Thanks for the correction MM. my memory once again fails me. I know it was early to mid 80s as eye issues had me out of the game in the 90s. I thought it was Elephant we reviewed. Will wake up at 2 Am some morning and remember what brand.
TC
Standing Bear,
That period of time around 1991 and 1992 was a second period of major anxiety relative to assured supplies of black powder.
Back in 1972 when du Pont announced they were getting out of the business we had ICI in UK getting out of the black powder business. This was before the fall of the Iron Curtain so we see of the two biggest bp producers closing the doors.
Then when GOEX had the "incident" in 1991 that cost 3 lives it was another shock. GOEX was being run at that time by a bankruptcy court. Questions if they could get the money to rebuild and repair the Moosic plant after 10 years of neglect. The U.S. military was in a funk since they still use a lot of black powder in certain weapon systems. They had tried to come up with a replacement for black powder back in the 1970s but nothing could be made that would work as well in certain munitions. Several foreign companies then tried to get into the U.S. market in the event GOEX would go out of business. From what I was able to find GOEX had thought about moving the operation out of Pennsylvania around the time of the 1991 explosion and fatalities. One day they would use the Moosic address and another day they would use the Minden address even though nothing had been moved down there. It took me 10 years to put the whole story together of GOEX's operation of the now abandoned Moosic, PA powder plant. The parent company milked the Moosic plant's profits to prop up one of their other businesses. My concern was that GOEX would cease operations and we shooters would have to make due with whatever somebody imported. And there was literally nobody out there that knew how to relate the way a particular company makes their black powder to make it perform in a bp gun. In 1972 we saw C&H powder that was horrid stuff compared to GOEX. In 1993 to 1999 I was looking at a few powders from other small plants around the world and most of it was junk. When I look back at what was out there and what is available to us shooters today it is a big difference. A lot more stability in the business today than some times in the past.
