2 old cans of 2 F powder

[lakehopper]

 Gentlemen and ladies I purchased 2-1lb cans of GOEX 2 F powder from a good friend of mine. However the cans seem to be very old in style; no red or black just the container silver with black lettering and the GOEX symbol. Both are full and my concern is this will the powder be still fresh?? If that's the word I'm looking for. will it produce the same fps as a new container?

Do I just try the powder and see what results I get??

[blunderbuss]

I have some like that bought in the 80's and it sat in an old refrigerator well the refrigerator went out once and I didn't notice until the powder had been sitting in water for several days I just drained the water out best I could and left it alone by and by it dried out and I tried it out and couldn't tell the difference ,some was in a cake and I had to stir it until it came loose ,still worked.
I've had old guns in the shop that no telling had been loaded and the powder was still good .

[lakehopper]

Do you typically keep the powder in a cool place like a refrigerator?

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

A good place to store your powder is in dry clean gasoline "jerry" cans, in your FREEZER.  It is perfectly dry there, and if your house burns to the ground, your powder will be safe, and your meat still frozen.

[alyce-james]

Good quality black powder has almost an unlimited shelf life. As I stated in an early .40 caliber posting I'm using DuPont black powder I purchased many, many, many years ago. I have 1 (one) 8 oz can about half full I save for special events. Stored properly I don't how long black powder will shelf. Jim

[Daryl]

I have shot powder that was at least 80 years old at the time of shooting it. It was the best, most accurate and cleanest burning BP powder I've shot so far, even though at one time, it had become wet and some of it caked.  I broke up the cakes and removed the steel rust flakes using a sieve.  Still without any doubt, better than any powder today. Swiss might be close, but I've read it does not have the 'moist' burning characteristic this old powder had, so it too is inferior.

[Collector]

Old Civil war mines, grenades and artillery ordinance, dug up by amateur archeologists/collectors, have, with  sometimes tragic consequences, been found to be in quite good condition after over 150 years buried in natural soil.

This question arises from time to time, with the consensus being to exercise, at all times, 'due caution.'   If you consider it unsuitable for your rifle, fowler, or shotgun, save it for tree stump removal with a proper timed fuse, of course...  

[hanshi]

Black powder, unless terribly abused, won't go bad in our grand children's lifetime.  Dug up Civil War shells are still dangerous and  less than three years ago one exploded and killed a collector.  I still have an unpampered can of Dupont that works just fine.

[sleddman]

Had a can given to me last year. The can had some rust and appeared to be about 25 or so years old.  After looking at the powder making sure it really was Black powder I used it with perfect results.  Shot it all up in a day. Just had to get rid of it you know, LOL.  Have fun

[camerl2009]

black powder will last for ever i have a few old cratridges that still have the BP in them i bet it will go off with no problems one of these just happens to be a old .577 paper cratridge from when the snider rifle was first made in 1867

powder is still good even when wet all you have to do it let it dry out and it reuseable

i dount doubt if you found powder in a gun or powder horn from the late 1700's it would still work

its the way the powder is made is the reason it last so long

in the eraly days of BP the charcoal powder,sulfur,saltpeter was mixed dry so everything in the mix tended to separate.

then came along a idea that you can dissolve the slatpeter and mix the charcoal,sulfur dry then add to the saltpeter and then granulate it this is still used today for the most part its called the precipitation method.

[Roger Fisher]

Based on the spectacular performance I got out of 3 cans of Goex a couple years ago with a 1980 date code, I'd fully expect it would be fine...assuming proper sealed storage and all that.
To me, the worry I had was what was "really" in the cans.....was it possibly in the wrong hands somewhere over the years and either intentionally or unintentionally got laced with smokelss powder or something, etc.

I looked at it very closely, burned a teaspoon of it from each can in the driveway to see how it burned, what kind and how much smoke it gave off...in general, tried to satisfy myself as best I could that it was all real blackpowder, then used it...and it was fine...if anything it seemed more energetic than the Goex I had on hand at the time.

Jeez more proof I'm getting a little old.  Those cans don't look so old.

[tuffy]

Hey Roger....You mean it don't come like that anymore?

[Maven]

I was given a can of older GOEX FFg in the red, oval can 8 yrs. ago and wondered how it compared to the fresh batch of the same powder that I had.  I loaded 70gr. of each in my .45-70 (Marlin #336, 22" Microgroove bbl.) with a Lyman #457124 cast bullet (sized to .458"*, 2.67" OAL) and ignited by a Win. large rifle magnum primer.  Accuracy was the same for both powders, but not velocity:

70gr. Old Goex FFg   = 1,151fps +-20fps;
70gr. New Goex FFg = 1,216fps +-30fps

UnfortunatelyI never repeated the test and didn't analyze the results statistically to determine whether those were chance variations or significant differences between the powders.  What say ye, do lot to lot differences in GOEX or other brands of powder vary that much?


*I now size to .459" as accuracy is a bit better.

[Daryl]

Lot to lot differences in powders black of 'other' will usually be less than 100fps. 

Lets keep talking ML's.

I now find 140gr. 2F GOEX in my .69 to shoots right to the sights, whereas prior, back in the 80's, the sights were filed for 165gr.2F GOEX for the zero ranges.  Today, the sights hit way too high if using 165gr.2F GOEX. At 200 yards, the difference is about 8".