Well, it's getting quite interesting. I've dissected about 350 rounds and have but 60 or so remaining. Oddities abound! Some of you may be familiar with Red Dot powder. Mostly black flakes with a few red ones floating in the mix. Well, I cracked open a few that were the opposite. RED powder with a few black flakes. WTH?
Another lot of WW shells have a very light grey cast. I recorded the charge volume from a couple different lots. One using this powder was 22.8 grains. Another held a charge of 13 grains. Both were from 3-1-8 or 7-1/2 loads
The variety of wads makes me giggle.
None of the black colored powder was salvageable. Clumped it was, presumably due to the infusion of moisture. Most but not all of the cases had indication of significant exposure to water along the way.
A visual of what I am dealing with.
That said, I have saved all of the shot. Most of it is corroded and is stored separately, but I have about 10 pounds of #7-1/2 and 6-7 pounds of #8. In addition, I salvaged OO buck from about 9 shells. An outrageous find in the mix was a paper Winchester 00 Buck shell in near pristine condition. I set that aside for use in the future.
I tried to salvage some primers but that didn't work out. Next time I burn some brush my neighbors will think it must be July 4th.
Life is short my friends, get the most out of it when you can!
DD