I was loading some 44's from a can of IMR 4227 last night when I noticed "dust" coming from the powder as I poured it. This dust had a slight orange tinge. This can of powder is decades old, but the powder still had a slight smell of ether, which I take to be a good sign. However, just to be safe I disposed of the powder.
How do you tell if powder is past its prime, has lost quality, or is unsafe to use?

Deterioration of powder is indicated by the smell of ammonia and change to reddish or yellowish color.

It isn't ammonia that deteriorated powder puts out. It's nitrogen dioxide, nitric oxide, and some nitric and nitrous acids. It'll burn your nose, and when the deterioration's quite rapid the red-brown fumes of NO2 are visible. (It's in danger of self-igniting at that point.) The reddish dust is a sign the powder's gone bad.

I just disposed of 8# of surplus 4895. First it rusted up my 50 yr. old Redding powder measure. Than it gave at least 50% miss fires. I pulled the bullets and their rear ends were corroded. I opened the 8#jug and saw a brownish yellow haze above the powder. The powder no longer had that nice graphite shine. It was brownish gray. I moved my hand accross the bottle to get a little whiff. NITRIC OR NITRITE ACID. I know the oder as I've worked with it.I notified three different Magazines to see if they would publish some sort of information. Non of them did.The powder was dilluted and is now firtilizing my lawn. If deterioration in degree is significant, detecting to what degree is beyond my comprehension. This may help some day or not at all. Roger

powders have an alcohol like smell if not deteriorated.

I lost lots of H322 surplus stuff and it went the same way you described, rusty colored dust, fortunately I kept good records and only had to break down some of my ammo...not all of it. I'm big, I mean big on keeping good records on my ammo.

regards,
Graycg

One more point:

The fragrance of fresh powder is due to residual solvent. The main bulk of IMR powder is nitrocellulose colloided in a mixture of diethyl ether and ethanol, and the coating is usually 2,4dinitrotoluene that was applied in an acetone solution, so these three ingredients contribute to the odor. Ball powders are colloided with ethyl acetate, which is the main odor, and the added nitroglycerine and coatings may use other solvents. Loss of these solvents over time can change the burning characteristics of the powder considerably, and may open up fissures and pores in the powder grains that could be a factor in the powder's deterioration, but the solvents are basically immaterial to the chemical breakdown of nitrocellulose. You can still have plenty of fragrant solvent vapors in a container of powder that's on the brink of becoming unstable. What's happening in deteriorating powder is that nitrate groups are breaking off of the cellulose chains, releasing oxides of nitrogen and nitric and nitrous acids. These compounds act as catalysts to accelerate further breakdown, and heat is released in the process. Stabilizing chemicals (the most common being diphenylamine) are added to powders to neutralize the acids and nitrogen oxides as they form, so they can't catalyze further, more rapid breakdown. Over time they become depleted. Propellant storage facilities monitor the remaining quantities of these compounds in both samples of the stored propellant and samples that have been exposed to accelerated aging at elevated temperature. When they drop below a certain level, they get rid of the stuff. That's one way we get surplus powder. This stuff won't last forever, and there are potential hazards from autoignition. Here's a link to a very informative U.S. Army document on management of stored propellants: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/docs/prop_guide.pdf

[ 10-27-2003, 06:14: Message edited by: NotRicochet ]

NotRicochet has put me onto a lot of info about powder storage and deterioration. I've gone through a lot of it even though it's a little combersome. I've also aquired some info from powder manufacturers. There is a question that still remains in my mind.
1.Have any of my fellow brethren (RELOADERS) ever experienced autoignition of progressive burning smokeless powder because of deterioration??? Any genuine first hand info on anyone who has? No hear say.
2.Have any of you ever used a frost free refrigerator, outdoors preferably, to store fair quantities of smokeless powder? Looking forward to some good info. Roger Posted this elsewhere but ono answer.