Shelf life of powder and primers

[Troystat]

Hello everyone I was wondering what the shelf life of gunpowder like bullseye or W296 is I have several cans that are half full and about 20 years old. They are dry but have been opened. This question would also apply to primers as well

Thanks

Troy

 

[Troystat]

Hello everyone I was wondering what the shelf life of gunpowder like bullseye or W296 is I have several cans that are half full and about 20 years old. They are dry but have been opened. This question would also apply to primers as well

Thanks

Troy

 

[gregintenn]

I've used 30 year old powder with positive results. Sorry I don't have a scientific answer. I imagine it depends on how it is stored.

 

[babarracing]

I know stick powder gets reddish brown and has a strong Oder to it when it goes bad. I both read that somewhere and experienced it sometime back in the early to mid 90's when I bought some really old N201 powder. Don't know about ball or flake powder.

 

[uzisandfloozies]

theoretically, if powder is kept in a cool, dark place it should last for many decades. heat and light will cause it to degrade.

i'm sure the same goes for primers. after all, you can still buy and shoot WW II ammo.

 

[DougE]

I'm glad someone asked this question. I have an open can of unique that's been sitting on a shelf in my dad's garage for about 15 years and was wondering if it was still good.

 

[john traveler]

Primers and propellant are extremely stable over several generations, assuming they are not stored under desert heat conditions for years at a time. You will still commonly find military surplus ammunition made in the 1930s and 1940s that are still 100% sure-fire.

Surplus propellant made during the rushed conditions of wartime production are the exception. The ingredients of smokeless powder production include nitric and sulphuric acids, both of which are normally rinsed out and removed from the final packaged product. Wartime manufactured batches of surplus smokeless powder have been known to deteriorate in the cannister, producing a sour, acrid smell and reddish-brown fumes or dust when the can is opened. That, and active rust inside the metal parts of a powder can indicate that the powder is deteriorating.

For modern (made in the last couple of generations) powder and primer deterioration are not even considered as problems.

 

[Troystat]

Thanks everybody I need to package it up and burn it properly in my Model 27

 

[DougE]

Let us know if it goes bang like it's supposed to.

 

[Sgt Preston]

Troystat why not load 50 or 100 first & see how they do. My guess is also that they will be fine. BUT don't load 1000 before testing a few. Hope this helps. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

 

[dynamike]

may not be exactly the same thing, but i found some goex fff and some percussion caps that had been in a small metal tool box (along with other black powder essientials) stored in an unheated, uncooled metal garage down here in south carolina since sometime in the mid '80's (i know i was in school). anyhoo, the caps went pop and the powder burned correctly.

 

[rge1066]

I asked the shelf-life question regarding primers a couple of weeks ago since I had inherited over 1,000 small pistol primers from the late 70's/early 80's. Everyone recommended to load them up and not worry...

I loaded up 100 in some wadcutter loads and tried them out. All worked flawlessly!

 

[babarracing]

THANKS,
For the helpful info!

 

[Troystat]

Thanks for every ones help. Now I just need to get out to the bench and reload.

Take care

 

[DonD]

An anecdote for the forum. I was involved in the investigation of the in barrel, 16"/50 main battery explosion on board the USS Iowa (BB-61) that occured in 1989.

One of the things they checked was the powder. They evaluated the oldest powder in the inventory, manufactured during the Korean War. The powder performance was perfect, it met or exceeded all specification. So, if you keep your powder in the light proof container it came in and store it a room temps, it will last a very long time. Don

 

[SlamFire]

I have access to a gentleman who is an energetics expert. I asked him about smokeless powder lifetime.

He told me that powder starts deteriorating the day it leaves the powder mill. The rate of deterioration of double based powders is governed by the Arrhenius equation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenius_equation. Single based powders apparently deteriorate in a linear fashion.

What the expert told me was that double base powders are made of nitroglycerine (NG) and nitrocellulose (NC). The NG wants to wick its way, through capillary action, into the NC. In the process of combination nitric acid gas is released. This process is a consequence of the chemical attraction between NG and NC trying to combine to form a lower energy state molecule. There are preventive stabilizers in the powder which either slow the reaction down, or eat up the nitric acid. I forget the exact function. The stabilizers get consumed over time.

Heat accelerates the combination process. Exposing powder to high temperatures for extended periods of time is bad. The expert said, if you could freeze the powder without introducing water, you could slow the process down.

Cool dry storage conditions, he actually said “artic”, are about the best for long term storage of powder.

The expert said that powders are initially tested 10 years. (I think, could have been 20 years). They put a paper in contact with the powder. If the paper changes color, nitric gas is present.

If the paper shows a problem, they then chemically test the powder for the amount of stabilizer in the powder. If that drops below 20% original, than the powder is scrapped. You have to have the original powder records to know how much stabilizer was in the powder.

If the powder changes color, it is bad. It is grossly bad. It was bad a long time before the color changed. And it is time to pour it out. That is when you typically see red in the powder can (acid gas eating the can up) and red powder.

I was told that when enough nitric acid is released, the powder will spontaneously combust. As the Military is extremely scandal sensitive, they won’t tell anyone that big bunkers have blown up. And that fires in storage depots happen quite often.

The Navy used to storage cannon powder in pools. I guess the water absorbed the nitric acid, or kept everything cool preventing heat build up.

I have had half of my surplus 4895 powders go bad. About 8 pounds turned red and was poured out. About 8 pounds did not turn red, but went bad in the case. First indications that I had a problem were that loaded cartridges started having a lot of split case necks on firing. Then case necks started to crack on the loaded ammunition. When I pulled bullets, I smelt nothing, in the case or in the bottle, but I found green corrosion on the bottom of bullets. I believe that nitric acid was weakening the work hardened areas of the case, and causing corrosion on the bottom of the bullets.

Incidentally, the powder shot exceptionally well, that is for cases that did not have case neck cracks. I shot some exceptional scores with the stuff at 600 yards with 168 Match bullets, just after loading.

 

[john traveler]

Your explanation of surplus 4895 powder going bad coincides with what I understand about powder deterioration. It is old, wartime surplus production that is most likely to go bad. Until then, and even it it does show indications of going bad, it is still shootable. Just don't count on storing it or it keeping it's original accuracy.

I've notices the corrosion on bases of bullets too, most commonly from ammunition stored in tropical conditions. The heat and high humidity contribute to powder deterioration.

 

[Paul5388]

Here's a quote from a John Haviland article, Nov, 28, 2003.

Unique was first manufactured in about 1898 and was one of the first powders Du Pont turned over to Hercules. A jar of Unique powder sits on the shelf at the Alliant Powder plant in Radford, Virginia. The powder in the jar was made in 1899 and still performs to original specifications. "Unique is the oldest and most versatile powder on the market," Quesenberry says.

That's about 110 years old and hasn't deteriorated, so I'd be checking again with the expert and find out how that is happening.

BTW, it's on a shelf, not under water or any other exotic means of storing it.

 

[cbpotel]

Gentlemen, I have been reloading for 45 years and I am still using powder purchased 45 years ago as well as some primers. I still have some old Alcan primers and Bullseye powder as well as Old H 4831 that was Korean War surplus. They have been kept cool and dry over the years and I have not noticed any deterioration of either primers or powder. To answer your question on the longevity of powder and primers, I would say Indefinitely. The manner of storage is the key.