Hodgdon on smokeless powder stability

N

Nathan

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This is good information. Makes me happy my basement sits a 60-65F and 50% humidity tear round.

How do you store your powder?


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That's a little spooky, that the powder can just detonate in your storage area someday. Does anyone know anyone this has ever happened to?
 
Well we used to store camera film in the fridge! (yes like dial telephones that really existed!)

Lower temp = lower chemical activity

But also note they don't talk about actual temperatures. If your shed is in Arizona say around Tucson? Argh.

If its in Alaska where it never gets warmer than 85 and that is rare......

I have powder from the 70s that is still perfectly good. No smell and no rusty grains (and yes I have seen powder that has done that).

When I was doing my building mechanical system I put dates on the filters when I changed them. Works for powder as well.

But, the main use powder gets used up in 5-8 years at most.

the only old powders I have were some pistol powders, AL-8, Green Dot and I do keep an eye on those. I still use my 2400 for 41 mag loads.
 
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Yea, the only temperature they talked about was if too hot to make a human comfortable....

Why not just publish max temp range and years at average temperature.....or something.

If they had a graph showing years of powder life vs temperature....and maybe min/max temperature limits.
 
I don't know the activation energy, so I can't give you an Arrhenius plot, but if you assume the reaction rate doubles every 10°C, I know from military experiments that 18 months at 140°F (60°C) can cause ball powder to break down, so if we come down to 20°C (68°F) we would have a time increase of 2⁴×18 months or 288 months or 24 years. I know the military will store double-base ball powders in bunkers sunk into the ground at temperatures in that range, and they put a 20-year limit on it, so it must be about right for that. They put a 45 years limit on single-base powder, so it must deteriorate a little less than half as fast. The bottom line, though, is if you put it in a chest freezer at -20°F (-28.9°C), the trendline says you get 711 years out of the ball powder.

I've had powders go bad in three instances over the years. None resulted in self-ignition. My guess is that requires large masses that self-insulate well enough to get very warm in the center. Either that or, in the case of the double-base powders, enough nitroglycerin weeps out and accumulates somewhere to go off spontaneously, which I understand nitro can do in an acidic environment.
 
If I haven't used that old tin or cardboard can of powder in 40> years. I have no regrets on tossing it. Most of the weapons I bought it for have also moved on. After all I don't have the space to store all that powder.
 
I recall the gunzine story about an old guy who kept the .303 match ammo for his Ross in the fridge in spite of his wife's complaints.

Haven't heard from Slamfire in a while, he has lots of pictures of cans and cases rotted out by decomposing powder.
 
If I haven't used that old tin or cardboard can of powder in 40> years. I have no regrets on tossing it. Most of the weapons I bought it for have also moved on. After all I don't have the space to store all that powder.
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I have not used up my older powders, though the Green Dot might be on the burn list (its so cool)

The AL-8 is nostalgic, cool can. I will have to see if there are recipes for the 41 or 44 spcl I can use it in.
 
A couple years ago my cousin found some old pistol powder in a shed. He thought his dad put it there about 1993. The prices on the cans seemed to agree with that estimate. All the cans were open. And temperatures in that shed would have reached well over 100 degrees in the summer.
He gave them to me to see if i could use them. They appeared to be fine so i loaded up some test loads and shot a few. They ran great. So i used them all up. No problems at all.
Powders were red dot, herco and Winchester 473AA.


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My take is that they are satisfying the legal eagles by stating "by the way, if you unpredictably get blown up, we told you so." Bottom line as far as I can tell is keep it cool and dry best you can to slow down decomposition. I've used the "rusty look acid smell" test to try to figure that out, but it all smells acidic to me, even when brand new (or freshly bought, it may have sat on the dealer's shelf for a few years).

Wonder why there isn't a simple easy test strip even dummies (like me) can use?
 
So one thing that a person might want to think about. You load up and so shoot them up. lots of fun Ah. Have you ever went out plinking. All is swell. Then you stop and think. What just happened? That bang was just kind of different. You stop and check it out or should I say. I better check it out. Hay just the primer went off. That was a flinch not a POW. A bullet is lodged in the barrel! Oh my kid... was shooting or... It's a good thing you stopped and looked. One more and its could be BOOM.

Dump the powder. Safety first.
 
stagpanther said:
Wonder why there isn't a simple easy test strip even dummies (like me) can use?
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Good point, because if the powder has significantly deteriorated (smells like nitric acid), the test strip in question is called litmus paper. Should turn blue litmus paper red. Mind you, I haven't tried it, but that's what I would expect.
 
Good point, because if the powder has significantly deteriorated (smells like nitric acid), the test strip in question is called litmus paper. Should turn blue litmus paper red. Mind you, I haven't tried it, but that's what I would expect.
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I had the same thought--except I don't know what degreee of PH to actually look for--or how.
 
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