Accurate No5 Powder

[Barrika]

A few months ago a friend of mine quit reloading and gave me a lot of his stuff. That included 2 1-lb bottles of Accurate No5 powder. Since both were about 1/2 full, I merged them into ONE bottle (yes, I know that is NOT ideal, but then neither is my 357 Mag). THEN, I saw that inside the now full bottle, the powder showed 2 fairly distinctly different grain sizes! Most of it is fairly fine particles, but some are much larger, looking like Unique "platelets". On asking,he SWEARS he's never mixed powders, EVER, but this bottle sure is now. I think the "platelets" are far maybe 5% of the bottle now. I do NOT want to risk the gun, nor my hand/eyes/face, but this bland scares me. I'd hate to trash ~7500 grains of pistol powder, but I'll do that if I HAVE to, for safety. (Can someone pls confirm too that ACC-#5 IS in fact fairly small grains?? Thx, dreading the worst here...

[tlawler]

Don’t even chance it. It’s fertilizer for your wife’s garden now.

[M29since14]

Please just trash it. You were wrong to mix it and you knew better. You’ve only got one choice. Your hands and eyes are much more important than a pound of powder.

Edit - Yes! AA5 is VERY fine. Like extremely fine. It’s about the finest-grained powder I’ve ever used.

[Barrika]

Funny thing: I just now looked at the other 9 powders he gave me: THEY do NOT match up to the coarser grain powder. Then I looked at my Unique powder: not a good match there either.
Guess I made myself a rather expensive batch of fertilizer. (( Reminds self to never EVER mix powders in bottles again, no matter WHAT the bottle labels say)) <sigh>

[Barrika]

Based on general knowlede/reccomendations and the powder blend not matching ANYTHING I can recognize..... it is now feeding some shrubs in my back yard <sigh>
The GOOD news is that face/hands/pistol are all still INTACT!

[Miracle Man]

Several years ago (25 or 30) I made the mistake of having two powders on my bench at same time. And of course I was done with one, cleaned out the powder dump and pored it back in the container. Of course the wrong container. Luckily I caught my mistake and started crying.

Had to toss about half a pound of whatever it was, don't remember? But I learned my lesson. That's why they say never have two powders on bench at same time, lol.

Yes pitch it, it's not worth it.

[TheTinMan]

Originally Posted by Miracle Man

Several years ago (25 or 30) I made the mistake of having two powders on my bench at same time. And of course I was done with one, cleaned out the powder dump and pored it back in the container. Of course the wrong container. Luckily I caught my mistake and started crying.

Had to toss about half a pound of whatever it was, don't remember? But I learned my lesson. That's why they say never have two powders on bench at same time, lol.

Yes pitch it, it's not worth it.

I did that once very early in my reloading. Never again. Just happy I realized what I had done.

[stansdds]

Only one thing you can do and that is to discard that blended powder.

[Nemo288]

For the record, QuickLOAD's picture of AA#5 looks like this:
I think those are 1mm squares, so pretty small.

[murf205]

"That's why they say never have two powders on bench at same time, lol." DO NOT ever forget this rule. Glad you caught it though. don't feel too bad, a lot of us have made this mistake. A new pound of Accurate #5 wont break the bank.

[Nevada Ed]

A lot of reasons to get rid of it, but

I always carry a small Aspirin bottle full of that throw away stuff,
for when I go on long hikes or have to stay over night or several days
just in case things go bad and I need a fire, for some reason, and this
might be my last resort.
If you have a weapon and ammo, this option is not needed.

[Skeet 028]

I had a friend mix 2 powders.. he poured about 40 gr of 800X into his 296 bottle. I tok it...yep I separated it and used it. 800X is very large flakes 296...well y'all know. Ran it through a small sieve. Worked just fine in the 410 loads. I also once got a 4 lb keg of Red Dot...factory fresh stuff. Didn't sound and act right in the 12 ga loads. Checked it and it had a lot of fine black powder in it. Separated it out. Turns out it was graphite. Used the powder...couldn't hardly see any Red dots...but it worked fine. Used the graphite eventually when I made a batch of shot. Was almost a pound of it. I guess the Red Dot came from the last of a run. Supposedly they use graphite in powder production.

[Skeet 028]

Oh as far as being a fire starter...yep burns hot...flares up...doesn't last long. Carry a medium size pill bottle with 4-0 steel wool with a flammable light oil in it. works really well.

[STORMINORMAN]

And, had the OP just loaded those two separately as #5... Who knows?

Maybe nothing...? Perhaps, not...

But, "better safe than (un)sure" is not a bad axiom, is it?

Cheers!

[ArchAngelCD]

I'm glad you listened to.your gut. If you think it doesn't seem right, go with that. You did the right thing IMO not using it.

Like said above, AA#5 is a ball powder and from what you said, one of the bottles didn't contain that. Is it possible he used the empty AA#5 bottle to store something else but forgot to mark it? It sounds like that's what happend...

The only time I dump powder from 1 bottle into another is when MY bottle is almost empty and I put the remaining powder into the next bottle of the same powder of the same Lot.

[Cdog]

When in doubt throw it out!

We're all human, and as ArchAngelCD said listening to your gut instinct is a wise move. It may cost you a little powder, but save you a lot of pain down the road.

In all my years of handloading I've only had one container of powder go rancid. I was first informed when I primer disintegrated in a 25-06 load.

I pulled a couple of rounds to weigh and they were spot on. I got my 4831 out, did the smell test and noticed it just didn't smell right. It hadn't become overwhelmingly odorferious, but it was turning. I had let it stay in a non climate controlled environment too long.

I've taken a whiff of every container I opened since.

I have a friend that got his noggin opened up by pieces of a Savage Model 10 chambered in .308 Win.

He reach for W748 powder and like humans can do, picked up the wrong bottle. He had gotten W296 instead. He knew he'd done everything properly! He went back and pulled a few, they measured right. He opened the door on the powder cabinet, reached for the powder and immediately realized what he'd done. W296 sitting just where he'd put what he thought was W748.

People wonder why I stop loading when they enter the room. Undivided attention is a must for me.

I'm quite hesitant to use any powder that's been opened by anyone but me.

[Paul in Nevada]

Originally Posted by STORMINORMAN

And, had the OP just loaded those two separately as #5... Who knows?

Maybe nothing...? Perhaps, not...

But, "better safe than (un)sure" is not a bad axiom, is it?

Cheers!

This was my thought exactly. If they both said No. 5 but looked different, what was actually in the bottles? I don't think I would trust any of those open containers.

[243winxb]

#5 has had different manufactures. See the many photos of #5 National Center for Forensic Science

The size & shape of powder has an effect on burn rate. Powder companys blend powder all the time. A extra fast batch will get blended with a slower batch.

A blended lot can still be as much as +/-5% difference in burn rate, between finished lots.

Hodgdon has taken over distribution of the Accurate powder line. #5 should now be more regulated and consistent in quality.

[Skeet 028]

Do they really "blend powders to get a specific burn rate"" I do remember the gummit having different lots of the same type of powder selling as surplus...such as Wc820. The government didn't blend them. They loaded to specific pressure/velocity ranges. I also don't think a powder company would sell canister powder to reloaders with + or - 5%... The government can test all loads...we the reloaders generally don't have that ability. Also...look at the Hodgdon manuals. They haven't changed most of the old standby powder loads in years ...with a difference of 5% they would be doing changes in data with that much variation.

[Nemo288]

Originally Posted by 243winxb

National Center for Forensic Science

Thanks for that link.
Very interesting site.
I might "borrow" a couple of those pix to fill in the gaps
where QuickLOAD has no powder pictures.

[243winxb]

Originally Posted by Skeet 028

Do they really "blend powders to get a specific burn rate"" I do remember the gummit having different lots of the same type of powder selling as surplus...such as Wc820. The government didn't blend them. They loaded to specific pressure/velocity ranges. I also don't think a powder company would sell canister powder to reloaders with + or - 5%... The government can test all loads...we the reloaders generally don't have that ability. Also...look at the Hodgdon manuals. They haven't changed most of the old standby powder loads in years ...with a difference of 5% they would be doing changes in data with that much variation.

See post #13 Thinking about bulk buy of WC-846 FedArm rifle powder | The High Road "When a powder within a batch is found to be unsatisfactory, it is removed and returned to the process for use in another lot."

And Powder Lot Variations: A Case Study with H4831 - Hodgdon Extreme

[Paul in Nevada]

Just look at the pictures posted. The granules are random sizes of flattened ball. Its very possible that what OP took to be two different powders was consistent with expected granule variations within a given lot.

[LostintheOzone]

Does it look like this?

National Center for Forensic Science

Not going to suggest what you do with it. That's you call.

[mtgianni]

I have gone through 16 + lbs of WC820. It has on occasion looked as though it had floor sweepings in with it. It was marketed as AA9 equivalent and I have shot it as such. At no point does the odd extruded powder granule get culled, just shot with the rest. AFAIK, AA5 has always been a canister powder.
I say this though the fact that the powder appears to be mixed is enough to have you hesitant about the safety of the load and will probably throw your shots off enough from mental anguish.

[Skeet 028]

Some lots of the Wc 820 were faster than others. And finer sized. but it was pulled down powder and cheap. the batch I had came from a fellow named Jeff Bartlett. Bought about 80 pounds. I also remember buying surplus 4831 in the 60s(70 cents a pound delivered)...the first keg had some little bits of paper and some of the black sealant in it. The price was right...deal was real and I wore a 100 pounds out in a bit over a year. The bits of paper were small and picked out... the black stuff?? just got loaded.