How to make safe corroded rifle reloads

The British adopted Cordite and used it in the .303 beginning about 1892. Cordite was their standard powder from then through the end of WWII, and I think, stayed the standard military rifle powder until the British replaced the .303 with the 7.62 NATO.

In Britain (and with British writers) "Cordite" became the generic name used for all gunpowder, the way Kleenex became generic for tissues in the US.

Even many US writers have used the phrase "the smell of cordite" describing gunsmoke, gunfire. etc., even when actual Cordite was not involved.

It does have a smell unique, and noticeably different from other powders. Cordite was used in Britian and the Empire/Commonwealth, but not in the US.
US made .303 British ammo was loaded with an IMR type powder.

Decaying nitrocellulose powder can, in some instances, clump.
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Absolutely! and, it doesn't have to be really really old, it just has to be decaying.

About 2008 a friend bought 500rnds of 7.62 NATO foreign surplus. It came in a large carboard box that was more duct tape than box. The ammo inside was loose packed in a plastic bag that crumbled into shards when opened. The ammo was dirty, dusty and there was actual SAND in the bag.

Headstamp codes indicated Israeli manufacture, dates from 98 to 01. we fired 100rnds through his AR10. 11% failed to fire. Of the rest, 17% of the cases cracked on firing. (and had a "tang" smell to them).

I pulled down the rest. The powder had decayed, clumping, looking grey with some white in it, and often a clump stuck to the base of the bullet, with the blue-green color of corroding copper....

The bullets, when cleaned up, were fine. I tossed the rest, none of it, cases, powder or primers were suitable for reuse. That ammo was only about 10 years old, or less, but HAD gone bad. My friend remarked it was the first time he had ever bought ammo sight unseen, and also the last time he ever would.
 
I read that WC852 was the first spherical propellant in use during WWII and that it was used specifically in 303 British ammo we were reloading to supply Britain. It's nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin plus deterrent and stabilizer. Would that have had the z suffix as well, or did we headstamp it differently?
 
" Would that have had the z suffix as well, or did we headstamp it differently?"

As I understand it anything NOT loaded with cordite powder would have been marked Z to denote nitrocellulose powder.

I believe that at various times nitrocellulose powders were loaded in the US, in Canada, and in Britain. Not all of those powders would have been WC852 or its equivalent. I have heard, but have never verified, that Dominion obtained much of its nitrocellulose powder from Du Pont, while the British used powders manufactured domestically.

Strictly speaking, however, Cordite is a nitrocellulose powder, so I suppose the Z marking really means nitrocellulose powder OTHER than Cordite.
 
Hum...

I was just doing some more reading, and Wikipedia is claiming that .303 British ammo was loaded with specification WC846, not 852, and 852 was specified for full-load .30-06 ammo.
 
You are correct. Brain fart on my part. It was in an article about 7.62 development, and that did, indeed, adopt WC 846 (BL-C(2) in canister grade).

When you look at cordite's method of manufacture, it includes the use of petroleum jelly, IIRC. That's one ingredient not in other nitrocelluose powders, so maybe Z means no Vaseline. But it also has no graphite, as, I believe, all the other NC rifle powder's of the day did, so "Z" might mean con graphito.
 
Hmmm, whole lotta' interesting sidebar discussions and suggestions in the thread....but to refocus on my OP question in post #1:

Is there some kind of soup I can soak about 20 badly corroded, pulled-bullet, IMR 4895, cal. .308 reloads in to permanently neutralize powder/primer to make them safe for disposal?
 
Cordite is a double base powder comprised of both nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. The Vaseline was to reduce the erosiveness of the "hot" powder.
Cordite MD is 65% nitrocellulose , 30% nitroglycerine , and 5% petroleum jelly.
Original Cordite contained MORE nitroglycerine than nitrocellulose and I doubt the Vaseline did a whole lot of good.

Z means "no nitroglycerine." I don't know how the MoD classified Ball powder in US produced .303 which contains some nitroglycerine versus MR and IMR powders which do not.

I think the Valleydale powder mill in Canada was built for WWII production.
That is where IMR powders have been made since DuPont got out of the gunpowder business.
 
Is there some kind of soup I can soak about 20 badly corroded, pulled-bullet, IMR 4895, cal. .308 reloads in to permanently neutralize powder/primer to make them safe for disposal?
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Again, no; just trash them.
 
"When you look at cordite's method of manufacture, it includes the use of petroleum jelly, IIRC. That's one ingredient not in other nitrocelluose powders, so maybe Z means no Vaseline."

That sounds reasonable, or as reasonable as any other reason for why cordite is considered "different" from nitrocellulose powder.

Of course, the Z could also mean nothing more than "not cordite".


"But it also has no graphite, as, I believe, all the other NC rifle powder's of the day did, so "Z" might mean con graphito."

Well.............

No.

Or yes.

Or maybe. Or maybe not, but possibly. Or possibly not...

Unfortunately, this period of gunpowder development is really confusing because virtually every nation was doing their own manufacturing processes and they don't seem to be particularly well documented.

I've never been able to come even remotely close to figuring out who started coating their gunpowder with graphite first. In large-scale production it may have been Du Pont -- which began adding stabilizer chemicals and coating powder grains with graphite to mitigate static electricity starting after World War I -- but I really suspect that it was first researched in Europe, which up until World War I was really the seat of most smokeless powder development.

Powders with the graphite coat and stabilizer chemicals (and in some cases flash suppressants) were named Improved Military Rifle (IMR) powders.

That said, the graphite coating was really useful because of the way that the US loaded cartridges -- by volume measuring and pouring into the case. That type of process could lead to the build up of static electric in the powder handling equipment, and the graphite cut down on that problem.

That, however, likely wasn't a problem with cordite because the way it was handled was fundamentally different from the tubes. It wasn't volume measured and then poured into the case -- it was essentially count measured (X number of cords to a charge) and then bundled, wrapped with a ribbon, and inserted into the unshouldered case. That method of handling apparently didn't result in the same kind of static buildup, so a graphite coating wasn't necessary.
 
"Is there some kind of soup I can soak about 20 badly corroded, pulled-bullet, IMR 4895, cal. .308 reloads in to permanently neutralize powder/primer to make them safe for disposal?"

Well, yes, there is, but you'd end up with a highly toxic soup of chemical solvents with known carcinogenic properties that's simply one hell of a lot worse than throwing them into the trash.
 
"The Vaseline was to reduce the erosiveness of the "hot" powder."

I've never heard that before. I have, however, heard that the vaseline was used to make the powder easier to extrude through the forming dies. Essentially it was a mix conditioner.


"Z means "no nitroglycerine." I don't know how the MoD classified Ball powder in US produced .303 which contains some nitroglycerine versus MR and IMR powders which do not."

No, I don't believe that to be the case at all, because it simply doesn't fit as double-based powders were certainly loaded in cases with the Z marking.

I've seen some people say (such a monkey masher's post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comme..._medium=Search&utm_name=Bing&utm_content=PSR2) that the Z marking simply meant "graphite coated nitrocellulose powder," or, as I speculated above, essentially "not cordite."
 
Well, yes, there is, but you'd end up with a highly toxic soup of chemical solvents with known carcinogenic properties that's simply one hell of a lot worse than throwing them into the trash.
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Which is what I said in post #10....:rolleyes:

12M Nitric acid will do the job, pretty quick. Not only will it "neutralize" them, in a short time, you won't even be able to find them...high strength Nitric eats brass really fast!

But then you had high strength Nitric acid to dispose of, and it is more complicated, costly and more dangerous than the dud/corroded rounds ever were.
 
I don't think straight nitric acid will deal with the powder, though.

For that I think you also need to add acetone and possibly toluene and, possibly, either benzene or aromatic ether.
 
It wasn't volume measured and then poured into the case -- it was essentially count measured (X number of cords to a charge) and then bundled, wrapped with a ribbon, and inserted into the unshouldered case.
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As I understand it, Cordite was extruded into a "rope" of a given number of strands of a given diameter to suit the calibre. The charge was specified by weight but loaded by the length of rope, measured off to the nearest 1/20th inch.

The 1939 Stoegers shows .303 Mk VII 174 gr spitzer loaded with 37 gr Cordite. Or same weight bullet with 41 gr Nitrocellulose, but not which one.

Cordite was also cut into short lengths like other granular extruded powders to produce Revolver Cordite for use in pistol cartridges. There was also Revolver Neonite for pistols and Cadet Neonite for small bores. Neonite said to be flake nitrocellulose.

I used to read a lot about Axite in British ammo but Bev Fitchett says it and Moddite are little different from Cordite.
 
I don't think straight nitric acid will deal with the powder, though.
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Trust me, 12 mole Nitric acid will eat about everything that isn't stainless steel or glass. I used to dissolve spent nuclear fuel in it. Brass "goes away" within a handful of minutes. I once had to deal with the results when some bright fellow connected a regular garden hose to a nitric line (10.4M I think) the brass hose fittings disappeared in about 5 minutes.

I feel pretty confident that strong nitric will turn nitrocellulose into "nitric soup with some stringy stuff" in short order.

As to the Cordite, I've seen some phots of "ammuntion production" in England from 1940. Several woman at a table, using knives to cut the cordite bundles (the ropes) into specific lengths, by hand, then putting them into cartridge cases held in a loading tray. As each tray was finished it was carried to another table where there were hand powered loading machines to neck the brass and seat the bullets.

Not saying they made all their .303 that way, but some of it absolutely was.
 
The process of actually manufacturing and finishing cordite depended largely on the size of the cordite required.

As I understand it, manufacturing of small arms cordite was a far more highly automated process because the required cords were smaller and, well, the process needed to be more highly automated because of the amount of small arms ammunition required by Britain's military.

This is a really informative website that details manufacture of cordite for the Royal Navy.


http://www.greenacre.info/RNCF/page3.html
 
Interesting! Just found this information in the linked site I provided...

"The mineral jelly was originally incorporated to lubricate the gun barrel but, in fact, the jelly was vaporised on ignition but it did have some useful effect in that it reduced the temperature of the burning and this reduces erosion in the barrel. The jelly also improves chemical stability of the Cordite reducing deterioration due to oxidation."

I had heard that the petroleum jelly (mineral jelly) was added as a lubricant, but primarily to aid in the extruding process. But, thinking about it some more, I can see how it would also moderate the burn temperature (the mineral jelly would absorb (?) energy during the burning process, and that would tend to lower the overall combustion temperature.

Interesting that they also considered it to be a stabilizer. I know at least one British ship was lost due to decaying cordite.
 
The basic Cordite NC-NG formulation was made up in pieces as large as solid fuel rocket motors and demolition charges. The latter is interesting, it could be made to go off high order.

There was the Good Old Boy, Hold My Beer story near here that a blasting cap in a can of Bullseye, then about 40% NG, set it off, blasting out the stump it was placed on.
 
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