reloaders estate

[Eddietruett]

I have an opportunity to buy a reloaders estate there is a fair amount of powder the powder was moved from climate controlled to an outside shed a yr ago where its has been exposed to to temps from below freezing to 120 degrees. I know ill have to shoot this stuff across a chrono to check its true consistency and viability. But do any of you have experience with powder that has been stored like this and what is your opinion on its viability or lack of?

Thanks for replies!

I loaded in an outdoor metal building for 5-6 years and temps here in SC I’m sure got down to 20 degrees some nights and I know at least 100 in the metal building a lot. I never once saw any difference in performance more than a slight drop in velocity in cold weather but that’s to be expected.
I would try a few loads with a powder thst you now have on hand and if the performance is close I’d not hesitate to use it.

 

[Kal.38]

I was shooting early 1950’s .50 cal in the 80’s and 90’s. It had been inspected and repacked iirc, iirc the 1950’s cans aren’t the same as the current cans which is what we got it in.

I hear that I joined late 90s. We shot tons of old ammo during training. Even in Iraq those old boxes of 50 cal showed up. Our ADA guys where using Avengers like gun-trucks. Some of them had a hell of a time keeping that AN/M3 running.

 

[muzzlestuffer2012]

I have powder and primers from the late 80's but it's all been stored in my houses climate controlled of course. I know some guys that store their powder in a garage in a non functioning refrigerator to help insulate it from the high temps they say it always goes boom. I would not buy ammo stored in that way unless it was a screaming good deal only after smelling and inspecting it then do some loading and chronographing to compare it to known data for the load.

 

[glowe]

Was given a pasteboard 8 pound container of Red Dot a couple years ago. About 5 pounds were left and the bottom half of the pasteboard had water stains, but those old pasteboard containers were wax sealed. It looked and smelled OK so I loaded up several rounds of 12 gauge using different bushings and took them to the range. As it turned out, i could get the velocity I reload to by adding one bushing size to the load. Have been using it for over a year without any problems. I think those containers have been gone for 50 years or so, but the powder is fine. Back sometime around 1910, the makers of Unique powder placed a large amount of their early powder in water and would periodically dry out a batch to test against their new production powder to make sure they matched the original powder performance. They did this at least into the 1990s.

I believe that the reason why they placed the powder in water was because they knew water would do no damage, but they were more worried about air, and or extreme temperatures degrading the powder over time.

 

[Reloader Fred]

I'm still loading some Winchester small pistol magnum primers that I bought in 1979, and SR 4756 powder from the same time. I have Unique in the cardboard containers that still shoots fine, too.

If stored well, powder and primers will last a long time.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[ColoCoug]

I’m currently loading .38 Special with CCI primers and Unique that I bought around 1978 and have stored while moving around the western US. No problems or failures to fire.

 

[mtgianni]

I have bought several estates. The first was about 2009 and had 35 lbs of powder and several thousand primers including some Al-Cans from the 1960's. It had been stored in a climate-controlled situation, then in a shed for a year. I had no problems and am still shooting some of it. I had some IMR 4198 go bad from another deal. I would trust ammo shipped in metal containers the least, followed by paper with plastic being the most trusted.

 

[Skeet 028]

\Those containers of powder I will pretty much guarantee 99.9% all good I MR powders are dated on the containers with the lot numbers. The only ones to really worry about would be the IMRs flake powder will mostly never go bad As far as the IMR..sniff the opened ones...smell like ether..they are ok. I still have about 6 or 7 pounds of WWII surplus 4831 that I still use...stored in unheated/cooled building since the 1960s...and stilluse Hi Vel #2 from yjr late 30s...2400 from the 50s