Toxic Powder Spill in the Loading Room

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I once dumped a measure of HP38 into a Bullseye can. Fortunately the Bullseye can was empty, I had not refilled it from the keg.

A friend once dumped a measure of AA2520 into a caddy of Varget. I visited my old lab and borrowed some Tyler Testing Sieves. We found one that made a very clean separation of the ball and extruded powders.

Another guy here touched off his AR 50 for a dinosaur killer blast much greater than the "ordinary" .50 BMG round. So he shot another with same result. Next one wasn't quite as loud. Next one was near normal.
His reloading mentor concluded from containers in sight and his recent operations that he had probably filled his powder measure with H50BMG without emptying out the Varget. That Armalite must be hell for stout, 230 grains of Varget is a lot.
 
mokin said:
@markr6754 Sorry for your loss.

As for the rest of you, I'm glad I'm not the only one who takes extraordinary measures to salvage powder.
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Trust me in this...I will not fertilize plants again with powder spill material. I didn't expect so many "salvage it" responses, so I feel that my powder was truly wasted. Next time I'll make a solid effort at recovery...and will also start tracking burn rate on dog hair.
 
Jim Watson said:
I once dumped a measure of HP38 into a Bullseye can. Fortunately the Bullseye can was empty, I had not refilled it from the keg.

A friend once dumped a measure of AA2520 into a caddy of Varget. I visited my old lab and borrowed some Tyler Testing Sieves. We found one that made a very clean separation of the ball and extruded powders.

Another guy here touched off his AR 50 for a dinosaur killer blast much greater than the "ordinary" .50 BMG round. So he shot another with same result. Next one wasn't quite as loud. Next one was near normal.
His reloading mentor concluded from containers in sight and his recent operations that he had probably filled his powder measure with H50BMG without emptying out the Varget. That Armalite must be hell for stout, 230 grains of Varget is a lot.
Click to expand...
230 grains of Varget? Slower than Accurate 2520 but faster than Winchester 760 according to the 2019 Burn Rate Chart I can find online... Dang I wonder what the chamber pressures were... That is just nuts!!
 
Jim Watson said:
I once dumped a measure of HP38 into a Bullseye can. Fortunately the Bullseye can was empty, I had not refilled it from the keg.

A friend once dumped a measure of AA2520 into a caddy of Varget. I visited my old lab and borrowed some Tyler Testing Sieves. We found one that made a very clean separation of the ball and extruded powders.

Another guy here touched off his AR 50 for a dinosaur killer blast much greater than the "ordinary" .50 BMG round. So he shot another with same result. Next one wasn't quite as loud. Next one was near normal.
His reloading mentor concluded from containers in sight and his recent operations that he had probably filled his powder measure with H50BMG without emptying out the Varget. That Armalite must be hell for stout, 230 grains of Varget is a lot.
Click to expand...
not going to lie, if I drop a 9mm measure into another pound of powder I’m shaking it up real good and call it a day. DON’t do THIS!!! lol
 
On a related note, many times I've heard that excess powder makes good lawn fertilizer. I guess that's because of the nitrogen content. But I don't see how it could work; the smokeless powders I'm familiar with aren't water soluble. School me please.
 
Col. Harrumph said:
On a related note, many times I've heard that excess powder makes good lawn fertilizer. I guess that's because of the nitrogen content. But I don't see how it could work; the smokeless powders I'm familiar with aren't water soluble. School me please.
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I heard from here that smokeless won’t desolve in water too. Murical Grow is cheap! I could think on many uses for old, mix powder that involves BBq
 
I agree. Gunpowder is essentially plastic, the only difference between nitrocellulose powder, nitrocellulose lacquer, and celluloid is the degree of nitration.
I doubt there are soil microorganisms that will nitrify powder.
But I worked on the fertilizer R&D manufacturing side, not agronomy.
 
Jim Watson said:
I agree. Gunpowder is essentially plastic, the only difference between nitrocellulose powder, nitrocellulose lacquer, and celluloid is the degree of nitration.
I doubt there are soil microorganisms that will nitrify powder.
But I worked on the fertilizer R&D manufacturing side, not agronomy.
Click to expand...
your the fertilizer lab guy! you should change your Avatar to a nitrogen atom or a nitrocellulose molecule model
 
Just did a search on solubility of Nitrocellulose in water. It isn't and it won't. In fact, it may make it even worse unless kept constantly wet.

And then there's this "May undergo a vigorous reaction with reducing agents, including hydrides, sulfides and nitrides, that culminates in a detonation. Can react with inorganic bases to form explosive salts." from NOAA.

So, my experiment in nitrocellulose gardening comes to a very quick end.
 
Mark_Mark said:
when I was 10 or 11, we stole a bottle of powder from my friend’s dad powder refrigerator and lit it.
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Back in 1966, my 2 "friends" talked me into walking into a gun store and buying a 1 lb can of FFG black powder. They told me I "looked" 18. In retrospect, it seems the only real job requirement was a terminal case of stupidity.

My friends used the FFG to make several homemade firecrackers, which, due to the excessive labor, quickly became boring. "What to do next" then became the concern. Having grown up on a steady diet of B&W cowboy movies in the 1950's, there was only one thing to do. Pour the powder into a large mound and ignite it. But we lacked a fuse. However, 1950's TV once again came to the rescue. We had seen it in 100 TV shows. All that was needed was to pour a tiny trail of black powder and it would burn slowly enough to make a 'get away'. Three guesses who was voted to light "the fuse".

I remember that day like it was yesterday. Another hot Atlanta day, and I was there, dressed like my co-conspirators in the ubiquitous summer uniform of youth: T-shirt and shorts. I lit the match and stooped to ignite the fuse. As soon as I touched the "fuse" end the whole pile when up like flash powder !! POOF ! The entire thing ignited so fast that I was still stooped over, match hand still extended toward the pile ! The flash burned all the hair off both shins, both eye brows, my bangs and my forearm.

Luckily I was unhurt, because my 2 "friends" couldn't seem to get themselves off the ground, where they were too busy rolling around in uncontrollable fits of laughter.

I was OK, but any allure that black powder weapons might have once held was completely and permanently wiped away.
.
 
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Since we’re talking about childhood stupidity…I grew up in Hawaii where fireworks were readily available due to the many Asian (we used to say oriental) celebrations throughout the year. New Year’s Eve, Chinese New Year, Bon festival, 4th of July…you get the idea. We used to collect the unexplored firecrackers, crack them in the middle, and light them…we called them shu-shu babies. Eventually we discovered that you could stomp on them (if anyone in the group was wearing shoes, a rarity), and it would explode. There were always some that still wouldn’t light, so we got the brilliant idea of unrolling the papers and building a pile of gunpowder. Since we didn’t want the power to blow away we decided to do this on the sidewalk into the underside of our house. In this case we also had throwable fireworks called cracker balls. They were colored balls of paper with powder inside and would explode when thrown on the sidewalk. Well, I decided this would be the perfect detonator for my quite formidable mound of firecracker powder….and it was. I set several cracker balls in the center of the mound, covered that with a decent sized lava rock, then placed a hunk of plywood atop that so I could jump on it in my barefeet.
Well, I was launched into the backyard, approximately 10 feet away, the lava rock disintegrated and my mom came running out the back door to find out why the house was shaking so badly. Oh…did I mention that many Hawaiian houses are built on stilts as the island is essentially the top of a large underwater mountain?
Amazingly, no beating!
 
markr6754 said:
Since we’re talking about childhood stupidity…I grew up in Hawaii where fireworks were readily available due to the many Asian (we used to say oriental) celebrations throughout the year. New Year’s Eve, Chinese New Year, Bon festival, 4th of July…you get the idea. We used to collect the unexplored firecrackers, crack them in the middle, and light them…we called them shu-shu babies. Eventually we discovered that you could stomp on them (if anyone in the group was wearing shoes, a rarity), and it would explode. There were always some that still wouldn’t light, so we got the brilliant idea of unrolling the papers and building a pile of gunpowder. Since we didn’t want the power to blow away we decided to do this on the sidewalk into the underside of our house. In this case we also had throwable fireworks called cracker balls. They were colored balls of paper with powder inside and would explode when thrown on the sidewalk. Well, I decided this would be the perfect detonator for my quite formidable mound of firecracker powder….and it was. I set several cracker balls in the center of the mound, covered that with a decent sized lava rock, then placed a hunk of plywood atop that so I could jump on it in my barefeet.
Well, I was launched into the backyard, approximately 10 feet away, the lava rock disintegrated and my mom came running out the back door to find out why the house was shaking so badly. Oh…did I mention that many Hawaiian houses are built on stilts as the island is essentially the top of a large underwater mountain?
Amazingly, no beating!
Click to expand...
Memories! love it, no wonder we are gun people! save me some poi
 
rfwobbly said:
Back in 1966, my 2 "friends" talked me into walking into a gun store and buying a 1 lb can of FFG black powder. They told me I "looked" 18. In retrospect, it seems the only real job requirement was a terminal case of stupidity.

My friends used the FFG to make several homemade firecrackers, which, due to the excessive labor, quickly became boring. "What to do next" then became the concern. Having grown up on a steady diet of B&W cowboy movies in the 1950's, there was only one thing to do. Pour the powder into a large mound and ignite it. But we lacked a fuse. However, 1950's TV once again came to the rescue. We had seen it in 100 TV shows. All that was needed was to pour a tiny trail of black powder and it would burn slowly enough to make a 'get away'. Three guesses who was voted to light "the fuse".

I remember that day like it was yesterday. Another hot Atlanta day, and I was there, dressed like my co-conspirators in the ubiquitous summer uniform of youth: T-shirt and shorts. I lit the match and stooped to ignite the fuse. As soon as I touched the "fuse" end the whole pile when up like flash powder !! POOF ! The entire thing ignited so fast that I was still stooped over, match hand still extended toward the pile ! The flash burned all the hair off both shins, both eye brows, my bangs and my forearm.

Luckily I was unhurt, because my 2 "friends" couldn't seem to get themselves off the ground, where they were too busy rolling around in uncontrollable fits of laughter.

I was OK, but any allure that black powder weapons might have once held was completely and permanently wiped away.
.
Click to expand...
How did we survive or not lose any limbs… Someones got plans for us.
 
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