they have found loaded cannons underwater for 3 hundred years and once the powder dries out it goes boom.

[Don McDowell]

There is nothing you can do to destroy the integrity of blackpowder short of completely dissolving it in water.
So long as those cans didn't rust on the inside and contaminate the powder (it'll still go off just fine, but won't be as consistant) that powder should be just fine.
Just be mindful of the price and don't over pay for what you can get fresh powder from Grafs or Powder Inc deliver to your door.

[NickSS]

I fired around 10 pounds of black powder removed from a CW artillery shell that was found on a beach in North Carolina that had been there for over 70 years at the time found and another 10 till I deactivated it by removing the powder. It all went off nicely in my rifle so I would by it without heasitation.

[Wayne Smith]

Outside OF a barn or outside IN a barn? I suspect a typo and you ment in a barn. If so, buy it.

[Shooter]

I store mine in an outside shed. No problems in 20 years.
I grew up in the 50's hunting with BP that was stored in a Mason jar in the barn.
No problems there either.

[chill45100]

I store mine in the garden shed which has caused no problems that I can see. Go for it!

[1874Sharps]

BP is rock stable (until after it is lit). It even resists atmospheric moisture to an extent (when compared, for example to powder made with sodium nitrate instead of potassium nitrate). If BP gets really wet then all bets are off, as the distribution of the nitrate in the mixture changes for the worse, but short of something like that it will be fine.

[bigted]

we have probably the greatest difference in weather of anyplace in the usa. our weather changes from -70 to +95 some years. my powder and a couple others here in the interiour of alaska store the black outside in a plastic cooler that helps with the changes so they are a bit slower then our crazy weather patterns and i have yet to hear of someones powder going bad just from being outside...getting wet tho is another storie and i cant coment on that as i have yet to experience it.

buy buy buy...if the cost is rite.

[Multigunner]

Only theoretical degradation possibility I can think of with powder stored outdoors would be if moisture was already present in the sealed can and rose as a vapor when the can got hot, then turned to dew that settled at the top when the can became cool.
This might cause a leeching effect as the cool liquid moisture migrated to the bottom. When warm the vapor would not carry anything back to the top, so the most easily soluable component would end up in greater concentration in the powder at the bottom of the can.

Thats only a theory, and would require quite a long time to show any effect if indeed it did work out that way.

PS
The old time Gunners guilds kept their black powder making processes a close secret. using their own private formulas passed down from their predecessors.
It was known that if you wanted powder granules to be moisture resistent you'd mix the chemicals in wine rather than water. A natural polymer in wine derived from grape juice would rise to the surface of each grain as it dried and form a microscopic layer that acted as a moisture barrier.
Gunners received a large ration of wine from their employer to use in mixing powder.
The gunners discovered that if they drank the wine then urinated in the mixing pot it had the same effect in glazing the powder granules as if the powder were mixed using the wine.
This became their most closely guarded secret.

In latter years French gunpowder mixed using wine as the solvent was well known as the most moisture resistent.

[1874Sharps]

Multigunner,

I'll be, I have never heard about that. Very interesting. I wonder if it was a disgruntled employee who discovered pee worked. Maybe he said, "P^$$ on this job!"

[joec]

They found a couple of hundred pound that was buried during the French and Indian war. I all worked fine. Black powder if it even gets wet can be dried and fired in most cases.

[John Boy]

Only theoretical degradation possibility I can think of with powder stored outdoors would be if moisture was already present in the sealed can and rose as a vapor when the can got hot, then turned to dew that settled at the top when the can became cool. gunner, the normal moisture content when put in the cans is 1 - 2%


Black powder if it even gets wet can be dried and fired in most cases. True - there was an experiment in the 1800's by one of the era gun cranks that wet when dried - the velocity increased near 4%

[starmac]

True - there was an experiment in the 1800's by one of the era gun cranks that wet when dried - the velocity increased near 4%
__________________
I would be curious to see what they used to measure velocity with, in that era.

[Old-Win]

Ballistics pendulum.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/balpen.html