Collection of old wads....still good?

[New Hampshire]

OK, I mentioned in a previous post I got a bunch of old (like maybe at least 20 years old?) components and shot.  Included were some old winchester gas seals which i cant find listed anymore so am probably gonna give them to a friend and see if he can use them.  I also got a bunch of 20 ga wads which will also go to him.  But in the pile I got a bunch of wads that are still listed (and from what I read still very popular.)  These are:

Winchester WAA12
Winchester WAA12R
Remington RP12
Federal .135" cardboard over powder/sot cards (which are actually thicker than .135" but I found removing EXACTLY one layer of the cardboard makes them the proper .135".)
And finally a bunch of 3/8" Fiber wads.

So are these components still good?  What I mean is, somewhere down the line Remington or Winchester did not up and make any changes to these wads that we now have desginated with the same model #?  I ask because I am looking into reloading some of the #4 Buck I got for coyote loads and I found that with a WAA12R wad recipes call for something like 27 pellets.  Well even trying to stack them in there I find that about a third of the shot goes past the petals.  Is this normal?  i've never loaded buckshot before so I don't know.  The same went with the WAA12.  I found the same thing occurred.  I also found a recipe for 2 3/4" AA hulls using Blue dot.  It calls for the following: One .135" card+3/16 fiber wad+ .135" card.  With this combo Im supposed to get 34 pellets of #4 Buck in there with a velocity of around 1200 fps.  I read that card wads are considered not the greatest as they quickly and easily can cause gas leakage resulting in un even burns.  Am I better off just sticking with the above listed Win and Rem wads?

Also, I got a bunch of rifle and shotgun powder.  Some was from a company Ive never heard of, Alcan.  There is two types.  Im thinking that its pretty much gonna wind up fertilizer in the back yard.  But there was some Winchester 571.  It does not look or smell like its gone bad.  Should I bother keeping this stuff.  There was two bottles of it (I say bottles but actually its the old metal canisters.)
Thanks for any help I can get.
Brian M.

[Duffy]

NH
Would the Alcan powder happen to be AL-5, AL7 or AL8? I may be interested in it.
The WW 571 also works well for heavy loads.
On the wads as long as they are still pliable and not hard and crumbly they will work fine. It is also normal for the buckshot to sit above the petals on those loads. I have often cut .010 thick nylon or teflon and made wraps that extend above the petals but it didn't seem to make much difference. You may want to hang onto the fiber and .135 nitro cards because they make good fillers for some loads. Everytime I get rid of something that I think I don't need I eventually end up buying it again at a later date and usually end up paying more!
Usually the AA12's are for target and and the AA12R's are for heavier loads. That's why they are shorter to give more room for powder and shot.

Hope this helps some.
Ryan

[New Hampshire]

Thanks for the reply.  I believe it was Alcan 5 and 7.  But the canisters barely are a quarter full and the rust from the canister started getting in the powder which is why I said they were probably gonna go to the great outdoors.  The 571 seems fine and I see some data in the manuals I have, so thats good.  I also got some IMR powders, but one bottle I dont know if it is still good, which is ok I guess because it too is barely a quarter full and is not made anymore.I think this guy just tossed this stuff in the basement to collect dust for years.  But the wads are still pliable, so I guess things are good there.  Whats great is it appears, from the Lyman manual, that these are still pretty popular wads, so there is quite a bit of data with them.  I also wound up with a lot of shotgun primers and a few pistol.  I dont know how Im gonna dispose of them, but they really look like they gotta go.
Thanks again,
Brian M.

[Duffy]

Thanks NH,
A little history lesson here, The Alcan powders were originaly
made in Sweden. It was a cut sheet flake type of powder and in my opinion and many others one of the finest and cleanest burning shotgun/pistol powders around. It went through powder measures like fluid and was very accurate in the 38 & 357 mag. Then Smith and Wesson started importing it and things went to pot. Used to get a 8oz can for $2.98 and that loaded quite a few 38's.
Old primers are sort of a pain to dispose of, the pistol ones can be soked in oil or Hoppes 9 but some of the shotgun ones have a sealant over them (CCI comes to mind) and some just have a paper cover over the flash hole. I suppose if they soaked long enough it would render them inert.
One thing about the 571 is it get's a bit hard to light in really cold weather but other than that it's a good magnum/heavy load powder. You might also check at
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/
 for more loading data, as they have some load books with older powders in it and specialty load books.

Ryan

[Robert]

I got a bunch of boxes of Herter's fiber wads, came with my shotgun press I bought many years ago.  They are swelled up so bad that they don't fit in a shell, but last year I bought a 1850's circa muzzle-loader 12 gauge and these wads fit nice and snug in the bore.  They split easily and I can use them for varying thicknesses.  I use 1/2 over the powder and the other half to hold the shot in place.  I have also used them with Lyman slugs.  They work excellent, but then I am just fooling around.  I did use this combination to recycle my old computer that wreaked so much havok in my life.  It was VERY satisfying. (target practice IS recycling isn't it? I got more use out of it instead of just taking it to the dump.)

[Bob_K]

Powder is going bad if you see brown "smoke" when you open the can, and the smell is very acrid and burning to the nose.  Don't confuse that with the ether smell common to propellant powders.  That smell is normal.  Powders that are keep in moderate temperature, out of the light, and kept dry can last a surprisingly long time, over 25 years or more.  If the powder does not have the acrid smell then the worst that will happen is poor ballistic performance.  The acrid smell comes as the powder decomposes and that can be a safety problem.  Those powders should be disposed of.

Here is a Hodgdon reference on deteriorating powders:
http://www.hodgdon.com/data/general/deterioration.php