Another reason to NEVER shoot someone else's reloads!

[Kirk]

The following applies to every shooter, not just handloaders.

I went by a gun shop this afternoon and found the owner had a crate of mixed ammunition for sale. All of it was from an estate sale and was being disposed of. There was a single box of .45-70 rounds there. The box was the yellow and red Winchester design used from the late 60's through the 70's and said "umprimed cases". Inside, the cases were in just like new condition; the factory cannelure had not been ironed out by firing so they were all unfired. They were all primed and loaded with jacketed hollow point bullets. I shook the case and could hear powder shake. I presumed that the rounds were loaded with smokeless powder and thought I'd break them down as I had no idea what was inside and, from the sound, the powder took up about 90% of the case volume. I bought the box from the owner and as we discussed the ammo he cautioned me they were reloads. I assured him I was going to break them down.

This evening, I pulled the bullets and found inside . . . a bomb! Most of the powder was small, irregular granules very similar in appearance to FFFg black powder. I thought that was a bad sign as any BP round is supposed to be loaded to 100% density or else you stand the chance of ringing your bore. BP burns so fast that when it burns through an air space between the powder and bullet and then hits the base of the bullet, the bullet acts like an obstruction in the bore and can cause a ring or bulge in the bore or worse. Then, I noticed there was a small amount of extruded smokeless powder granules similar in appearance to IMR 3031 mixed in. The bases of the bullets were jet black with, I thought, graphite.

To see if the powder was indeed black powder, I took a small amount, about 8 gr., put it on a board and held a flame against it. It did not ignite instantly like BP; it took about 2 seconds to ignite but when it diid, it made a large fireball, bigger say, that 8 gr. of Bullseye or other fast burning smokeless powder. It burned quicker than black powder as well. It was some type of smokeless powder as it just did not smell like BP. I still have no idea what the powder is but two possibilities are: blank powder mixed with an IMR powder. Blank powder has a burning rate many times faster than Bullseye and was never intended to be used with bullets. If the contents of the case was 50 or so grains of blank powder, it would have detonated and destroyed any rifle. The other possibility was DuPont PB, an old shotgun powder. Pressure with PB would not have been as high as with blank powder but the result would probably been the same.

In either event, firing these rounds would have been a terrible mistake and just reinforces the adage to shoot only your own reloads.

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