Vectan Powder

Hello,

I noticed that Nobel Sports Vectan powder is back for sale in some US distributors. I seem to remember that one particular version of their powder, BA10 I believe, is quite excellent for Bullseye. Can anyone confirm my hazy memory? Is the current powder the same?

I saw it at Grafs and PV.

Thanks in advance.


Erich

I don't have any experience with the recent powder, but I have been hoarding a couple of cases of BA10 that I bought from Grafs about 10/15 years ago.. It's a great powder..on the order of VV310 in size and shape..  I liked so well, that I hated to use  it, after it became hard to get.  The story I got.. was the packaging did not meet shipping regs and Grafs could not ship it.. Several of us offered to drive out, and pick it up, but that too, was a violation....Now that could be totally false, as it was hearsay.. I never got any super outstanding groups at 50 yards with it, but it is a fabulous short line powder..

Let me tell you about my near death experience with Vectan powder.....

A shop where I help out received a shipment of Vectan Tuball 3000. We noticed the bands of the keg were severely eroded and opened it carefully. When we got it open an orange vapor cloud burst out and engulfed us. The stench of chlorine was horrendous, burned my eyes and throat, couldn't breathe, choking we ran outside just barely making it to fresh air before nearly passing out. We had to set up shop fans to clear the shop out. The canister was eroded to the point that we had to put the powder in empty 8lb Varget cans we had laying around, and into the powder cabinet they went.
About a month later he noticed the hinges were rusted, and on further inspection, found the labels on the Varget cans had no ink left on them, every ferrous object was rusted, spare odd caliber brass was severely corroded, and everything had an orange tint and smelled of chlorine.

No one would take the powder back, he had to eat his loss.

I searched on the web for an answer but found only one other instance where that happened. I'm sure its an isolated incident, but it was an experience to say the least.

Ghillieman,

That "orange vapor cloud" was probably Nitrogen Tetroxide cause by decomposition of the powder.  It is used in rocket fuels as an oxidizer.  It is also the precursor to Nitric Acid.

A few times, widows of local old time shooters have given me boxes and containers of old
powders to dispose of.  Most powders can used as fertilizer when spread just before rains.
But the shocker comes when unscrewing the container and a reddish cloud comes out.  It is
definately not a Chlorine compound.

Jerry