Long-term safe powder storage ideas

[mkl]

Any double base powder will last longer than you and your children if stored in conditions comfortable to humans. I have heard of, but never experienced, single base powder going bad after many years. Personally, I have both single and double base powder over 30 years old that shoots just like it was new.

Most of what I have read over the years seems to suggest that extreme temperture swings plus age will affect single base powders. As I said, I keep my powders indoors, so I cannot attest to that fact.

Unless you are dealing with black powder, explosion is not an issue as long as you keep the powder in the original container in a non-pressuretight vessel. Smokeless powder burns faster as the pressure increases; unless you store your powder in something so tight and strong (a safe perhaps) that it's similar to a gun chamber, you will never have an "explosion" with smokeless powder.

The water storage is not a good idea.

 

[Wayne02]

In my part of the world the relative humidity is quite low and I use an old refrigerator with a good gasket on the door and the reefer unit removed. Good insulation from the inside and out. Welders use them to store their fluxed rod in as the flux degrades with temperature and humidity changes.

I've been thinking about going this route as well. I reload in my shop and my shop is unheated unless I'm working out there and have a fire in the woodstove. Ambient temps range from about 32 degrees in the winter to about 85 in the summer. Even though the building is well insulated, there is still of course temp swings inside as well, though not quite as drastic. I currently keep my fluxed rod in the house but would would move it out to the storage refrigerator along with the powder.

"refer unit removed", means the compressor and all attendant refer stuff (coils etc)? Do you gut the inside or use the existing shelving and drawers and such? Could probably put a lightbulb in the built-in socket (or install a regular sized socket that would take a 60w bulb) to help with stabilizing the temp? That may be overkill though.

There is always 4 or 5 of these free refrigerators on craigslist around here.

 

[Slamfire]

I can think of no worse way for storing powder then inside a water-filled drum.

Humidity would be way off the charts!

Cannon powder was stored in pools of water. If acids leached out, if exothermic reactions were creating heat, the water dissolved the acid, kept the heat down.

If your powder was made good, and stored good, it will have a shelf life at least twenty years. If it was made bad, it will go bad.

50% of my purchased military surplus IMR 4895 powder has gone bad. Within a couple of years of getting the stuff. I found out when loaded match cartridges started having lots of cracked case necks.

On the last bad batch, I soaked stuff in water. The pictures were taken after a two month soak, I also decanted some after a year soak.

I shot the stuff with cast lead bullets and it went bang. I did not retest in my match rifles with match bullets after soaking, but I really don't think the ballistic performance was effected.

I finally decided to pour the stuff out on the lawn. I don't think soaking would have prevented or reversed the detoration process, and I had gotten disgusted with the number of ruined match cases.

On the history channel, I saw a Turkish diver on the deck of a boat, holding cordite from a sunken British Battleship. He took a lighter, and the stuff burned. That ship sank in 1915. I guess that means that smokeless could be stored forever under water. And this cordite was under salt water.



Surplus 4895 after two months in water



Sun dried powder

 

[Millwright]

If you have any quantity of powder, your biggest problem is storing per state/local/insurance regs. Fortunately, most of these align. A 'Powder Safe' is merely a controlled environment storage area with venting in a safe direction in case of problems. What represents a 'controlled environment' ? See your powder mfg. Most have suggestions on temp/humidity. >MW

 

[judaspriest]

Thanks guys - I think I'm going to give up. Too bad I actually paid someone to throw away my old basement fridge a few years ago (it was moldy too - left from the previous owners of the house). Regretting it now...

My furnace is in the basement, so when it's on, it gets pretty hot, and when it's not - the temperature drops quite noticeably, but hopefully within the tolerance limits.

I will let you know in 10-20 years how my powders are doing

JP

 

[brickeyee]

If you have the ability to dry the powder, storing it wet is used for long term storage.

One of the most common causes for deterioration of smokeless is not washing the original nitric and sulfuric acids from the nitrocellulose completely during manufacture.
Wartime production sometimes did not 'clean up' the acids as an expedient to increase production.

Since the powder was likely to be used very quickly anyway it was probably a decent trade off.

 

[Slamfire]

One of the most common causes for deterioration of smokeless is not washing the original nitric and sulfuric acids from the nitrocellulose completely during manufacture.
Wartime production sometimes did not 'clean up' the acids as an expedient to increase production.

Would storing the powder in water reverse this process?