This may be a very stupid question but here goes. Would there be problems with storing powder & primers in a fridge (cool,dry and dark). I have a trailer at the lease and plan on doing my reloading there but normally the a/c is turned off while I am not there and it can get quite hot inside a trailer hence the idea of putting the supplies in the fridge.

I dont really know, my powder and primers sit out on my bench in the garage... never had a problem with it and it gets hot and cold in there.

matt

I would be worried about the humidity. If the fridge is in a real hot room condensation can build up. I have never had a problem with it but it seems like powder would not like moisture. Never tried it so I don't know for sure, just what comes to mind.

The interior of a fridge has a very low humidity just like a freezer.

I think you're right on that. As long as it's fully chilled when you close it up on your supplies, it should remain very dry in there with the power turned off. Cold air that is dry becomes even drier when it is warmed. Condensation is a problem when warm, moist air is chilled---just the opposite.

It sounds like a good set up except for primers and powder should not be stored together. I use old coolers.

Once you remove the powder/primers from the frig, you may end up with "frosty mug syndrome"...the ambient moisture outside the frig may well condense on your powder/primers and leave you with the situation you are attempting to avoid. Therefore, I'd suggest not storing them in an articially cold environment, unless you will be handling/loading in that cold environment.

The idea of storing them in separate coolers, without the cooling, sounds like a good idea.

Also, the conventional wisdom is to store primers away from powder.

if you did store that way, when you remove it from the fridge, you should let it sit and warm to room temp before you open the container..to prevent condensation. Id leave it a long time to make sure the internal contents have reached room temp too. Id be more worried about the primers though because their containers are not really air tight. They would condense when you pull them out of the fridge.

You guys are right about that. I misread some detail in the original post.

If stuff is put in a cold (and dry) refrigerator, then the fridge is turned off for an extended duration, the air and everything else inside it should stay dry for a long time. This is the scenario I thought was reading.

Oops.

Old coolers is a good one, keeps temperature swings more gradual. Been doing it that way for years.

I just put them in a ammo tin, waterproof, bug proof. Am I missing something by not going to the extremes on storage?

There has always been storage recommendations for powder and primers. I think one recommendation to keep them separate is to avoid an explosion. But the temperature controlled area is obviously to prevent condensation.

Here is a thought. What happens inside the ammunition cases of a law enforcement officer in let’s say…. North Dakota? He / she gets into a warm car and then out into the very cold weather, day in and day out all winter long. If that won’t cause condensation what will?

And like one of the other posters, my components are now in my shop in the back of the garage. It is heated or cooled if I’m in there. So far all my reloads have gone bang.

Inside the ammunition cases...there's something to consider. I'd be willing to wager a certain amount of money that when the loading plants fire up, the air in the facility is temperature and humidity controlled. Once that bullet's seated, the air that's in the cartridge is the air that's gonna stay in the cartridge until it's fired.

My guess is that you could chill the ammo down to something like 50* below zero without any condensation forming inside the case. Sounds like a good question to ask an ammo manufacturer's PR people.

This is gonna get good

Heres a funny one for you.. My wife bought a food saver.. Now I can make some nice square brick of pistol ammo.. Just like vacuum sealed coffee... Anyone ever do that?

As in , do you mean?


Actually, I think that's a pretty interesting question and I have asked CCI about it. When I get an answer in about a week I will copy-n-paste it here.

I personally have never had any powder go bad, but I've always kept mine in my living area. I have seen powder that went bad, though. It was stored in a building without air conditioning and heating for ten or twelve years. There were several different containers and some of it looked just fine, but some did not. One container of H4198 had turned into a single solid mass as hard as a rock. Just to be able to examine it I cut the container open. The only way to break it up would have been to pound on it to bust it up and I was not ABOUT to even consider doing that. All the rest of the powder was getting dumped in the grass for fertilizer. I buried the chunk of 4198 in a shallow hole so that it would break down harmlessly. One of the guys who sometimes has to do the grunt work around there wanted to know where I had buried it---he was convinced all that powder was "black powder" and it was going to explode at any time. Hyuck hyuck. I told him I couldn't remember where I buried it just so I could see him worry over it for a while. I can be a little ornery sometimes, I guess. I like it too.

I had some Tripple777 ML powder to get clumped up. I chopped it up and it still hit the same POI out to 200 yds, and have taken several deer with the same batch.

Don't know if smokeless will act the same way???

I was about to use the first analogy that came to mind that would blow that out of the water. Then after reading it again just how did you arrive at that particular 50 below zero?

I read somewhere once (if I had a dollar for everytime I started a sentence with that phrase..) that powder degradation over time was accelerated by sudden swings in temperature, even in a sealed container. The theory about keeping powder in coolers is that the temperature gradually changes because it's insulated. I have absolutly no practical or scientific evidence to back up this claim, but it sounded reasonable to me. Been storing like this for more than 15 years.

"My guess is that you could chill the ammo down to something like 50* below zero..."

Why did I guess using this arbitrary number? Because I have experienced 25* below zero and I can't imagine human beings surviving long enough at 100* below zero to even pull the trigger. I know hunting in sub-zero temperatures is commonplace, but there just has to be a limit to what people are willing to endure. As I have already said, I am waiting for a reply from CCI that should illuminate the subject of moisture in the air inside loaded ammunition.

But here is what I do know: the air that is inside a loaded cartridge will remain in it until the cartridge is fired, so the amount of moisture in the air inside the cartridge would depend upon the ambient conditions in the ammo factory. Moisture cannot simply appear in a closed container due to temperature changes, but it can change physical form and become more or less detectable to our senses when temperature changes.

The whole thing's really pretty simple. Air that has a relative humidity of 25% at 105*F (that's pretty dog gone dry) will have a much higher relative humidity figure when chilled to -30*F. This can be calculated but I am not going to do the work.

If ambient conditions in the factory are 45*F at 2% relative humidity, there will be darned little moisture inside the loaded case. If it's 95*F with 80% relative humidity in the factory then there will be a lot more moisture inside the loaded cartridge. In the first scenario, condensation might form in the case at very, very low temperatures (I'm guessing---if I am so permitted---like maybe -200*F or something extreme like that) but in the second scenario there would probably be easily detectable condensation inside the cartridge at, say 20*F (another guess).

How do you intend to blow that out of the water?

That science lesson went over my head, well maybe not over my head. I just don't quite agree. Oh well.........

So you are saying that a sealed container cannot have a condensation issue regardless of temperature?

The only thing that comes to mind now is sealed gas cans that accumulate condensation.

If you seal a container with warm, moist air there will be condensation in it when you chill it enough. The amount of water inside the container never changes---the container is SEALED. The H20 content never changes. It's H20 when it's just humidity in the air, and it's H20 when you chill it and the moisture condenses and water becomes visible.

I surrender. I'm still going to keep my components in my shop. And I bet my reloads still go bang.

Danny, let me try this one more time, another way...

Take a container that is transparent and that can be sealed airtight. Open it up on a 100-degree, 80% humidity summer day. Let's just agree that it's open long enough that the ambient air has completely invaded and filled it. There is a certain amount of moisture in the air that fills the container---that's the humidity that's in the air. Seal it up, put it away.

Next January when it's 8 degrees and there's a foot and a half of snow on the ground, you look in the container which is in your unheated garage and you see a little bit of ice in it. The air in the container got chilled to 8 degrees, and cold air cannot hold as much moisture as warm air can so the moisture condensed to water. And then it froze.

The next day it warms up to 33 degrees, so the ice in the container melts. You now see water in the container.

This is Texas, so three days later it's 100 degrees again. You look in the container which has been sealed shut all this time, and you see no water, no vapor, no evidence of water or moisture. The air in the container warmed back up to 100 degrees and all the moisture turned back to vapor because the air is warm enough to absorb it.

That's all there is to it. Warm air wicks up moisture and cold air gives moisture up.

yep humidity plays a big roll in powder storag and even loading.any rain outside when loading will effect the humidity in the powder also.any humidity at all will effect your powders and primers.Your area should be low humidity and dry and at a certain temp.And if you dont know put humidity indicator cards in your bottles.