View Full Version : What the hell happened to this powder?
I opened up my reloading cabinet yesterday and saw that something happened to my bottle of 4064. The cabinet is in a temperature controlled space and I hadn't noticed any issues earlier with the bottle of powder. When I opened the drawer yesterday it appeared as if the lid had disintegrated and popped off. I did not remove the lid in the photo. The photos show the 4064 and the adjacent powder. The other shows the bottom of the drawer. It either fell down into the bottle or into the bottom of the drawer. There was a strong chlorine smell also. The other cans and bottles had their external steel rusted. The closer to the 4064 the worse the rust.
The powder is at least 10 years old.
4269542696
Looks like the seal got damaged.
The "rusted" indicates the room wasn't as controlled as you thought.
Chemical break down of the powder. It caused an acid to form on the metal causing it to disintegrate and to attack the other cans close by. From what I have seen it was at one time subjected to quiet a bit of warm temps maybe even before you got it. I had a pound of IMR 4350 go bad before I even opened it. The dealer I had bought it from had the powder stored in a garage next to his shop during the summer.
AZshooter
12-30-2017, 08:47
I've got some Red Dot and also IMR 2447 that are at least 30 years old. Storage is in one of a number of climate-controlled closets, and my humidity hovers around 0-4% winter & 20% summer. I recently opened an ammo can can of some .223 ammo made specifically for a Ruger Mini-14 with slow twist barrel. Surplus ammo cans seal up so well that there is still the solvent smell from the powder. This ammo was loaded in 1978.
The only 'rust' I have is on the barrels treated with Birchwood Casey's Plum Brown ...
This is exactly why I will NOT buy powder at gunshows... most of those guys are "weekend dealers" and where does all their inventory sit between gunshows? In a climate controlled garage or warehouse? I seriously doubt it. It sits in their trailer, out in the sun getting baked at over 150 degrees in summer... probably worse down south..
I got a batch of primers that supposed went bad because of exposure to heat that I bought at a show..
Never again. the 2-3 bucks I save isn't worth it.
I hate to store powder. I just don’t trust it. I only buy a single jug at a time from Cabelas when I’m ready to reload so I know it’s fresh.
Hecklerusp45
04-23-2018, 04:07
That is strange, does look like a heat/moisture problem. I am lucky that I have never had any problems with powder or primers. I store in the basement in USGI ammo cans. It is cool down there and I put desiccant in each can. I just used up a can of Alcan 5 that was pushing 50 years old is some 38 special loads.
It can not be electrolysis because I have been told by ever reloading forum 'it is not electrolysis'. And then; 'how can it be?' You are using plastic bottles, not the old metal can. It is just my take on the problem but I believe reloaders should purchase a multi-meter. The multi-meter is available from Harbor Freight at a reasonable price.
F. Guffey
Acids are used in the manufacturing of gun powders. If the powders get warm enough the acid can be released from the powder as a gas. It then will eat any metal it comes in contact with. That is why cans next to the bad one start to rust and those further away will also so some signs of rusting but not as much as those close by. This had nothing to do with electrolysis. Just plain old acid eating some steel.
slamfire
01-10-2019, 08:15
Pour the deteriorated powder out. I assume the stuff in the plastic bottle is the bad 4064? At least two of the characters in this post have seen what I have written before, and you know, nothing seems to take with those individuals. One is a psychopath and the other is an attention seeking narcissist. What a great combination. But your gunpowder has deteriorated. The life time for gunpowder has been called "interminable", which is another way of saying, unpredictable. Gunpowder has a finite though unpredictable lifetime. if you ever took thermodynamics you will understand it when I say gunpowder is a high energy compound that is breaking down to a low energy compound, and you will understand why this is perfectly natural. Just exactly when it deteriorates to a useless state is impossible to predict with any certainty, from the outset, but the lifetime of gunpowder is in terms of decades, not centuries. Something else to remember about gunpowder, it gets worse and more dangerous with age.
The design goal seems to be a 20 year shelf life, at least that is what CIP requires, but you know, not everything works out the way you want it. Gunpowder has a very unpredictable lifetime. One particular lot of IMR 4007 deteriorated so abnormally fast, that it was bursting in flame, after eight years. Here is the industry warning.
https://i.imgur.com/IMhCywv.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ertTu5N.jpg
A bud of mine sent me these pictures of 1972 vintage gunpowders that have obviously gone bad
https://i.imgur.com/SONQaMa.jpg
The high energy double bonded NO molecules in nitrocellulose are breaking down through a reduction-oxidation process. This gives off a spectrum of chemicals called NOx. Nitrogen dioxide (New Jersey Hazardous Substance Fact sheet (https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/1376.pdf)) shows just how toxic NO2 is, and how it will react with humidity to form nitric acid gas. Both are very bad stuff, highly reactive. Will kill you if you breathe enough of it. If your bottle ever fumes like this,
https://i.imgur.com/p3BUwl9.jpg
you are in great danger of the gunpowder autocombusting. Not to say it won't go poof without giving a warning, gunpowder often won't. If your gunpowder smells bad, vinegary, bitter, get it the heck out of the house, pour it out on the ground, burn it in a pile, but get it away from your living areas. And anything that might catch fire.
I did find I wrote a nice section in 2015 about this on the CMP Forum:
Danger with Deteriorating Powder (http://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?t=157820)
More recently, I wrote extensively about gunpowder deterioration in this thread:
Factory ammo cracks when fired (https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/factory-ammo-cracks-when-fired.844044/#post-10976253)
Yowsers!
Nasty. Haven't had anything like that happen in over 50 years of loading. Time to check your environmental controls.
I had a bottle (plastic) of VV N140(?) )(can't remember the exact powder, bought it in the early 2000's to load 5.56 NM loads with)
it popped the top off the bottle and smelled like I had spilled Bleach in the cabinet,
cause a bit of flash rust on a couple metal cans,
the fumes had condensed and stained the wood shelf a bit,
tossed it and the partial bottle of 540 as well,
no issues with any other powder
slamfire
01-11-2019, 09:27
I had a bottle (plastic) of VV N140(?) )(can't remember the exact powder, bought it in the early 2000's to load 5.56 NM loads with)
it popped the top off the bottle and smelled like I had spilled Bleach in the cabinet,
cause a bit of flash rust on a couple metal cans,
the fumes had condensed and stained the wood shelf a bit,
tossed it and the partial bottle of 540 as well,
no issues with any other powder
You are not the only one to have problems with mid nineties Vihtavuori podwer. The Finns do live in a much cooler climatic than the average American domicile, but mid nineties still puts the shelf life close to 20 years. I know everyone expects to live forever, and therefore your stash of gunpowder and ammunition must also live forever, but this is delusional thinking. At some point in the future, both you and your gunpowder will be dust.
https://i.imgur.com/gYgK0S0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/KYSquJE.jpg
And don't think just because you have not had a problem with other brands, means, you won't have a problem.
fully aware of powder issues from storage, good or bad,
I check it when I reload, and now, every so often I'll check the cabinet to be sure,
and to add,
with the VV I had some rounds left over that I had loaded,
I pulled a few, and they had also broken down, the inside of the case and bullet base were blue,
disposed of them as well,
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