Powder check

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Kevinfreem

New member
Hey reloaders,
I let a friend borrow my dillon 650 to load some .45 for himself and he left the powder in my funnel. It has been cold and wet here lately but the whole set up is in my garage and I am curious if there is a way to tell if the powder is any good now. A little background but I live in west Texas where it is dry as a bone 90% of the time. Also, the powder is under a powder check system and at first glance does not appear to be clumping or have any static cling. Last bit of information is that this is Hogdon Titegroup and has been sitting out there for a week. It looks to me to be good powder but Im relatively inexperienced at reloading and have always stored my powder in my gunsafe so this is a new experience for me. Thanks for any advice on this.
 
It should be fine. A lot of reloaders leave powder in their powder drops. I prefer to remove at the end of the reload session and store in the original container in a temp controlled area. Some powders turn the plastic of the powder hopper dark yellow to green if left for a long period. I load on a Dillon 550B.
 
TXJohn yes I mean the powder measure. Honestly just couldn't think of the word. And thanks Rick. The Lyman manual says that the powder should be checked but not how to check so that is why I was so worried. Im not as worried about the color but I am like you and remove the powder normall but if there was going to be a problem I didnt want to mix old and new.
 
It should be fine if its not clumping which would indicate it picked up a lot of extra moisture.

I would dump it out of the powder measure...onto some paper towels on a bench / roll it around a little, just make sure its loose and flowing normally. Drop it back into the powder measure...and check every powder drop for the first 10 or 15 drops ...make sure its dropping consistently .../ and then not worry about it.
 
I haven't started reloading yet but this post reminded me I have some power in the garage in south/central Texas. Hope I'm not jacking your thread too much but is humidity the biggest issue or temp when it comes to storage? May have to find a better safe place inside the house to store it.

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Humidity and condensation can be serious issues ....if humid air gets into the cannister or storage container.

Big swings in temp ....real high...or real low can be damaging as well...but probably less risk than humidity.

I would only store powder and primers in an area where temp & humidity are controlled...but if you can't do that...then limit your storage to what you'll use in a few months.
 
Powder sitting in a measure in West Texas for a week is likely just as good as it would be in a climate controlled vault in its original container.

The easiest way I know to tell for sure is load some rounds and go shoot them.

FWIW I don’t put powder in a safe.
 
My powder measure warned of leaving powder in it for extended periods. It said the powder may etch the plastic. I empty the powder bin into the original container after every session.
 
I leave powder in my hopper all the time.

We are low humidity and its in the shop, 15% maybe.

I have partial cans of powder 30 years old that are still good. None exposed to sun but not climate controlled either. Just in whatever low heat storage there was.

While not a for sure, bad powder takes on a different odor, grains turn odd colors (brownish, reidsh) and as noted clumps.
 
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I haven't started reloading yet but this post reminded me I have some power in the garage in south/central Texas. Hope I'm not jacking your thread too much but is humidity the biggest issue or temp when it comes to storage? May have to find a better safe place inside the house to store it.
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Realistically temperature is the biggest killer. Unclenick will weight in (pun) but I believe if it hits 125 or so for a few hours it starts to mess with it. Can't remember if that is direct of in trunk.

Real moisture would be an issue. Rarely though do you see condensation in a house.

More or less as long as its dry and out of direct sunlight it won't go bad for what is normal use up periods.

If you live on the coast of Louisiana and use it you are going to have high humidity in the powder, no way around it. That's where I might get desiccant pads for putting in the bottle. Don't put it in a metal enclosure that has no vent. That is a bomb.

How long it would last in Louisiana? Not sure. Kept under 80 deg and dry per AK, 30+ years.
 
Not to say that all powders react similarly, but a friend of mine had Win. 760 stored in a garage where temps. had to have varied from -30 to over 120, and after 25 yrs. I loaded some of it for him. They chronoed just fine, same as before. Same for his primers, stored with them.
 
Kevinfreem wrote:
I am curious if there is a way to tell if the powder is any good now.
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Smell it. If it smells like solvent or alcohol it is okay.

If it smells acidic (your nose will alert you to the presence of nitric acid if it is there) then it is time to throw it out and begin with a known powder.

If you trust the guy who left your powder hopper half-full to know his posterior from a hole in the ground, then you can accept that the powder is what he says it is and proceed accordingly. Otherwise pitch it out and start with known power of known origin.

Last bit of information is that this is Hogdon Titegroup and has been sitting out there for a week.
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Even in the heat of a west Texas summer, a couple of weeks is not enough to cause material degradation.
 
A week? In west Texas? You be absolutey fine. I live outside Seattle now, where winter means rain, drizzle to be specific for six months. You can imagine the humidity index. And my garage, where I reload didnt get the floor sealed or insulation put in so its nary an improvement over outdoors. I leave titegroup in my 650 for a week all the time as I tend to load a couple thousand rounds over a couple weeks (cant sit pulling the lever for that many rounds in one session) and have yet to run into an issue.
 
Hey guys. Update to this post is that I sat there and stair stepped a few different charges for my .45 rounds and all shot just fine. Only problem that I ran into was a slide malfunction but that was on some factory loads and not my reloads(not gonna lie I felt pretty good about that fact). Thanks for all the responses. From now on I will be storing after every session if I am not going to be loading within a day or two.
 
Sounds like a reason not to loan your equipment to your "friend". If he can't take proper care of it, he has not busy using it.

Don't know where "here" is, but the powder is fine, not that I would use it, as I wouldn't trust him to correctly tell you what powder it is.
 
Hey guys. Update to this post is that I sat there and stair stepped a few different charges for my .45 rounds and all shot just fine. Only problem that I ran into was a slide malfunction but that was on some factory loads and not my reloads(not gonna lie I felt pretty good about that fact). Thanks for all the responses. From now on I will be storing after every session if I am not going to be loading within a day or two.
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Way to go and its not lying, its fact and you feel good when you do better than factory can. Not a thing wrong with that.

I keep the powder can with the hopper so I don't get mixed up.

If its going to be a week, I empty it as things can get moved around and the most critical part is ensuring you don't mix powders up.
 
Don't leave powder in the plastic hopper , the chemicals in the powder will etch into and discolor the plastic. Mine's now a cloudy gray color from leaving Unique in the hopper for a few days between loading sessions.
When done put powder back in the powder container asap .
There's also the safety aspect...forget what powder is in the hopper, thinking it's X when in fact it's really Y and you could have unintended consequences . This has happened to reloaders more than once
Can't be too careful when handling powder, mistakes are easy to happen.
Don't fool yourself into thinking my memory is perfect and I never forget what powder I'm using....trust me on this one.
Gary
 
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