A gift or just junk?

[junkyard_dog45]

Recently I was given a box of reloading components; primers and powders. Everything is in their original container and some things have never been opened. Other,boxes of primers and cans of powder) have been opened and partially used. I have no idea how long this stuff has been around but some of the powder cans have light rust but the primer cardboard boxes appear to be in good shape. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get anymore info on this stuff.

Is this stuff good to use or should I just junk it? How long can primer and powder be kept around?

TIA

 

[NeilNE]

I have been shooting powder that’s 20+ years old. I would suggest that you smell some new powder then smell your older powder. If it smell about the same, it has been stored correctly, then use it. The old powder will smell pretty bad.

The old primers, you will have to test them to see if they go off.

I had some primed cases that I had to resize or something and did not want to throw away the primer. Anyway they had allot of grease on them and I put them in boiling water to clean them. Well I had a 5 to 10% failure rate. Much better than I thought, considering they were in boiling water.

 

[people]

I got some.

 

[Preacher]

If it smells nice do it.....
If it smells bad don't bother....

 

[rasp65]

If the powder smells like acetone and looks like it is supposed to then it is more than likely OK. I have some powders that are at least 30 years old that I got from my grandfather and it works fine. The primers that I got from him were a different story. I loaded some Rem large rifle magnum primers into my .375 H&H andafter experiencing a hang fire and a failure to fire I took them all apart.

 

[anachronism]

Often, unusable old powder will have a reddish cast to it, like rust. If you see rust, you don't have powder, you have fertilizer.