Corrosive Powder? (Pic Inside)

[SuperNaut]

I was out shooting this morning and I found a dozen-ish .45 cartridges while scrounging for brass. The primers had been hit but they hadn't fired. I scooped them up and took them home and dismantled them for parts, look at what I found inside all of them:

That is some serious corrosion. Do you think that is from the powder, or maybe they got dunked at some point? The corrosion on the bullets is so bad that it won't even come off. The brass was mixed manufacture so they are definitely reloads. I've dismantled my fair share of bullets but never seen corrosion like this on the inside.

 

[PRD1]

Smokeless powder...

as manufactured, is not corrosive.
However, the products of he breakdown of the powder, due to age and excessive temperatures, are corrosive, including nitric acid.
The most likely explanation for the condition of the ammunition you found is deteriorated powder, (old and/or surplus powder, or stuff which was beginning to deteriorate when loaded) which can, in time, actually eat holes in the brass case.
Such powder is not really dangerous, per se, since it loses strength in breakdown, but it can also destroy the primers, and misfires, hangfires and bullets stuck in the bore are possible results of trying to fire such ammunition.

PRD1 - mhb - Mike