reloaders estate

[JimW]

I've been shooting Bullseye and Unique that sat in a tool chest in my garage for twenty years. I forgot it was in there. Perfectly fine.

 

[Kal.38]

The big ammo dump at Cam Ranh Bay was a huge place where they simply cut back vegetation in a spot and dumped the stuff in the cleared spot. It then just sat out there in the rain and tropical heat. Monsoon flood or 110 degrees. No attempt to shelter it or anything. The only protection was the 3 foot long Monitor lizards hiding in the jungle. There was enough bombs, mortar rounds, artillery and small arms ammo there to fight for another couple of decades. In 66-67 we were shooting 105 rounds that were made in 1944, toward the end of my tour they had moved to Korean war wrapped steel cased 105. Point being, if they were using all that stuff after how it was abused and stored and it worked fine, if you are being prudent and check I don't think you need to worry too much about how your powder/ammo was stored. How many of these "Suggestions" are sent out by companies who make this stuff? I know that the only local gun shop won't accept any ammunition that is maybe 10 years old which is ridiculous. I saw a you tube video where a guy shot off some Martini-Henry (paper wrapped) 100+ year old ammo and it worked fine 3 out of 4, no hang fires, no apparent loss of power and only one dud.

The army was still using that ammo when I was there. I fired plenty of linked 7.62 between 11/03~2/05. Had a can of LC71 once, worked just fine. I joked telling the guys my dad, your grandpa, and our first sergeant should have burned this up on Charlie.

 

[Lance Boyle]

The big ammo dump at Cam Ranh Bay was a huge place where they simply cut back vegetation in a spot and dumped the stuff in the cleared spot. It then just sat out there in the rain and tropical heat. Monsoon flood or 110 degrees. No attempt to shelter it or anything. The only protection was the 3 foot long Monitor lizards hiding in the jungle. There was enough bombs, mortar rounds, artillery and small arms ammo there to fight for another couple of decades. In 66-67 we were shooting 105 rounds that were made in 1944, toward the end of my tour they had moved to Korean war wrapped steel cased 105. Point being, if they were using all that stuff after how it was abused and stored and it worked fine, if you are being prudent and check I don't think you need to worry too much about how your powder/ammo was stored. How many of these "Suggestions" are sent out by companies who make this stuff? I know that the only local gun shop won't accept any ammunition that is maybe 10 years old which is ridiculous. I saw a you tube video where a guy shot off some Martini-Henry (paper wrapped) 100+ year old ammo and it worked fine 3 out of 4, no hang fires, no apparent loss of power and only one dud.

A lot of the old ammo I shot was in wooden crates, each round in a cardboard can that was coated with cloth and dipped in a beeswax like coating. Other than the heat I don't think anything would have harmed the 4.2" HE mortar rounds. Hell they could probably be ok underwater for a few weeks.

 

[Lance Boyle]

The army was still using that ammo when I was there. I fired plenty of linked 7.62 between 11/03~2/05. Had a can of LC71 once, worked just fine. I joked telling the guys my dad, your grandpa, and our first sergeant should have burned this up on Charlie.

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.

 

[kadams]

I went ahead and picked up the powder I got bullets and brass that more than covered what i paid for it, along with 4,000 primers and 20lbs of smokeless powder also got 10lbs of FFFg powder. the smokeless still smells right. the black powder smells kind of flat im gonna try some small piles with a match in a min. Thanks for all the info

 

[Marcruger]

A really good trick is to put cans of powder in a gallon or two gallon ZipLoc baggie, and squeeze the air out before sealing. If the can lid is not sealing perfectly, at least varying humidity won't be attacking the powder.
I inherited my dad's ammo when he died. Most of it was from handloads by various people and companies. No way I was going to shoot any of that. I put the ammo in a tub, and put a sign on the side saying "FREE. For components only. Do not shoot." I left it at my range and the member(s) had taken it by the following day.

 

[A-300 Dave]

I bought at an estate sale a lot of .270 & .45 APC components that were approximately 30 yrs old. Thus far I have not experienced any powder or primer failures. I think that as long as moisture doesn't get to them you're Ok.

 

[Dave Haynes]

A friend who was an EOD in the Corps told me that the explosives in bombs and mortars? was like Styrofoam, you could cut it with a saw or knife like birthday cake. Seems like it wouldn't be affected by moisture too much. The ammo cans we had were very high quality, rubber gaskets and sealed really well.
Watching our battery do a fire mission was something to remember. US had the finest artillery personnel and training in the world by far. One shoots, the other two mimic everything the shooting one does until it gets where they want it then all three open up within seconds it's over, now do that for 6-7 hours straight. In one of those 1944 crates was a handwritten note "Kill a Jap for me" signed by some girl working in the plant.

 

[rockquarry]

A really good trick is to put cans of powder in a gallon or two gallon ZipLoc baggie, and squeeze the air out before sealing. If the can lid is not sealing perfectly, at least varying humidity won't be attacking the powder.
I inherited my dad's ammo when he died. Most of it was from handloads by various people and companies. No way I was going to shoot any of that. I put the ammo in a tub, and put a sign on the side saying "FREE. For components only. Do not shoot." I left it at my range and the member(s) had taken it by the following day.

The metal in the cans is better at keeping out moisture than a Zip Loc bag. I've not seen a metal lid yet that didn't seal well, but there are exceptions to everything, hence the Zip Loc, I guess.

 

[kadams]

Nothing wrong with the powder that i can see, threw a match on a finger tip sized pile of powder from the opened cans everything flashed, The black powder is just about scentless but it burns in a fraction of second to a very fine residue, unfortunately i have no use for FFFG, Nor do i know anyone that does, maybe ill pick up a Black powder replica revolver at some point.

 

[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

 

[kadams]

I Ended up getting 30lbs of various powders a few hundred jacketed bullets for .357 and .270, 2,000 brass for 3 calibers i use that were still packed as once fired from a brass distributor with the same head stamps. and 4000, large pistol primers for 200$ I've tried a half dozen of the powder cans in some handloads and they work and are accurate with known charges I've used before so I feel like i did good. And the old widow was happy with her 200$ Thanks for all the info.