joepistol
Well-Known Fanatic
On a local firearm forum I was reading in a thread about how someone said they'd never buy an open ( unsealed) container of gunpowder.
Their rationale / reasoning was the fear that the container held something other than what the label said, or that the container may have a mix of powders, or
old contaminated powder , all resulting in powder unsafe to use. This struck me as paranoia.. an unrealistic fear.. but upon consideration,it does have some merit.
There does exist the possibility of any or all of the previously mentioned fears to be true.
I'll admit, I've been given a number of partially used containers of gun powders.. by guys I've met @ my club, & friends.
I've used these powders w/o incident.
The new-to-me powders were tested in this manner: I took ammo I'd loaded with the same powder & loaded a few rds, with the "new-to -me" powder ,
and shot them for a comparison to see it the recoil, accuracy is the same. If it's a powder I haven't used before, I use load data for a bullet wt / powder wt
to load a certain velocity. i. e. Load a 158 gr bullet to 850 fps using both a known powder & the new powder, then shoot both and see how they compare
I've also purchased previously opened containers of powders..also used them w/o incident. Maybe I've been blessed / "lucky"
I should add I do a visual inspection of "new-to-me"powders, so see if it is similar in appearance ( to powder I already own)
also looking for foreign material in the powder..can't say I've found any.
As powder gets more expensive & recognizing that someone may buy a powder, try it, & decided they don't like it..maybe try to sell it.
I'm curious if others have do the same, or if others avoid purchasing open / partially used containers of powder ?
Their rationale / reasoning was the fear that the container held something other than what the label said, or that the container may have a mix of powders, or
old contaminated powder , all resulting in powder unsafe to use. This struck me as paranoia.. an unrealistic fear.. but upon consideration,it does have some merit.
There does exist the possibility of any or all of the previously mentioned fears to be true.
I'll admit, I've been given a number of partially used containers of gun powders.. by guys I've met @ my club, & friends.
I've used these powders w/o incident.
The new-to-me powders were tested in this manner: I took ammo I'd loaded with the same powder & loaded a few rds, with the "new-to -me" powder ,
and shot them for a comparison to see it the recoil, accuracy is the same. If it's a powder I haven't used before, I use load data for a bullet wt / powder wt
to load a certain velocity. i. e. Load a 158 gr bullet to 850 fps using both a known powder & the new powder, then shoot both and see how they compare
I've also purchased previously opened containers of powders..also used them w/o incident. Maybe I've been blessed / "lucky"
I should add I do a visual inspection of "new-to-me"powders, so see if it is similar in appearance ( to powder I already own)
also looking for foreign material in the powder..can't say I've found any.
As powder gets more expensive & recognizing that someone may buy a powder, try it, & decided they don't like it..maybe try to sell it.
I'm curious if others have do the same, or if others avoid purchasing open / partially used containers of powder ?