Smokeless powder question

A

Aguila Blanca

Staff
I assume the reason all smokeless powder comes in black containers is to block light, so I guess light contributes to the degradation of the powder. Is that the UV component of light, or all light?

More to the point -- a friend and I are experimenting with loading .22LR (as I have mentioned in another post). While he's away on vacation, I plan to load a few sample rounds with two types of bullets and a few test load charges. When he gets back, we'll shoot them through his chronograph and tabulate the results.

I only have Winchester 231. He uses a different powder for pistol, but I don't recall which one. If we dump a small quantity of his pistol powder into a clear red prescription container from CVS, will that be enough protection for the brief period of time before the powder gets used?
 
I think ok.
But if you worry about it, just put the phial in a cabinet or drawer. No light, no photo degradation.

Come to think of it, I WOULD be concerned over chemical attack on the pill bottle by double base powder or residual solvents. I rotted out the cheap acrylic hopper on a Redding that way.
Can you find a glass or metal container?


Me?
Rather than pay for a Dillon Blue dust cover, I just pull a bag over my powder measures when not in use.
 
amber pill bottles block ultraviolet light, so yes

edit, as Jim pointed out, glass or metal would be the better choice
 
I have a metric boatload of prescription bottles -- I don't have any suitable metal or glass containers.

This won't be long or even intermediate term storage. I'm talking about a few sprinkles of powder that should be used up within a week, or two weeks at the outside. I work in my basement, so it's cool and the only light is when I'm down there.
 
I think static cling will be annoying, too. But as long as you don't get powder-plastic reaction, it should be ok for a short trial.
 
Since "tin" cans were used for long time I would expect most metal containers not to be a problem for short periods of storage.
Still have a number of lined cardboard small, 1 and 8 lb, bottles of powder as well.
 
I have a metric boatload of prescription bottles -- I don't have any suitable metal or glass containers.

This won't be long or even intermediate term storage. I'm talking about a few sprinkles of powder that should be used up within a week, or two weeks at the outside. I work in my basement, so it's cool and the only light is when I'm down there.
Click to expand...

Wrap them with electrical or duct tape and you have the same protection as the powder maker bottles.
 
Today black plastic "bottles" is common, for ages before it was metal/fiberboard cans and before that all metal cans.

Yes, its probably the UV component of light that does it, UV gets the blame for about all "light damage" from chemical degradation to causing cancer.

provided your powder doesn't react chemically with the plastic container, short term, its no big deal. Longer term (weeks+?) I can't say. Keep out of direct sunlight, and out of light in general except when actually loading and there won't be any problems.

Don't leave powder in the powder measure hopper, either. It's a poor idea, for several reasons.
When you're done, put it away, in the original container.
Even if you're sure "you'll be right back..."
 
In an indoor environment where no direct sunlight or other UV light falls on the powder container, light damage takes a long time to occur. How long depends on how much stabilizer is remaining in your powder. I had a sample of VV N140 in a white plastic bottle that went completely bad, while some nearly 30-year-old Scott 4065 in an identical bottle is still looking and smelling just fine. Both were stored in my basement, so no direct sunlight, but not pitch black, either. The N140 was on a shelf closer to the basement windows, but it had been in there 20 years at the back of a shelf where I couldn't see it until it was too late and I found it had gone south. I don't know how long before that it started. Another sample of the same lot kept in the factory bottle at my dad's house remained good. But the damage took years, not weeks.

As Jim suggested, you are most likely to run into issues with plastic being attacked by traces of solvent in the powder. All the plastic powder bottles are high-density polyethylene (HDPE; recycle #2). The pill bottles I have in the house are either polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE, recycle #1), or Polypropylene (PP; recycle #5). HDPE is very hard to stick solvent-based glues to, so we know it is hard for most solvents to attack. That changes at elevated temperatures (gasoline can start to affect it in temperatures of over 85°F, IIRC).
 
I have a Lee "Load Master" with a red powder hopper that I use for .44 mag. I also have RCBS and Redding powder dispensers that have green powder hoppers. I have a Bruno dispenser that has an opaque white powder hopper. Over 44 years I have left powders in all of these for months at a time. My reloading room has windows with half shades but zero direct sunlight. I have not had any issues that I might trace to powder problems.
 
I’ve left pretty much every type of powder sitting in any of my Lee hoppers for up to a month with no chemical reactions with the plastic. I generally never leave any in for more than a week though.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
I assume the reason all smokeless powder comes in black containers is to block light, so I guess light contributes to the degradation of the powder. Is that the UV component of light, or all light?

More to the point -- a friend and I are experimenting with loading .22LR (as I have mentioned in another post). While he's away on vacation, I plan to load a few sample rounds with two types of bullets and a few test load charges. When he gets back, we'll shoot them through his chronograph and tabulate the results.

I only have Winchester 231. He uses a different powder for pistol, but I don't recall which one. If we dump a small quantity of his pistol powder into a clear red prescription container from CVS, will that be enough protection for the brief period of time before the powder gets used?
Click to expand...
If in doubt, wrap the container in aluminum foil.
 
Well, the bottom line is that aluminum foil is useful stuff. A possibly more useful format for cylindrical containers would be aluminum duct tape. That is, assuming you need to bother at all.
 
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