Thread: Old powder wrecked reloading gear.

About 3yrs ago I packed all my reloading stuff into a plastic bin with 6 clips that seal the lid as I was done reloading for the foreseeable future.
Care was taken that everything was wrapped/packed in old towels and it was a sunny day. No moisture etc.
I then placed it on top of my gun safe in our lined basement.
I got the gear down for the first time since to reference my reloading book and discovered anything steel was rusty and alloy had gone verdigris, but the odd thing was it was rusty etc from the top down as if done by a fog. My 3 sets of dies were also rusty inside the plastic boxes.
There was an odd chemical smell when I opened the bin and on opening a 1/2 container of Vhitavuori N160 it was obvious this did not smell right. It appears that there was a chemical smell/fog that somehow climbed out of the sealed powder container and reacted with all metals in bin.
The items in photo are as they laid in the bin so note how rust etc is from top down.
Sometimes it pays not to pack stuff away neat and tidy.

The mistake is storing powder like that. The bulk of my powder (~11kgs) is stored away from the house. I don't wish to battle with an insurance company even if my powder had nothing to do with a fire.

I have previously posted on the forum my experience with powder going off and I mean OFF - I had milsurp powder stored in a bedroom cabinet. One night I heard a muted bang from the bedroom. On checking, a can had blown its lid and the powder was fuming away merrily. Beside it in a leather sheath was my good micrometer. The part of the micrometer sticking outside the leather sheath almost instantaneously went exactly the same as your press.

And plastic powder cans, even unopened, don't stop gases escaping. Plastic is quite porous. I keep my powder in plastic drums with breathers. One drum has all my unopened cans whilst the other my opened cans. When I open the drum containing the unopened cans it reaks of the solvent they use during the powder manaufacture. So does my drum of partly used cans of course.

Greetings,
I also would not rule out moisture as at least part of the problem. In spite of the sunny day there would have been moisture in the air. As air cools the humidity goes up even with the same amount of moisture. Humidity is a percentage of the moisture that can carry at that temperature. At some point as it cools the moisture starts condensing on cool things like metals and voila rust. The towels may have aggravated things as well. It is likely that you sealed the moisture in when you closed the container.
Regards Grandpamac.

The question is... why weren't you reloading for 3 yrs? You were being punished by the gods of fire

Originally Posted by -BW-

The question is... why weren't you reloading for 3 yrs? You were being punished by the gods of fire

Hard to find 200+ deer for me and the missus to shoot in that time.

Sorry, I'm guessing the towels are the culprit. No matter how dry you think they were they will still hold and acquire moisture. A similar problem is leaving guns in "dry" gunbags to store. Rust, rust, rust. If you did exactly the same, but used bubble wrap, silica gel bags and a sealed container you might get a better result. But I still would not store powder in with the other stuff. I had a tub of IMR 3031 I stored for 30 years in a tiny picknickers chilly bin. Was part used. Powder was fine. Chilly bin was impregnated with the smell of powder.

Powders contain nitrates which can break down forming acids, store tem in their own cool dy but not fully sealed place.

Long story short - the primary energetic ingredient of most modern propellants is Nitrocellulose (NC). All NC undergoes spontaneous and autocatalytic (self-feeding/ self- perpetuating) decomposition, producing a bunch of bad stuff, including Nitric Oxide, which forms Nitric Acid on contact with air/ moisture. My guess would be that the Nitric Acid is what's eating your metal/ protective coatings. That Nitric Acid also further accelerates the breakdown of the NC and in the worst case can cause self-ignition/ combustion. The more moisture and the more heat/ temperature fluctuation, the more exacerbated it would be - so shipping containers and tin garden sheds are not flash for long term storage.

Thanks for that ubique.

I spent quite a few hours today removing rust from 3 sets of dies as well as verdigris from alloy bits. All seem still in workable order, but the 100 odd 7mm mag cases need the tarnish removed.
The cardboard primer loader box just crumbled.
There must have been some real bad gas in there.
The blasting powder and fuse seems ok but the suspect 1/2 container of N160 is being dumped.
The 1/2 container of IMR4895 with screw on steel lid that was rusted (for .308) seems and smells OK but will check a few loads before I do a batch.

Seems odd to me that powder goes off in a container but not in a cartridge.

Originally Posted by Gamehunter

Thanks for that ubique.

I spent quite a few hours today removing rust from 3 sets of dies as well as verdigris from alloy bits. All seem still in workable order, but the 100 odd 7mm mag cases need the tarnish removed.
The cardboard primer loader box just crumbled.
There must have been some real bad gas in there.
The blasting powder and fuse seems ok but the suspect 1/2 container of N160 is being dumped.
The 1/2 container of IMR4895 with screw on steel lid that was rusted (for .308) seems and smells OK but will check a few loads before I do a batch.

Seems odd to me that powder goes off in a container but not in a cartridge.

Oh it does go off in cartridges if not stored properly just takes a little longer in most cases, I had some 7.62x54 Russian factory loads that sat in a 60 litre plastic
storage bin for 15 years when I open the packet one case had heavy verdigris at the shoulder neck junction and a couple of the other cases had lighter amounts
I pulled them down and in all 20 the powder was clumped up and slightly damp and the steel jacket bullets were rusty.

About 1964 the .303 rifle I bought came with about 300 loose cartridges date stamped from 1918 to 1952 and of every type you could imagine.
There were some with big round noses, red tipped ones and ordinary military type solid.
Very few refused to fire but man there were a lot of hang fires.
The old deer culler I bought the rifle off warned me to count to 10 before opening bolt.
Shooting a goat walking through trees it was sometimes, click, then keep aperture sight on him, then boom.
Some bullets kicked more and were louder than others, but as I said I don't remember many not going off.
Great fun for a young fella and all in one piece.

Originally Posted by ubique

Long story short - the primary energetic ingredient of most modern propellants is Nitrocellulose (NC). All NC undergoes spontaneous and autocatalytic (self-feeding/ self- perpetuating) decomposition, producing a bunch of bad stuff, including Nitric Oxide, which forms Nitric Acid on contact with air/ moisture. My guess would be that the Nitric Acid is what's eating your metal/ protective coatings. That Nitric Acid also further accelerates the breakdown of the NC and in the worst case can cause self-ignition/ combustion. The more moisture and the more heat/ temperature fluctuation, the more exacerbated it would be - so shipping containers and tin garden sheds are not flash for long term storage.

Hi ubique, some also contain Nitroglycerine, same story but worse!

Originally Posted by Gamehunter

Thanks for that ubique.

I spent quite a few hours today removing rust from 3 sets of dies as well as verdigris from alloy bits. All seem still in workable order, but the 100 odd 7mm mag cases need the tarnish removed.
The cardboard primer loader box just crumbled.
There must have been some real bad gas in there.
The blasting powder and fuse seems ok but the suspect 1/2 container of N160 is being dumped.
The 1/2 container of IMR4895 with screw on steel lid that was rusted (for .308) seems and smells OK but will check a few loads before I do a batch.

Seems odd to me that powder goes off in a container but not in a cartridge.

Greetings @Gamehunter,
I have has some CAC and handloads that were probably both loaded with AR2201 in which the powder had clumped where there was no sign of problems on the outside of the case. Some of the primers were dead as well. I think the fact that the cap on the IMR 4895 container was rusted but the powder looked fine makes me reasonably sure that moisture was the problem. When you sealed the container as you say on a sunny day say 25 degrees C the relative humidity was likely around 35% at best. By winter with the temperature at 5 degrees C the same amount of moisture will drive the relative humidity over 100% and everything will be wringing wet. I really believe that this was the lions share of the problem.
Regards Grandpamac.

My last few CAC factory loaded (for NRANZ) had turned into click bangs. Very high risk of a projectile lodging in the barrel.
I bought that ammo in 1970. It was well stored in my Mum's garage (she didn't know) for 20 years before I began to use it up. It eventually started hang firing. I stripped the remainder and the powder was badly clumped, the projectiles' bases green.

Likewise the outsides were good.

I tumbled the projectiles and used them. The cases I discarded which was a shame.

I also have around 2 bricks of very old ICI 22 ammo (maybe 60 years old) which looks perfect. Cardboard boxes are great. Attempted to use some of it and most cases ruptured down near the rims. Quite disconcerting.

Originally Posted by Gamehunter

but not in a cartridge.

Not so fast, as @shooternz has said below your post, it can happen in loaded ammo too. I was interested to find out it was N160 that did this to you, years back, I had a couple of plastic 2 litre containers of N140 & N160 I'd bought from Reloaders Supplies. Loaded up a stack of .303 with the n140, shot a fair bit off but stowed the rest in my reloading cabinet. couple of years later, went in there looking for some .303 ammo & found my N140 loaded stuff was developing neck cracks & sweating Verdigris, the bullets were the steel jacketed Norma stuff but I never had an issue with those on top of anything other than N140. The 3/4 full container of it fairly ponged & got consigned to lawn fertiliser. A little later I inherited a few cans of powder from an old mate that passed away, one was a mixed lot, what looked like N140 with 2208. (don't ask. I stowed it meaning to dump it when I got around to it, a few months later, the 2208 tin it was in had rusted through, some steel bits in my cabinet had a film of rust & some nearby tins of powder did too though nothing internal. It got dumped toot sweet after that. I'd be interested to know how many others had issues with VT powders, we'd be talking back in the 1990s & I'm guessing that RL filled their containers from a bulk lot. At last check my N160 was fine. I got to here from this thread