How do I clean up powder I spilled

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Dano4734

New member
Not much but I knocked about 40 grains on my cement basement floor what should I do besides smoking:-) I was thinking what if it was a half pound what do you guys do
 
I've never been in the situation. And I try to avoid it. When I'm handling powder, I'm generally pretty aware of my motions. Accidents can happen, however. I've often wondered how I would handle it.
 
Vacuum cleaner. No need to run to the dumpster right away. Modern smokeless powder is primarily nitrocellulose -- essentially ground up newspaper. At atmospheric pressure, it will burn like ground up newspaper.
 
Dustpan and brush. Small quantity goes on the lawn. Large quantity has yet to happen. Might get picked over for large debris and screened for small debris and used, but not in match guns or ammo. That careful reclaiming would probably use up more of my time than it's worth, doing it well, but I'd need something to occupy myself until I finally stopped cursing.
 
forty grains of rifle powder? If you have a shop vac, clean it up and then empty the container. Forty grains isn't very much. Unless I'm mistaken, forty grains of it would take quite an effort just to burn it off with a flamethrower. Since you are talking about a cement floor, seriously, you should be able to just sweep it and if it bothers you to have it in the trash can, flush it.
 
40 gr = Blow it out the door, into the dirt, away with the wind.
1/2 pound (I'm not interested in reusing it) depending on where it fell (close to the door, middle of the room, etc), good suggestions above to remove w/ dustpan. Not sure I'd want to use a vacuum, but it's probably not a hazard.
 
Modern smokeless powder is primarily nitrocellulose -- essentially ground up newspaper.
Click to expand...
Newspaper is cellulose. The difference between cellulose and nitrocellulose is significant--maybe not as significant as the difference between glycerin and nitroglycerin, but still significant.

The two compounds do not burn the same, not even at normal atmospheric pressure.
 
A small (cheap), wet/dry shop vac (with the foam collar installed), will safely vacuum up gunpowder. The suction drops as the debris (powder) enter the larger volume chamber and fall to the bottom while any small particles will be caught by the foam filter before getting near the motor.

An observation: Everyone seems to have read that putting gunpowder on a lawn is a good fertilizer and pass it on as gospel...without actually having done so. I have done so and did not observe any effect whatsoever. It did not seem to have a significant fertilizing effect. On the other hand, it did not seem to have a detrimental effect either. My point is that we should perhaps be more cautious about passing on as fact something that has become a platitude. Are there any chemists out there who can positively attest to the gunpowder's virtue as a lawn fertilizer?
 
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back during the 08 shortages I dropped full tray of primers once, you can bet your keister I crawled around on my garage floor and picked all 100 up and used them. No misfires either. Using swept up powder might be a bridge too far for me though
 
I have a wet dry vac. I keep a couple inches of water in the bottom. On the rare ocasion i feel motivated it gets dumped out.
 
I spill powder from my powder drop every now & then, I'm a little clumsy. I get some from the unfired rounds that I pickup from the range that I pull to make them safe. I just use a small brush to sweep it up & normally just dump it out in a line on the concrete or a piece of steel plate, then light it. I have tried to dump it in the garden for fertilizer but it doesn't break down. Because I have picked up some of the stuff I dumped after a couple months & it still burns. So anymore if I have some that I don't trust to reload I burn it.
 
I sweep it up with a little whisk broom or suitable sized paint brush and dust pan .
If it was on my fairly clean bench , it goes back in the jug. If on the floor...then where it goes depends on how clean the floor is/was . Lots of dust, sawdust and whatever on the floor and it goes in the garden. Clean floor , back in the jug.

I know gunpowder dumped in the garden or grass does no actual good as fertilizer but if I said I dumped it in the trash the safety experts would be calling me out for unsafe powder disposal.

Gary
 
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