Armory Sponsor
Posted: 10/16/2012 5:16:51 AM EDT
|
I'm sure this has been covered before but my search fu is weak..
I have 2 containers of old Pyrodex. And I'm talking 10 or more years old. Is the powder still good? I did have a problem getting tight groups last year for some reason and I got to thinking if the powder could have played a part. Thanks in advance for any help.. UPDATE: So I shot some during the day on Saturday. 10 shots with the old Pyrodex and 10 with a new package of Pyrodex pellets. No difference what so ever! I was shocked. Shot some nice groups and I'm ready as I'll ever be for muzzleloader season. Wish it was in Saturday. Had a number of nice bucks show up just out of my bow range. Hopefully they will be there on the 3rd... |
|
I don't think Pyrodex goes bad as long as it is protected from environmental extremes. The only black powder substitute I've had that has "gone bad" one the shelf was called Black Canyon. Black Canyon sucked. Here's what I found on it:
"Ascorbic Acid Based Powders The earliest attempts at replacement in our day resulted in the ‘Golden Powder’ of the 1970's. It was made with ascorbic acid, which is Vitamin C, as the fuel. It was intensely hygroscopic, both before and after firing, sucking up water like a sponge. Exposure to moist air changed its shooting qualities enormously and shelf life was abysmal. It went exactly nowhere. Development has continued in the last decade with Ascorbic Acid based powders although under different auspices and with better success. One product was Black Canyon powder, which was available for a couple of years. This powder was large grained, blackish, produced somewhat lower velocities compared to Black Powder but with less smoke when shot across my son David’s chronograph. Unfortunately, the grains were so big that there was quite some difficulty getting them to pour from a regular powder measure. It also required thumping with the ramrod, supposedly to break up the large granules, or to compact it, or both. The shooter was supposed to whack it with the ramrod before loading a bullet. Can you imagine the thumping that powder charge would get while Old Ephraim popped his teeth at you from the brush. As you might guess, the powder did not sell well and has since disappeared." Even better than Pyrodex... Real black powder. 
|
|
My buddy had the same issue with pyrodex pellets. He bought a new box and it was problem solved.
I use Goex myself. Real black powder has a long, LOOONG life. I recall a story of a guy who was killed a few years back while grinding rust off of a civil war explosive shell that had been buried in the ground since 1864. |
|
Thanks... I've been thinking about going to real blackpowder.. Never been a huge fan of Pyrodex, just kind of fell into using it.
Gonna do some sighting in during the day at the hunting property this weekend. If I have time, I'll try each one and see if there's a noticable difference. |
|
Karl Sokol of Chestnut Mountain Sports used to have a retail shop before moving out of this damn socialist state and dedicating his business in Vermont only to custom gunsmithing. When he closed his shop, I bought all of his black powder supplies, including 20+ pounds of RS and P Pyrodex. I'm down to the last pound of each, and he moved almost 20 years ago. It all still goes "bang", and the groups with both my T/C .50 Hawken and my C&B revolvers are as good as they ever were.
I don't think it's as much a matter of age as it is in how it's stored. Mine has been stored in a cool, dry basement the whole time. |
|
I remember seeing an article about "Golden Powder" in a gun magazine, about 1983 or 1984. I was in college at the time, and can positively date the years.
My professor, a shooter, was very interested in the article. I don't recall there ever being a "substitute black powder" before Pyrodex came along. Its inventor, Dan Pawlak, was killed in an explosion at the factory in 1977, so it dates to the early to mid 1970s. Yes, there were bulk powders marketed shortly after the turn of the 20th century, but these were intended to be used volume-for-volume with black powder in shotgun shells only. King's Semi-Smokeless powder is one that comes to mind. Pyrodex was inroduced in the 1970s. In the 1980s, concerns began to arise that Pyrodex became a hardened clump after loading in muzzleloaders and cartridge guns. Did this affect the burn rate? Studies at the time showed it wasn't dangerous. Pyrodex still burned the same, though it looked different, and produced the same pressures. Black powder, of all the propellants, is probably the least affected by extremes of heat and cold. These play hobs with smokeless powder, degrading it. It can be dangerous to fire if the powder is degraded; higher pressures may result. Or the powder may be so affected that the projectile gets stuck in the bore. Black powder, being a mechanical mixture of three ingredients, doesn't break down chemically like smokeless powder. As long as it's kept dry (it's hygroscopic, tending to attract moistue), it can be useful for decades or conceivably centuries. How long Pyrodex will last, even if kept dry, is probably uncertain. I would expect it to last as long as smokless, if kept in ambient temperature and away from humidity. |
Armory Sponsor