Bob Wright
Well-Known Member
Just built a really nice man cave to do my reloading and gun work. I have a variety of smokeless powders. Seems like many comments have been made on storage temperatures. Convinced I will just keep powder and primer in my spare bedroom closet in the main house, constant a/c, low humidity.
So,
Placed a call to Alliant about temp storage, but got more than I asked for. The tech told me that one safety issue he told me to practice was to never store powder next to any of my ammonia based cleaning material (or use in the same room). Hoppes, Wipe Out, or other copper strippers are ammonia based.
He told me that powder also is very sensitive and will break down if these two become exposed because powder has ammonia in it as well. Not a chemist, but was news to me. I guess the situation could be you are reloading ammo after you clean or are soaking barrels in some rifles, getting ready for another run to the range and the room has that nice odor of Hoppes or worse, a nasty ammonia stripper like 50BMG. Also, cleaning wipes soaked and sitting in the garbage can.
So, for what it's worth, thought I would share for consideration. I'm guilty of doing this on many situations and just didn't know....
So,
Placed a call to Alliant about temp storage, but got more than I asked for. The tech told me that one safety issue he told me to practice was to never store powder next to any of my ammonia based cleaning material (or use in the same room). Hoppes, Wipe Out, or other copper strippers are ammonia based.
He told me that powder also is very sensitive and will break down if these two become exposed because powder has ammonia in it as well. Not a chemist, but was news to me. I guess the situation could be you are reloading ammo after you clean or are soaking barrels in some rifles, getting ready for another run to the range and the room has that nice odor of Hoppes or worse, a nasty ammonia stripper like 50BMG. Also, cleaning wipes soaked and sitting in the garbage can.
So, for what it's worth, thought I would share for consideration. I'm guilty of doing this on many situations and just didn't know....