In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Options
Smokeless powder gone bad?
mongrel1776
Member Posts: 894 ✭✭
I refer to it as "smokeless" powder rather than just gunpowder, for the simple reason I shoot mainly black powder. My dad reloaded quite a lot and I will be getting into it, but for now my cartridges come from gun stores, in boxes. My friend's, on the other hand....
Let me state first: the friend in question may be the stingiest man ever to walk this good Earth. This is a man who buys his girlfriend Valentine's Day cards, candy, etc. the day after Valentine's Day, to get it at half-price. He shops for everything in the expectation that when he finds a given item it will still be priced as it was twenty or thirty years ago. So, there's no telling where or for how much he got the gunpowder in question, or, in the event it was discounted, why it was marked down.
He reloaded a batch of 7.62 ammo for his Mosin-Nagant. I was shooting the rifle to determine, for him, whether the (discount-priced) muzzle brake he'd clamped to the barrel with the aid of some homemade shims was appreciably either reducing felt recoil or increasing noticeable muzzle blast. The second round I chambered and fired -- didn't fire. Nothing. I ejected the case, which had no bullet in it and was dribbling chunks of greenish-yellow stuff. My buddy immediately said that I must have loaded and chambered an empty (since he keeps both loaded and empty cases in a single ziploc baggy). Considering myself a little more on the ball than that, I slid the cleaning rod down the bore and after a couple of solid taps dislodged the bullet that was stuck about 3" up from the chamber of the rifle, just demonstrating the wisdom of not trying to fire another round as my friend insisted I'd be just fine doing.
Next round, same deal. No noticeable bang, boom, pop, or other noise, and a bullet lodged a few inches up the pipe. And what appeared to be yellowish-green clumps of something that resembled kernel-shaped granules of powder falling from the case when its mouth was tapped on a block of wood. I cleared the bore and quit attempting to shoot the rifle at that point. The owner tried to fire it, and a third time I got to use the cleaning rod to jar a stuck bullet out.
Open to suggestions as to what happened here. Judging by the appearance of what I assume was the gunpowder, and not just mud that my friend had bought because it was cheaper than actual powder, I'm inclined to say his crimp was less than solid, allowing moisture to seep in -- or the powder had gotten exposed to moisture before it ever went in the cases (except that he told me he hadn't had the least problem with it flowing freely into the cases when he was loading them). I don't really know and, to be honest with you, since shooting my buddy's guns, or at least his reloads, is now on my "ain't gonna do" list, I don't much care. However, he's announced intentions of "letting the cartridges dry out" and then resuming as if his ammo had never misfired, and I don't trust him not to forget the little incident just-described and chamber another round after a misfire -- which would be disastrous if that particular cartridge actually fired.
So, I need something that passes for an expert explanation of what happened, preferably based on firsthand experience or reliable info. I like the old cheapskate and would like to be able to scare him into not messing with these rounds or the powder in them.
Opinions?
Let me state first: the friend in question may be the stingiest man ever to walk this good Earth. This is a man who buys his girlfriend Valentine's Day cards, candy, etc. the day after Valentine's Day, to get it at half-price. He shops for everything in the expectation that when he finds a given item it will still be priced as it was twenty or thirty years ago. So, there's no telling where or for how much he got the gunpowder in question, or, in the event it was discounted, why it was marked down.
He reloaded a batch of 7.62 ammo for his Mosin-Nagant. I was shooting the rifle to determine, for him, whether the (discount-priced) muzzle brake he'd clamped to the barrel with the aid of some homemade shims was appreciably either reducing felt recoil or increasing noticeable muzzle blast. The second round I chambered and fired -- didn't fire. Nothing. I ejected the case, which had no bullet in it and was dribbling chunks of greenish-yellow stuff. My buddy immediately said that I must have loaded and chambered an empty (since he keeps both loaded and empty cases in a single ziploc baggy). Considering myself a little more on the ball than that, I slid the cleaning rod down the bore and after a couple of solid taps dislodged the bullet that was stuck about 3" up from the chamber of the rifle, just demonstrating the wisdom of not trying to fire another round as my friend insisted I'd be just fine doing.
Next round, same deal. No noticeable bang, boom, pop, or other noise, and a bullet lodged a few inches up the pipe. And what appeared to be yellowish-green clumps of something that resembled kernel-shaped granules of powder falling from the case when its mouth was tapped on a block of wood. I cleared the bore and quit attempting to shoot the rifle at that point. The owner tried to fire it, and a third time I got to use the cleaning rod to jar a stuck bullet out.
Open to suggestions as to what happened here. Judging by the appearance of what I assume was the gunpowder, and not just mud that my friend had bought because it was cheaper than actual powder, I'm inclined to say his crimp was less than solid, allowing moisture to seep in -- or the powder had gotten exposed to moisture before it ever went in the cases (except that he told me he hadn't had the least problem with it flowing freely into the cases when he was loading them). I don't really know and, to be honest with you, since shooting my buddy's guns, or at least his reloads, is now on my "ain't gonna do" list, I don't much care. However, he's announced intentions of "letting the cartridges dry out" and then resuming as if his ammo had never misfired, and I don't trust him not to forget the little incident just-described and chamber another round after a misfire -- which would be disastrous if that particular cartridge actually fired.
So, I need something that passes for an expert explanation of what happened, preferably based on firsthand experience or reliable info. I like the old cheapskate and would like to be able to scare him into not messing with these rounds or the powder in them.
Opinions?
Comments
Man, if you didn't even hear the primer "POP", I would tell him to either dump the whole batch in the river, or pull the bullets and deprime them and start over.
+1........add if the "contents" of the casing is "sticky" I would toss them too.
You have received some very valuable advice in the combination of these posts.
If the powder proves to be bad by the acid smell and poor ignition to a line of powder lit by a match --- pour it on the grass. It makes good fertilizer. So a least the cheep-skate will have something to do with it.
However, in light of your statements --- I am going to have to vote with double cross. He has no business with a firearm or loading for one.
Best Regards[:)]
AdamsQuailHunter
This acidic decomposition product will accelerate the breakdown of the rest of the powder so buffers are mixed in to neutralize the acid as soon as it is produced. However, when the buffers have all been used up, the decomposition accelerates. Moisture and temperature also accelerate the breakdown.
This decomposition with time is one of the differences between smokeless and black powder. Black powder is not inherently unstable. Depending on how it was stored (e.g. cool, dark and dry underground) a Civil War black powder projectile can still explode.
That powder was a case of penny wise...
I will give him credit for one thing -- he lives in such dread of making a mistake that he follows instructions and recommendations as stated in his loading manuals, to the letter; he'd never substitute one powder for another simply because he picked up a can of something cheap. That and the fact that he keeps his loads very mild will keep him somewhat safer than might otherwise be the case. I wish he'd get over his aversion to paying for decent stuff, but he's sixty years old and still rubbing pairs of pennies together in the expectation that they'll breed and give birth to dollars -- I don't think he's going to change his ways. So, this might not be the last time I pose a question on this forum or in Reloading, looking for some logical answer to whatever inexplicable thing has gone wrong in his efforts to save money.
There'd be a certain amusement value in all this, except I don't find much funny in potentially dangerous situations, especially when they involve guns.
Thanks again. [;)]