Just curious, where does one get a 20 pound keg of powder? Any powder?

Try this one on...I have a 150 lb. keg of powder from Uncle Sam, circa WW1 or 2, its in a stainless steel container with a heavy wooden crate around it...I'm down to about 40 lbs of old surplus 4831 aka 4350 data powder....Jack O'connors stuff, and thats how he got more velocity out of a .270 than anyone else, it will still do that.....I bought it from an old gunnut, now has now gone to the happy hunting ground in about 1980.....Works great in my 300 H&H also...

As Homer Simpson would say

".............hmmmmmm, 150lbs of Powder........ummmmmmmm"

Cheers and Good shooting
seafire

Know the 4831 stuff (There was no nominal "H" or "IMR" in those days) well Mr. Atkinson...am down to my last 18 lbs of it.



IIRC correctly, was originally used as 20 m/m propellant in WW-2. Bought my first 100-lb keg of it from Bruce Hodgdon in 1959 or '60. He also sold it in 1 lb, 20 lb, 50lb. and 150 lb. kegs, that I know of.



When I bought mine I got it and 10,000 primers as a package deal for $100. IIRC, it was delivered by rail. No haz-mat fees in those days. I shot all that up, and a lot more too...still have four of the 150-lb containers downstairs, where I use them as storage boxes. (Mine were rectangular, how about yours?)



Bruce apparently bought most of his by the freight-car load, which is a bit bigger container than I think I could have used....<BIG G>



I do recall them selling his powder at the local gun shop, without the primers, for $0.85 per/lb. They'd scoop it out of the keg into a paper bag sitting on the scale and stop when you said "when". You'd pay the man and then take it home in the paper bag.



The good 'ol days? Not really when it came to finances. I was earning the munificent sum of $32 per week ($28 take-home) working full time for Bell Telephone as a frame-man.



AC