Old powder?

[Sabot]

I had a pound of Pyrodex P for 20 yrs., nice and lumpy. Still shoots OK.

[ejor]

Id shoot it,

[Triple R Munitions]

those primers may be corr. i found some old primers froma friend and they were corrosive AND mecuric. they have a goverment contract # on them. also found a box of goverment contract 1911 bullets too

[rabagley]

So, think it'll tumble off or am I just wasting my time?

If it was me, I'd just shoot it. Have no idea if the zinc oxide will flake off in a tumbler (seems likely), but even if it does you won't get the smooth dull lead surface when the bullets were new. Since you can't "put it back" and what degradation is occurring is pretty small...

[Beelzy]

I had some old Speer .44 cal bullets that did the oxidation thing. It was fairly
mild so I shot them up, they worked just fine.

No real need to tumble them, IMO

[cali-man]

The Unique I am still using is at least 29 years old when it was Hercules Unique. I also have some Bullseye dating the same but have not used it. Powder does last if you store it correctly. I just could not pass up 10lbs. at 5 bucks each.

[ballistic]

I got some AL-8 recently.
It has not been imported into the US since the middle 1970's.
That's over 30 years old. It looks and smells fine.
It is primarily shotgun powder but, I found some data for .44 mag.
I just started with minimum load data, and worked up to about midrange.
They shoot great.

[tankerman]

I've got;

-AL-7 in a 250 gram can, with a price tag from 'Pachmayr Gun Works' $2.60
-Red Dot in a 8oz container
-Bullseye 11oz. in a tin, price tag from S.F. Gun Exchange, $2.85

Have plenty of old powder along those lines.

I got some AL-8 recently.
It has not been imported into the US since the middle 1970's.
That's over 30 years old. It looks and smells fine.
It is primarily shotgun powder but, I found some data for .44 mag.
I just started with minimum load data, and worked up to about midrange.
They shoot great.

[CamW]

I got some Bullseye and Red Dot from the family of a guy that passed away. The cans had "1974" written on them in magic marker. I've been using the powder for the last 2 years with no problems.