Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Gary,

I was reading old posts and came across your topic on powder deterioration. I seems I remember someone visiting Hodgdons factilities ( I think) and they had production samples of powder as reference stds. The interesting thing was that the powder was stored (I don't think they mentioned temperature) in distilled water with CaCO3 added to keep it stabilized. When they wanted to test a sample they would dry some out. I know Winchester added CaCO3 to their ball powder and an excess would lead to build up in the M16s gas system.

I finally remembered the powder. It was Hercules Unique which was first manufactured in 1898. That is kept in deoxygenated distilled water (probably boiled). It does have to have some buffering agent in it and I believe it is lime (CaCO3)?. Anyway the powder is over 100 years old and apparently has lost little of its quality. There are a couple of posts on other sites. The Article I saw was from someone actually doing an article at the Hercules/ Alliant plant of office.

I think you're right about black powder deteriorating more quickly than smokeless. In disassembling old black powder rounds, the powder usually looks pretty bad.

I've got some Unique that I got from my cousin that dates to circa 1974. I don't know that it's been stored under ideal conditions for all that time, but it certainly hasn't been in an attic. It has a little less energy content than newer Unique (by chrono data), but it shows no outright signs of deterioration.

My worst situation with deterioration was with some .270 Win. reloads that I bought for components once. They were very cheap, but not much of them was useable. They had been reloaded with what looked like 4831 and the propellant had liquified. I had some German 7,92x57 from WW2 that did the same thing. They can get so back that the acid eats through the case.

The German WW2 cartridges that I referred to above I bought somewhere between 1968 and 1973. I fired quite a few of them not long after I got them and retained a smaller quantity. From 1972 until when I discovered they had gone bad was approx. 30 years plus. They were stored in one of the metal GI ammo cans with the sealing lid. They were stored in a cool, dry environment for all those years. I would look at them every so often, so I believe the deterioration took place toward the latter part of the 30 years. My recall as to their exact year of manufacture isn't exact; they may have been made in 1938 or 39. So, they lasted about 60 plus years. As we know, there is ammo around that has lasted longer than that. I'm not a chemist, but I can only assume that when this happens to the powder, there is some step in the process that wasn't done quite right at the time of manufacture. I certainly hope my stash of 8x56R doesn't all decide to go gooey on me all at once some day. All of it that I now possess is either Austro-German pre-war, or Bulgarian 1939-41.

I had bought in an estate sale some pulldown powder that was IMR4895 in bulk. I bought the powder and .308 cases. It was pulled down because the ammo had gotten wet. It was purchased by the deceasant this way,(Flood I believe) It looked fine physically but had that acrid smell. I loaded it down 10% and used it in various ammo. It never gave me a problem, though the accuracy was a little less consistent than newer stuff. I used the whole jug of which was close to 8 pounds. Again it looked physically perfect. but smelled a little acrid. I also used pulldown 8mm ammo where the powder was starting to cake and stick together. I used it in reduced loads for stuff like 30-40 Krag and never had a problem. I added small packets of desceccant to the storage cans to help pull any moisture from the powder that may have been there. Probably not the safest practice, but that's what I did.

I bought a pound of new manufacture H4831 around 1980 and started to look damp and slimy and rusting any steel anywhere close to it. Had some loaded ammo that was being eaten from the inside out. I currently have some 300 wm loaded with it and don't know whether to try to shoot it or not. They are showing some signs of deteriation.

Rad

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Before you shoot those .300 Win Mags, you might take a few apart and have a look-see. My guess is that powder that has liquified probably has ruined the primer and won't go off; I suppose it's possible that the odd primer could still be good after this happens. Even though the powder liquifies, it is actually sludge-like and becomes something of a solid mass that can't be blown out of the case and down the barrel like granular powder can be. I get a mental image of a dangerous explosive in the chamber of your rifle.

The powder looked like you had put water or oil in it as it just sorta stuck together. That was the way it was in the can and the 270 wby I broke down. Those cases showed more sign of deteration. You have to look close at the 300 wm to see what is happening to them. I fired a couple about a year ago and it just seemed to kick just a little bit more.

Rad

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