Bad Powder

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garryc

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I have several cans of IMR 4320 that are pretty old. When I pour them into the powder charger there is a cloud of red dust. The powder does not smell acrid like it went bad. What could it be, rust from the can? Will it hurt to use it?
 
garryc said:
I have several cans of IMR 4320 that are pretty old. When I pour them into the powder charger there is a cloud of red dust. The powder does not smell acrid like it went bad. What could it be, rust from the can? Will it hurt to use it?
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Garry it is n now plant fertilizer..............

Do not attempt to salvage any of the cans that display those characteristics.

cale
 
This is what I would do if I had the old powder. Place a large spoon full of this powder outside on a piece of plywood and about 6 inches from it place the same amount of fresh 4320. Remove any other powder from the vicinity. Ignite the two powders at the same time and observe how they burn. If they appear to burn the same - I would load one shell with the old powder with a normal load and one with the same amount of new powder and test fire them through a chronograph. If the results are good, I would test test a bit more.

Or I would simply pour it out on the ground in a line about 2 inches wide and light one end and let it burn.
 
caroby said:
Garry it is n now plant fertilizer..............

Do not attempt to salvage any of the cans that display those characteristics.

cale
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Yeah I figured that, 4 pounds gone. I had a can of surplus H322 pop its top off and a rust streak ran across the shelf it was on. It really smelled bad. Both these powders were given to me. The other H322 cans look ok. My buddy said some went bad on him, he had bought two cases of 1 pound cans a long time ago.
 
Well, I had 4 full cans of that and the bad can of H322. I dug out the opening of a woodchuck hole and put in a cake pan. I taped some fuse to the pan and poured in the powder. I cleared a spot over the fuse and put a small amount of FFFg over it, about a tablespoon. I coverd the hole with a flat piece of sand stone and piled dirt around in for a seal.

I lit that fuse and backed off, 5 foot long its a 3 minute burn. When it went off flames shot out the two other holes and burned like a flare, but only a few seconds. No more woodchuck I'd say!!
 
Take a known load of this powder and run a few rounds through the chrony. If the loads run close to your known velocity, I would load and shoot it up. On the other side, if the velocity is way down, it's time to do the grass a favor.

I did this to one hundred pounds of H4831, it liked to break my heart. The velocity was down by 1500 Fps. The real upside was I had to cut the backyard grass much sooner.:D
 
I would never inoculate the interior of any good barrel with finely powdered rust driven into its surface under high pressure. Even stainless would probably begin to rust from this kind of treatment. The lesson that should be learned from this is that old powder in metal containers should probably be repackaged in opaque plastic containers for long term storage.
 
I am with Boyd.
But, this and any other powder in tin cans. Should have been used a long time ago.
But, it's not my money.:eek:
 
Read above guys I burned it and got rid of a woodchuck in the process


This powder was given to me by my buddy. It had been stored in a storage locker, same with then H322. I think he said he bought it in the early 80's. Price tags on it are $13.
No financial loss to me. I was going to use it in 308. Normally I use IMR4320 in 8mm Mauser
 
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