Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters First Sign of Bad Powder

I use H-4895 powder quite a bit. Today I pulled out an old can of IMR-4895 to do a comparison test. The bottom of the can had my notation that I had purchased it in October of 1998.

The powder smelled okay and looked normal. That is, until I poured it through my plastic funnel into the clear plastic tube of my RCBS powder dispenser.

Note the tell-tale stain of super-fine "Cinnamon powder" on the white plastic funnel in the picture below:



When I poured the powder back out of the dispenser, the colored dust stuck to the inside of the clear plastic powder reservoir of the dispenser, shown in the picture below:



This powder has just started going bad. With the passing of time the amount of colored dust will increase rather dramatically to the point that pouring even a small amount of powder out of the can will produce a colored cloud of fine reddish dust. As powder continues to deteriorate it can become unstable and potentially dangerous.

I am pouring the remainder of this can out into the garden. In over forty years I believe this is only the second or third can of powder I have had go bad, so it doesn't happen very often. Occasionally campfire members ask how to tell if powder is going bad, so I took these pictures to share.