New Year load test , will a primed and loaded pistol fire after a year ?

[jack404]

here the test to settle it all

i'm wagering it'll fire with my home made BP and primers and miniball

i'll load up the ruger OA on NYE and lock it in a small safe i have and put that in the big safe ...

the following NYE ( 2012/2013) i pull it out and fire it off

put ya vote in

[reynolds357]

Originally Posted by jack404

here the test to settle it all

i'm wagering it'll fire with my home made BP and primers and miniball

i'll load up the ruger OA on NYE and lock it in a small safe i have and put that in the big safe ...

the following NYE ( 2012/2013) i pull it out and fire it off

put ya vote in

Assuming you made your black powder correctly, It will most definitely fire.

[flintlock]

It will fire.

[permafrost]

Under those conditions , it will fire. I'd be willing to bet on it!

[carver]

I know you hunt with your homebrew, so I have no doubts that it will fire. If you left it laying on the table for a year, it would still most likely fire.

[Hawg]

A year, 20 years, 100 years, 500 years. Yeah it'll fire. Might need a new cap after 100 tho. Altho I have fired 100+ years old caps.

[ofitg]

Are these your homemade picreate caps? I'm thinking this might be the most crucial part of the test.

[H-D]

Should have put a poll up Jack I think it will fire fine

[jjmitchell60]

It will fire if all was stored in dry area.
A friend of mine came to me one day with a rag that looked like it was soake in grease or pigs fat. Inside it was a old side hammer BP revolver (one that the hammer is on the side but angles over to the center of the cylinder) loaded with balls and still with primers in an old home made holster that looked like it was made from an old boot. He found it in the wall of a log cabin. He asked me how to get the cylinder unloaded to which I said why not just shoot them out. He handed it to me and I tried on which went off as good as the day it was loaded. He shot the others out. There is no telling when it was loaded or put in the wall of that cabin but we are betting either during the CW or not long afterwards. We cleaned the revolver up and he has it to this day hanging in that old holster over his mantle. We actually have shot it over the years a few imes.

[dustydog]

Lived up past the snowline in Vermont for a number of years,and regularly left the "house pistol"(1860 Uberti Army)loaded for extended periods.Decided to test Sam Fadala's report on leaving one loaded for a very long time.Loaded the chambers with 30 grains FFg and a ,457 roundball,capped the backside with good German caps pressed down,then coated the caps with pink nail polish.Put it away in a homemade holster after wiping it down with olive oil on top of the icebox.Temperatures vaired from -40 deg F to around 80 F.Carried the other 1860 as a daily carry,shot it regular.After one year,took the stored Army and the fresh loaded one out and did a "Josey Wales"(two pistols,one in each hand,alternating fire).Could not tell the difference between the two.

[jack404]

this is in responce to some folks saying BP will absorb moisture outta the air in a few weeks and be useless , i bought a couple percussion pistols of a gent here , he had a thread posted a few and i ended up buying a couple when i got it i noticed it had a charge still in the pistol , i put a cap on it cocked it , put it on a stump here and connected a string to pull the trigger and realised it was a hair trigger too .. it fired , the gun had been inherited and they'd not touched it for 30+ years but some folks called BS and it started a long winded discussion about black powder life span in a gun

i'll just do it as if i'm loading for a regular shoot , powder, mini ball greased up , and a home made cap , toss it in this small safe then lock it all in the big one ..

after 12 months i think there'll be no difference ..

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by jack404

this is in responce to some folks saying BP will absorb moisture outta the air in a few weeks and be useless ,

Those people don't know squat. Probably base their opinion on loading an inline to hunt with and leaving it loaded and taking it in and out of a warm house across several hunting trips and then finding their powder all clumped up from condensation. I found an original 1858 Remington in an old barn with all six chambers loaded. I pulled the balls and the powder was fine. I fired the original powder out of a repro. The gun was well pitted and had been there for a very long time. The barn was about to collapse in on itself.

[jack404]

no it seems it came from some TV show in the US thats got you tube clips

and hate being called a liar on such things from pure ignorance too . ( if it's on TV it must be true!, sheesh no wonder we are in such strife ..) a fella here reckons the powder will be dead in 6 months , i'll double that and make it a new years effort ( not a lot of effort in loading yon pistola and leaving it untouched for a year eh ..)

[jjmitchell60]

Jack, I have regularly seen muzzle loaders sold at auction in boxes of junk that were loaded and had been for many decades. The pistol above I talked about was a Colt Rook so that gives you an idea how long it was loaded. Not only did the powder go off but the caps as well I I bet it was in excess of 80 years at the least that it had been loaded. Know a man who bought a long box full of old shovels, axes, and otehr farm tools at an auction for $10 about 20 years back. While digging around in the box he found a percussion full stock long rifle in it and sold it to a friend of mine for $10 just to get his money back he spent on the whole lot. Well my friend sent the rifle to a man here near by to be redone to hang on the wall. The rifle was loaded and it too went off when they fired it. they layed it across a log, laid a tire on to[p of it, tied astring to the trigger, and pulled the long string. Now I admit there was a hang fire as it went off BUT it did not have a percussion cap on it when found in the box of tools. There is no way of knowing how long that rifle was loaded and the BP still went off. The worse thing for BP as to leaving it in a gun loaded for a long time is the grease in the patch. The powder will soak up some of the grease but not enough to cause it to spoil.

IMHO BP is like TNT, gets better with time! LOL

[jack404]

i've a small keg , one of my first alcohol precipitate mixes ever its maybe 20 years old ?

its not as good as what i make now but its great shotgun pellet load powder

on the very rare occasions i go fowling i use this and shot .. it works fine and its been all over the place , darwin where it was made ( hot a humid) swanbourne and area, warm and dry , here , rains a heap .. and still as good as the day i made it

shooting old powder is easy , try makeing a keg that seals !! thats the hard part , i still gotta buy em or trade for em

[Buffalochip]

I believe the Battleship Iowa's 16" guns were being loaded with WWII era BP when one of the bags of powder about to be breechloaded detonated, killing the gun crew--probably back in the 1980s. Remember reading that BP becomes unstable as it ages, and this stuff was stored in a humid barge, so I suspect if the powder is dry, it should go off just fine.

[jack404]

nitro cellulose (Gun cotton ) as used in them big ones can break down

but BP is what it is

oh they aint used BP as a propellant in the navy since the end of the civil war

cheers

[Hawg]

About 30 years ago there was a local man that found an 1861 Springfield barrel in his field. Decided it was what he needed to mend a broken gate hinge. He stuck the breech in his forge and the .58 minie ball took the top of his head off.
That barrel was buried in the ground for over 120 years at the time. Not long ago a man was trying to deactivate a C.W. artillery shell in his driveway and blew himself up. Powder that's been taken off sunken ships has been dried out and worked fine. It doesn't go bad and it doesn't get unstable. It gets wet it doesn't work. It stays dry it does. It dries out it works.

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by jack404

nitro cellulose (Gun cotton ) as used in them big ones can break down

but BP is what it is

oh they aint used BP as a propellant in the navy since the end of the civil war

cheers

They use it for a priming charge.

[ofitg]

This past week I came across a spare cylinder I loaded 10 or 12 years ago - Goex FFFg, round balls, no wads, just some wax dribbled in front of the balls to seal the chambers. It was left uncapped, laying in a drawer.

[Little Rooster]

I loaded a 60 army one day. It started to rain I put it away in the safe, over a year later I pulled it out fired all rounds out of it. I had dabbed a a little crisco over the balls and the lube was clear but still in place. I thought for sure I have to drill and pull the loads

[The Duke]

A number of years ago, I escorted a US Army EOD team with a truck load of WBTS cannon balls to a deactivation area...These cannonballs were dredged from mud and water around an old fort after being submerged 130 years or so and destined to go to a museum after being rendered safe....

The EOD guys set about 5 or 6 up at a time and proceed to blow holes in them with C4 shape charges...then take a water hose and wash out the black powder...This was faster and safer than drilling and surprisingly to me, only had a few 'high order'...It was cool to observe the power of a BP cannon ball from a safe distance...The thumb size piece of C4 made a rather impressive bang also...In every cannon ball they deactivated by this method, the powder was dry and quite active...The LT dumped out a pile from several of the larger balls on the gound, stuck a short fuse into it and demonstrated that...I was quite impressed with the 'FOOOOOOSH" and cloud of white smoke from 130+ year old BP ...

One of the EOD team was wearing an Army drab T shirt that said on the back ...."U.S. ARMY EOD..If you can read this, youre not running fast enough."

[The Duke]

In my MUCH younger days, I enjoyed primative camping and forageing once in awhile...Head out to the woods with minimal supplies, blanket, poncho, BP Kentucky rifle and an 1851 Navy for foraging and 'comfort'...I pitched camp one afternoon as a big storm was brewing...Built my 'roost' several inches off the ground and hunkered down in my blanket under my poncho lean too...I had my Navy loaded, so I dripped some candle wax around the the primers as a precaution...Crisco sealed the bullets...

The night turned into a 'frog-strangling-gully washer..It was a miserable night for me..I had stored my 'prepped' Navy beneath my hat that I was using as a pillow..Wrapped my powder horn and flask in my haversack with my matches and other supplies and stuck up a tree hollow..Didnt want that much BP under my ear in a lightning storm......During the night, my Navy slipped through the blanket and pine branch bedding .....At dawn, I found it on the well soaked ground...Cleaned the muck and wet off then rubbed on some bacon fat to hopefully stop any rust...

After getting a fire going from tinder and wood I had also stuck in the tree hollow, I figured Id better fire off the Navy and reload while the coffee/grits water boiled...No telling how much moisture had gotten into it after laying in the rain and runoff water during the night... I thumbed the hammer and snap....nothing...snap....nothing etc...humpfh.....Primers were damp even with the wax I had supposedly sealed them with...I replaced them with new dry ones from my haversack....Cocked the hammer, pulled the trigger, and pop-pooooof-fizzzz...hmmmm..bullet came out but not very well...again....Pop-foosh-fizzzle...hmmm ...same thing...etc...All 5 loads eventually fired with fresh primers, but not well enough to stop a charging jack-rabbit...I reloaded with dry powder and caps and fired a cylinder full to make sure it got dried out....Thus the importance of "Keeping yer Powder Dry." came to mind..Now I know why they didnt do much fightin' during rain in the old days of flint and percussion weapons...

Oh...and BTW...My idea of 'roughing' it today is spending a night at Motel 6.....But it was fun way back then..

[tyc]

Originally Posted by jack404

nitro cellulose (Gun cotton ) as used in them big ones can break down

but BP is what it is

It does "break down" over time. The almost clear, gummy liquid is known as exudate (not sure if I spelled that correctly but it's pronounced as you see it presented here) and it's not to be trifled with. Essentially it's nitrogliserine (not sure if I spelled that correctly either but you know what I'm talking about) and it's far LESS stable than black powder. Black powder is an entirely different "animal." Both nitro and BP should be given great "respect."

I remember years ago seeing "home made" film of some divers who visited a wreck off the coast of New Jersery back in the sixties or so. The one individual had just come up from a wreck of what I believe was an old WWI American light Cruiser which for whatever reason had sunk there. One individual had retreived what looked like a 3" piece or ordinance and sitting at the stern, he was filmed wiping the "gunk" off of the shell and while still partially clad in his wet suit,he was filmed using a hammer as he tried to loosen the shell from it's brass casing. Why he and the guy with the camers weren't blown in half I guess can best be attributed to "... it wasn't their time."

As Jack said, "BP is what it is" and as with nitro, it is to be treated with great respect - or you may wish to God you had.

For what it's worth.

tyc

[jack404]

tyc spot on! ...