You're gonna laugh... mixed some powder.

S

SamNavy

New member
So... pictures speak for themselves. I broke a cardinal rule when a buddy came over and I got busy talking... brought out a bottle Benchmark to look at the label and then set it down next to the scale where I'm weighing out H355. When I got done and emptied the dispenser, dumped about 1/2lb of H335 into a FULL bottle of Benchmark.

Lesson learned... ONLY ONE BOTTLE OF POWDER ON THE TABLE AT A TIME!

I know it's only about $40, and I could just do a spoonful every night with a pair of tweezers and be done in a year... my pennance. But these 2 powders are so completely different in size, shape, and color, that I think there's gotta be an easier way to mechanically separate them. Sifting, sieve, sluice box, filter...??? I'm all ears if you have any ideas.
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Well, if you get a screen just the right size you could separate them..... but ill bet you time and money into it would be worth more than the $40 can of powder.
 
Absolutely the best idea to dump them in the yard. Maybe keep a small clear container of the mixed product at eye level for an every day reminder of what you did.

You failed on a big one when you did it, but you succeeded on a bigger one when you caught the error. Take the hit to the wallet and consider it a well-learned lesson.
 
That blows man. I'm about as bad a tight-wad as you'll find, but I'd probably just cut my losses on that one. Two of my favorite powders too. :( jd
 
Buy tomato plants....plant tomatoes.....sprinkle gunpowder a little bit each each week....harvest tomatoes grill hamburgers.....put tomatoes on hamburgers...grab beer....eat hamburger....save money by not buying takeout....gets some of your money back...:D
 
Are the lesser chemicals in gunpowder safe to eat? The nitrogen is GREAT for pushing plant growth, but I would be inclined to fertilize decorative plants, give the flowers to a sweetheart to induce a free meal.

Depending on your S.O., gastrically safer.

Lost Sheep
 
Do NOT dump it in your yard, or dispose of it in any way other than a controlled burn. Smokeless powder are considered hazardous waste, when it comes to disposal.

Nitrocellulose powders have several chemicals in them that are very harmful to aquatic species, and aren't too great for humans.
Whether the chemicals end up as runoff that makes its way into a stream, lake, or river; or leech into the groundwater; or end up in your food; the outcome is not ideal.

To dispose of it, burn it. If you don't want to do it yourself, contact your local fire department. They may even include the powder in a training burn, so that the firefighters will have some experience with what it's like when a can of smokeless powder melts and ignites.


The ONLY legal and environmentally friendly method for disposal of smokeless powder is through a controlled burn.
If you don't believe me and want to confirm for yourself, contact the EPA or consult Hodgdon's MSDSs for those powders.
 
Frank, I gotcha... controlled burn if I don't succeed.

On the way home today, I'm gonna stop by my local good-luck place of Zen and mystery... the Asian grocery store. It's actually an Asian grocery warehouse. In addition to food-stuffs, they often have random aisles of intriguing items and devices that I've never seen or heard of before. This place has served me well in the past when I needed to Macguyver a solution to an unsolvable problem.

Plus I always buy a couple pounds of fresh shrimp.
 
It can be done.
A friend mixed Varget extruded and AA2520 ball.
I still had connections at my old agency and was able to borrow some testing sieves. We found a mesh size that gave a clean separation and saved the powder. This was a lot more than a $40 oops, it was a pound of one in most of 8 pounds of the other, so it was worth the trouble.
 
You might try something as simple as putting the powder in a bowl and holding it against the top of your vibratory tumbler while it runs for a bit. The finer powder should tend to find its way to the bottom of the bowl so you can spoon off the top layer of coarser powder without more than a grain or two of the finer powder left in it (that won't be enough to hurt anything). Another approach might be to put a small pile of the mixed powder on a flat board and gradually tilting it up until the one that rolls off more easily does exactly that.
 
SAAMI gun powder safety recommendations:
Never salvage powder from old cartridges and do not attempt to
blend salvaged powder with new powder or attempt to blend two
types of powder to make a “custom” blend. Don’t accumulate old
powder stocks.
Click to expand...
You can take from there.
 
Check out the current thread "powder problem" for a safety issue before just lighting a quantity of powder if you intend to burn it. But if you haven't thoroughly mixed the powder, it seems to me you could first try salvaging most of the Benchmark by separating the H335 along with a cushion layer of Benchmark from the bulk of the Benchmark. You indicate you poured H335 into a 'full' can of Benchmark.
 
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Kudos to the o/p for quickly identifying this issue. I have learned to label the current powder in my powder dispenser with a piece of masking tape. I also do the same for my powder trickler . A couple occasions that I could not remember what kind of powder was in my trickler so I had to dump it for safety's sake. I work about 9 different powders so it's a chore keeping track.
 
My Daddy said he fed gunpowder to Ol' General, his yard dog he kept in his junk yard. He mixed it in with his canned food to make General mean...:D
 
Condor- the H335 is so fine that as I was moving the bottle around, a bunch of it sifted down in between the larger grains of Benchmark and was thoroughly mixed very quickly. I thought about cutting the bottle in half and just letting the H335 fall out with the majority of the Benchmark still in the bottom. Unfortunately I thought about this way to late.

Road- I've been reloading for about 3 years now and this is my first major screwup with safety. I knew better than to set that bottle down instead of putting it back in the cabinet... and it bit me. I realized it only because the Benchmark bottle had a full pound in it, and the H335 filled it to the top. If that bottle of Benchmark had been 1/2 full, I might never have noticed. Hopefully I would have noticed the next time I went to use the stuff, but it highlights the need for being religious about the safety rules.
 
Frank, I gotcha... controlled burn if I don't succeed.
Click to expand...
Sorry, if I came across as giving you an ultimatum. That wasn't the intent.
The comment was directed at everyone.

The "dump it on your lawn" comments come up quite often, and it really irritates me. It's haz-mat, and needs to be treated as such.

We wouldn't advocate for people to break the law by making illegal machine guns, so why should we advocate for the illegal disposal of hazardous materials? - Smokeless powder in this case.


Sevens, you should know better! [finger wag] ;)
 
I suppose I should know better...?!
But until your post... truly, I did not.

(hangs head)
"You do that, you go to the box, y'know. Two minutes, by yourself... y'know and you feel shame... y'know.

And then you get free."
 
Yep. Only one bottle of powder at the load bench at a time.

My powder is in the house, upstairs. My load bench is in the garage. There has been a time or two when I brought down a second powder before I put away the first - the bottle was still on the bench and powder in the hopper. I take the second powder back upstairs; go back to the garage, unload the hopper, take the first powder upstairs; THEN bring the second powder back to the bench in the garage. I could just set down the second powder, but no. No exceptions - a second bottle of powder never touches the bench. Not a lecture. Just giving a feel for how adamant I am about this rule. It's important.
 
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