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Powder age

One bit of advice I did get from an old guy I was talking to - as soon as you break the seal on a jug or jar of powder, drop in a silica gel bag.

Quick and easy way to cut down on humidity, which is the second biggest enemy after temperature.
I have a whole bag of those little desiccant packs for small containers. I will do that. I use thick 4 mil Ziploc bags for ammo storage to increase each ammo can capacity. I use one of those per 100 round baggie. Jus for insurance. I use the plastic ammo cans with rubber seal with a big one in there. So the ammo it triple protected. OCD is hell! 🤣
 
Just make sure the silica gel bags are sturdy and intact. If any of the silica gel gets out of the bags and into your smokeless powder, you've got a problem.

Also - just to emphasize - better than using a silica gel bag is not unsealing a jug or jar until you need it. The seals that the manufacturers put on the packaging is more effective and will protect the powder from the third threat to powder - light.
 
Just make sure the silica gel bags are sturdy and intact. If any of the silica gel gets out of the bags and into your smokeless powder, you've got a problem.

Also - just to emphasize - better than using a silica gel bag is not unsealing a jug or jar until you need it. The seals that the manufacturers put on the packaging is more effective and will protect the powder from the third threat to powder - light.
Roger that!
 
Old power will develop a distinct smell. Acidic/vinegary. If it smells like a newer jug, go for it.

If it does smell off, get rid of it. Either pour in your flower bed as fertilizer or burn it 1 lb at a time. As a disclaimer, I burned 4-5 lbs that was gifted to me and definatly smelled...funny. did the whole black power trail to the keg kinda thing. Caught a tree on fire, 20 ft up. Lol. Hose put in work that day.
 
Old power will develop a distinct smell. Acidic/vinegary. If it smells like a newer jug, go for it.

If it does smell off, get rid of it. Either pour in your flower bed as fertilizer or burn it 1 lb at a time. As a disclaimer, I burned 4-5 lbs that was gifted to me and definatly smelled...funny. did the whole black power trail to the keg kinda thing. Caught a tree on fire, 20 ft up. Lol. Hose put in work that day.
When I lived in Ohio hung out with a couple of guys named Mark and John. I guess they found a can of black powder of one of their dads and decided to be a good idea to take it out in the woods and light It up. So they dumped it into a big coffee can and John went over and put a match in it and his head was directly above the can. Mark said that stuff shot up in the air like a fireworks display and it literally burnt John's face to completely up. He was out of school for a couple days and when he came back it looked like he had been shot in the head with a couple thousand tiny Bird shot. And then the rest of his face was red. I mean deep red! He learned the valuable lesson about fooling with black powder. It didn't explode cuz it wasn't compressed but it just burnt and sent all the ignition straight up slap dab in his face.
 
Unconfined BP can "explode" and can be easily ignited hy spark or static --
Only brass tools were/are allowed in ships magazine and large gun turrets --
I suppose even the big guns use smokeless powder now, but the 16" naval guns used to use bagged BP -- number of bags determined range - with a smokess primer bag to lite it off --

Smokeless requires confinement/pressure to "explode" - an ignited can of smokeless will only rupture the can and burn - rapidly --

BP and primers both should be treated with utmost respect -
 
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