Any problems setting up my reloading bench in detached garage?
I know that the powder can be affected by humidity so I figure that I will store in the safe. Are there other problems I have to worry about or is this pretty common?
Seems most people keep theirs in there house but this is not an option for me.
Thanks,
Paul
Originally Posted By fatboyslim34:
I know that the powder can be affected by humidity so I figure that I will store in the safe. Are there other problems I have to worry about or is this pretty common?
Seems most people keep theirs in there house but this is not an option for me.
Thanks,
Paul
When growing up we had a detached garage that my father had his reloading equipment and supplies in. I know for a fact we started reloading in 1987 because it was a way for my Father to get out of the house while Mom was pregnant with my sister. He had several kegs of powder and I used the same ones when I was in college in 1997. The ammo I loaded was just fine and killed dem aminals just fine after the powder and primers sat in a non environmentally controlled environment for 10y.
My bench is in my detached shop. It's unheated unless I am in there working.
It is insulated and vented properly, the venting is key.
I'm up in rainy Washington state with no rust issues.
My reloading setup is under my post and pier house and is just fine.It is semi enclosed on the sides and fully protected from the elements.The only thing you need to watch for is corrosion.
As long as you keep your powder in the newer sealed plastic contaniners humidity shouldn't be an issue. I have a 8lb jug that I stored outside for 10 years and it still burns great. It's like a swamp here in the summer for about 8 months so it had plenty of exposure to humidity.
I thought storing powder in a safe was not a good idea.
If there were a fire, you could be creating a bomb by trapping the pressures of the burning powder. Please correct me if I am wrong.
jkm
Originally Posted By wilNva:
As long as you keep your powder in the newer sealed plastic contaniners humidity shouldn't be an issue. I have a 8lb jug that I stored outside for 10 years and it still burns great. It's like a swamp here in the summer for about 8 months so it had plenty of exposure to humidity.
I didn't realize I could keep everything in an uncontrolled environment. The garage is insulated but not temperature controlled. I need more venting but that won't take any time for me.
Thanks,
Paul
Corrosion on teh loader and parts will most likely be a bigger problem. I am set up in my attached /insulated garage that is heated only when i am out there. No real issues, just watch your stuff for signs of rust.
Your gunpowder should be stored in a container with a tight lid. What you want is a moderate temperature for storage, and there's no advantage to using a safe.
Basement storage of gun powder is my choice. Cool, dry and no heat or sun exposure. Maintaining a stable temperature is ideal.
Condensation will form on any metal parts that are exposed to extreme temperature changes. Freezing at night follwed by the sun warming them daily is a guarantee for rust. Store the dies inside, the press can be protected by wax, oil, EEzox, or any one of a number of other coatings. Mount the press in the north side of the garage to minimize temperature fluctuations. You don't want the sun beating on it through a window.
My RCBS handles became rusted over the years. I simply polished it off with a wire wheel and followed up with a good wipe down with solvent and a coat of spray paint. Looks better than new now all shiny and black.
Keep the press ram well lubricated. Light grease or heavy oil works great. I always remove the old dirty grease before applying new. Carbon from the primer/pocket is very abrasive and will be trapped in the old oil.
Basements are for people who can dig a foundation without explosives, not for folks like me who live mere inches over limestone and coleche. I have kept my powder and primers indoors for the most part, but everything else has at times been stored in my garage. I found out the hard way that living "on the edge of a desert" is not the same as living IN a desert; here in San Antonio we can go from hot and dry evenings to foggy mornings almost any time of year. So anything that can corrode will corrode - unless you do something to prevent it. You can see dies darken indoors if you don't treat them properly, so take care to coat things properly (lots of die makers recommend their own brand of case lube for this), and when you're not using a tool, put it away in a way that protects it from ambient humidity. As dryflash points out, ventilatioon is the key to keeping the space safe, but when you put something away in a cabinet, don't accidentally concentrate the humidity by sealing that cabinet up.
No problems in my detached shop....it's only heated when I go out and it's less than 40 degrees....The building is uninsulated, I've had some containers of open powder over 10 yrs (opened but the cap put on after use) and it's all fine. No primer or rust problems either. If I know for sure I'm not going to use my press/dies for awhile I give them a shot of rust treatment spray (I use M1 Slick spray) but even when I haven't sprayed them I didn't have problems.
Temperature can affect the life of all chemicals and my guess this include your powder and primers. However, saying whether the round still goes bang after long duration of storage in bad conditions is not a real test. The real question is whether your stuff remains consistent.
For example, if your powder looses 5% of its potency, it will still go bang but your MV will change and that would signficantly affect a load you put together, tested, and optimized. It’s basically an uncontrolled situation never knowing it will fail or lose power and how much. This pretty much happens for any powder and primer even stored in favorable conditions but keeping stuff in an un-insulated condition, especially from heat will accelerate it in a bad way.
After the above cited occurrence, humidity might not be your worst enemy if you're hunting or plinking. If you hunt at extreme distances, or are using the loads for target work of any required precision I'd look at it differently, and a safe will not remove moisture from the air. A refrigerator makes dryness.
So it seems cold isn't a problem, what about heat? I plan on keeping my powder and primer in cabinets above my workbench in the garage. It can get hot here in the summer.
As stated before it is an insulated, soon to be vented, non temperature controlled environment.
The more research I do it seems the primers are the things I have to worry more about...not so much the powder
Is it ok to leave powder and primers in cabinets in the garage in the summer?
Thanks
Paul
bump
I'd worry about corrosion on equipment than anything else.
My reloading setup is in my garage that is 300 feet from my house in the middle of the woods, that has absolutely no climate control in any way shape or form. It has been that way for about 2 years now and have had no consistency problems or problems with cartridges going bang.
If I leave a steel die out sitting on my bench over night, it will have surface rust on it the next morning. To combat this, I spray everything with
WD-40 Specialist Protective White Lithium Grease. Then wipe everything down leaving a very thin coat of lubricant. Works like a charm, and have had no problems.
