Powder Life expectancy, expiration

[SC Tiger]

How long can powder be kept before it is considered unsafe to use (assuming it is kept dry)? I have some that is probably 9 years old - can I safely use it or should I dispose of it? Thanks.

 

[Bighouse Doc]

I have used 10+ year old Unique.

No problems noted.

-Doc

 

[Retired Grunt]

At that age I would load a few and test fire then load a batch

 

[Bighouse Doc]

I asked the tech at Alliant Powders how long the shelf life of Unique was.

The reply was "30 or 40 years if you keep the temperature reasonable."

I have fired ammo from the 50' and 60's that was just fine.

-Doc

 

[aj's 40 cal]

i dont know about powder, but i had some 15-17 year old ammo that still worked just fine. would not use it for carry ammo, but to kill paper it worked just fine.

 

[Red Hat]

If you keep it cool and dry it will keep for years. I'm using some Unique and Bullseye that I had packed away since 1986. For the loads I'm loading they chronograph to correct velocities.

 

[OUTTAHERE]

If it's been kept in a reasonably control temp/humidity environment it should be just fine. Just to be safe, maybe you could
use that powder for practice rounds and use new powder for your personal protection rounds.

 

[billt]

I'm still shooting powder from the early 70's, and it's fine. All of it has been stored in an air conditioned environment. I know guys still shooting IMR 4831 DATA powder that was purchased in bulk in the 50's. All are getting satisfactory results with it. I recently shot some .300 Win. Mag. reloads I had that were made in the early 70's. All went bang, and did so quite accurately I might add. Properly stored powder and ammunition has an all but indefinite shelf life. Bill T.

 

[cksh8me]

If you're worried about it just throw it on your lawn it's good for the ground.

 

[SC Tiger]

If it's been kept in a reasonably control temp/humidity environment it should be just fine. Just to be safe, maybe you could
use that powder for practice rounds and use new powder for your personal protection rounds.

That's kind of my plan, except I use factory ammo for personal protection. .38 and .357 ammo is getting really expensive and I figured it would be a good time to start loading a few rounds up.

The powder has been kept dry but it has been in my garage (non air conditioned). It's not an oven in there but temps can probably hit 90 degrees plus in the summer.

 

[benzuncle]

I was at the gun range awhile back and a guy came in that wanted to give away some powder, primers, casings and reloading books. I was the only "reloader" there; I gladly took the stuff off his hands. The powder was Bullseye. It was in a tin can with a lid that you popped off with a spoon-end or table knife, just like the old Nestle' Quick cans. I loaded up 1 magazine full of ammo (5gr behind 230gr LRN's) and shot'em at the range with zero problems. I went on to use up the entire can, which was almost full. BTW: the primers were Winchester Large Pistol Primers. All 880 of them went bang also.

 

[hiwall]

when powder degrades it chemically changes. You can see and smell these changes useally.