old can of red dot safe to use ?

[jdogjerome420]

 hello to all i an new to this site ai have been reloading for a couple of years now i just had a friend give me some of his dads old reloading stuff and i got some red dot powder in a pink 4lb. can because i dont know how olt the powder is i am wondering if it would be safe to use for light target loads the 11/8 lead charge and 16 to 19 grain powder charge range in a rem sts hull with cb waa12 replacement wads and fed 209a primers thank you for any help

[mechanic]

Just load up a few light loads and try them.  I'm loading with powder that is about 30 years old.  If it has not had excess moisture contamination it will probably be fine.

Work up loads though, like you would with any new batch.

Ben

[Graybeard]

The age of the powder likely isn't a concern tho proper identification is. Make sure it has red dots mixed in with the black powder which is how to ID red dot powder. If it has the red dots and none of any other color than the red dots and black powder then it's prolly what you think it is since it is in a red dot can.

Yes you can use it with 12 ga ounce or ounce and an eighth loads but refer to a book for proper load data.

If there is no strong acrid smell and it passes the ID test above I'd give it a try using book loads and see how it works in a few shells before loading a bunch.

[jdogjerome420]

thank you guys it is deffantly red dot it has the red flakes and doesnt have any ranced smell looks nice and dry so i will probably load about five to test before i make a large lot run