Old powder ??

[bub524]

A dumb question for somebody who's been reloading for 30+ years, but here goes...
I've been rekindling my interest in shooting and reloading the 30-30 lately. I looked in my cupboard and found I have a half pound of Re7. I used to use that for a lot of different calibers and loads really like it. The date that I wrote on the container is 5 of 2005. I'd like to load some nice accurate loads, but I don't know if this powder is still optimum. I'm too cheap and too far away from a supplier (49 mi. one way) to by new stuff if this is still good. In my younger, more healthy years, a pound of powder never lasted more than a year, usually less.
The problem is if I make up some loads I won't know if the powder is lousy or the load is or maybe the load doesn't do well in that gun. I do have records of accurate loads for this powder from years past, so I could start there I guess.
Anybody have any experience using old powder like this?
Thanks, Bob

[nova71]

I was out of reloading due to a divorce in 89, started again this summer and have been using up all my old powder most all of it was 20-25 years old. so far it has been working great, used up all my 2400 , unique and 3031 and replaced it with new powder.reloaded again and point of aim remained the same. only difference between the loads were the age of the powder. but it had been stored in a cool dark dry place as I was told to do it. I think a lot has to do with the way it has been stored....

[BBF]

My RL-7 is in a plastic factory container and probably much older then yours. Unless it smells funny or the bottle got punctured it should be good for many years.

[Dezynco]

As long as the powder was stored in a relativly stable environment in its original conatainer, you should have no problems.  I've got a can of AL-5 that I still use, Alcan went out of production around 30 years ago!  It's even in the original 3lb cardboard container!  I load 38 Specials with it with no problems.

[bub524]

Now that I think about it, a lot of the modern powders began back in the 50's and 60's as surplus military powder stored since WWII that was sold off to sportsman. H4350 comes to mind.
That was back when the government trusted sportsman.

[nomosendero]

As long as the powder was stored in a relativly stable environment in its original conatainer, you should have no problems.  I've got a can of AL-5 that I still use, Alcan went out of production around 30 years ago!  It's even in the original 3lb cardboard container!  I load 38 Specials with it with no problems.

More than likely this is true. I think there are 3 ways to reinforce this however.
1. If you chronographed your loads in the past, do it again with the old powder & if the temp., altitude &the guns used are the same & you get the same velocity or very close, this is a very good sign.
2. Is your accuracy comparable & is related to the above if the Std. Dev. is similar.
3. Ask the powder people about that particular powder as diff. types can vary in shelf life.

[mbopp]

I was out of shooting and reloading for 25 years. My IMR cans say Dupont and the Bullseye and Unique say Herculese. The only powder that turned was some IMR4198, it lost its solvent smell and had a reddish dust on it. Old Contender loads from that batch showed vertical stringing. But I'm still using the other powders I have.