The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

I have 2 old metal filing cabinets one in my basement and other in my garage(not attached to house). My plan was leave it in the container, in a rubber maid tub to help with moisture and put that inside the filing cabinet. I was thinking the basement but now I might move it out to the garage.

You will be fine with the substitutes, the filing cabinet, or just a USGI ammo box would be enough. In fact the ammo box would be better as it seals air tight, the sibs are highly hydroscopic and will turn solid if exposed to moisture in the air over time.

I use a fat fifty ammo can for my current use powders, the stuff in storage I have in tall fifty's I picked up years back.

I store my BP and Pyrodex in a Plano box-the one with the two wings you hook on the sides to make a cleaning stand out of. Never had a problem. I prefer Pyrodex 'P' for everything I shoot, .50 rifle or pistol, and the .36 and .44 Cap & Ball revolvers. I do keep some BP on hand, as well as the makings of it. Hope I never have to make it, though.

That could be a real blast of an experience, let us know how it goes.....if you can

I never used P, haven't used pyrodex in over 10 years, was using clean shot before I got my hands on real black again five years ago.

Does this synthetic stuff used the same amounts?

NO, reduce by 5% volume. BP and the subs measure by volume, not weight like smokeless cartridge powder, if your load is 10 grains, now it's 9.5 with the subs.

Junk Yard Dog wrote:NO, reduce by 5% volume. BP and the subs measure by volume, not weight like smokeless cartridge powder, if your load is 10 grains, now it's 9.5 with the subs.

Thanks for the info.

Storing your powder in the sealed ammo cans is a good idea even if you have quite a few pounds. You can just put a couple or three 1 pound powder cans in a ammo can and that way if the worst happened the entire lot would not be all exposed. Then hopefully keep those ammo cans in the steel cabinet. I have found that some of the stores like Cabela's and Bass Pro carry the substitutes out on the shelves in plain sight, and you would not know they have the real black powder. They keep it in the back in that blast proof cabinet. The cabinet is checked during random fire department inspections at least around here and I am told it is quite a bad experience to be in non-compliance.

Black powder storage is federally regulated and sellers must be licensed, a shooter without the powder dealers license is allowed up to 50 pounds for their own use, or to pass out to family members. Keep in mind that 50 pounds of BP going off in a fire would make a big hole, a very big hole. I store it in steel ammo cans and lock it up inside an old ice box kept in a location well removed from were I sleep. Substitute BP like regular smokeless powder will not detonate if set on fire outside of a gun barrel, you get a big fizz and fireworks display like a kids sparkler. If you pour out some black powder onto the table and toss in a match it goes up in a very fast whoosh, it could even detonate like a bomb, that's how fast it will ignite. That fast flash is what makes it necessary for flinters were a few sparks from the flint are all it takes to set off the gun.

.375 diameter is the correct size r/b for the .36 caliber revolvers.
Jon