I have been using mine for BP for many years. I also use a Redding and it's all steel. No problems ever.

I’ll weigh in here with a little background and credentials.  Of course I hate when random people on the internet post credentials then give opinions.

I do pyrotechnics and explosives chemistry for a living.  I have a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry and have been doing dangerous stuff with things that go boom for over 20 years.  I deal with a lot of black powder and pyrotechnics that are similar chemically to black powder regularly at my day job.  Not just small quantities, but large enough quantities that an accident would be life ending.  Black powder is fairly easy to ignite.  It has high sensitivity to impact, friction, and electrostatic discharge.  Of course fire makes it burn readily too.

All that being said, the advice you were given so far is sound.  Ferrous metals are generally bad.  Cast iron is preferred over steel, and is generally viewed as “safe.”  Nonferrous metals are better.  Plastic is also bad.  You want a dispenser that won’t create one of the big three problems: won’t spark, doesn’t have high friction, and won’t crate a hammering impact.  Most ferrous metals will spark.  Plastic holds, then discharges static electricity.   

Even with all my understanding of pyrotechnic safety at work and the need to be bonded and grounded while working, I also use an Ideal No 5 to dispense black powder without any worries about safety other than common sense.

One safety practice that I’ve carried over from my professional life is limiting the height of the powder column in the dispenser.  Even with smokeless powder, I don’t use ridiculously long powder dispenser hoppers.  Why?  Explosive powders have a “critical height.”  I’m simplifying this, but it is the depth of powder column that will transition from a burn to an explosion.  For black powder it is a really short column of powder.  It’s the difference from an inadvertent ignition causing a whoosh to that ignition causing a BOOM.  Neither is good, but the powder burning rapidly and scaring the pee out of you is better than the powder going boom.  I’ve never seen it while reloading, but I’ve seen the security camera footage of powder hoppers in industrial settings both burning away and exploding.  The difference in the state of the workers after the accidents made me a believer in limiting the critical height.  It’s all about how fast the stored energy in the powder is released.

All the black powder mills I’ve been in have fully attached roofs.  Otherwise they come off on a windy day.  The walls are usually blast proof enough that all the force is directed upwards, and a little wood and tin roofing isn’t holding it back no matter how well attached.  The Goex mill (now Estes), 20ish mills in China, mills in Mexico, Cambodia, Switzerland, and Brazil are all constructed around 3 different black powder mixing processes.  All of them have attached roofs. 

A couple years ago the mill in Cambodia had a lightning strike one night on their polishing shed.  The building was gone the next morning.  Gone.  About a ton of black powder and the building disappeared in the blink of an eye.  Luckily the factory was empty except for the security guards, so no one was hurt.

Thanks for your professional insight GunBum. But I gotta say when I was younger I heard so many horror stories about guys losing arms fingers you name it from two different scenarios. Loading BP in old Ideal or Lyman throws and sympathetic ignition of primer tubes. Never saw or heard of any proof but some guys always just had to beat on that drum. 

But this is true. I was at a big BP shoot in New Hampshire and watched these two older gents unloading and setting up some big heavy slug guns including their tools, reloading equipment including a couple of Ideal throws. The range officer approached them and told them they’d have to leave the range if they tried to use those ‘ dangerous powder throws ‘. They packed up set down with coffee and donuts and within half hour not one of the slug gun community was shooting that day. Lots of pissed off shooters but this range officer who acted like he was still barking orders in the Army would not back off

Rick

Rick

From what I've read on powder mills, they only used shingles to cover the whole building so, when they did blow up, that they didn't loose the main structure and could rebuild cheaper.

It was easier to replace workers than the building.

I was always cautious about what powder measure I used. I bought a CH measure that had a aluminum housing and a chromed rotor BUT, it had a large plastic hopper LOL Good for height but BAD for static! I've also used a 55 with a plastic hopper. 

I now have a few 5's I would probably use if I ever shot BP again.

Don didn't care about plastic, he shot along with me at both SS and slug gun matches

I believe there are plastics (a really broad term) that do not generate static electricity.  That said, a local gun shop owner told me of a local woman who had a container of smokeless powder go up in flames as she was carrying it on a static charged carpet.  Bad burns, costly settlement for the manufacturer.

Jack

frnkeore wrote on Aug 29^th, 2024 at 1:07pm:


No one has built powder mills like that for the last 100 years.

There is a very long list of plastic resins that will not support static electricity. Military, aerospace, electronic components with various resin cast parts and covers are such. Today’s carbon fiber aircraft parts including fuselage and wings are static free. Static electricity bottom line will destroy almost all sensitive electronic sub-assembly parts including circuit boards. I have no idea what inexpensive powder containers are roto-molded from but I’m sure they are ESd type 
( electrostatic discharge ) Plastics.

On my plastic reservoir Redding powder throws I dip in dish soap and let dry problem solved

Rick

Black plastic. Something made it black. Maybe carbon ... which is at least somewhat conductive ...

GunBum wrote on Aug 29^th, 2024 at 4:27pm:

That and the fact that the sensitivity to static discharge is only as dust, above LEL, suspended in the air...

Not scientific, but years ago I tried to ignite 4F kernels with a static charge from the internals of a long gas lighter.  All it did was to puch them around the desktop.  Don't take this as an indication that static is not dangerous around BP.  I am sure you have heard the story of the welder who thought storing BP in a metal coffee can with a plastic lid was a good idea.  Sparks will set off BP!

GunBum wrote on Aug 30^th, 2024 at 9:29pm:

A static discharge in a typical home, non-industrial environment?  With all the charcoal (carbon) in there, acting as a conductor?

Thanks for the information and education.

Cheers,
Steve

For something as common as static discharge is most people don’t know how critical this condition is to a wide variety of materials and products. My Wife was a QA engineer for aerospace-satellite electronic components lots of very costly highly engineered circuit boards. She’d spend months watching and testing these boards then hours insuring they were packaged per spec to be 100% static proof. Then a courier would hand carry the package on the plane back to the assembly facility. Over the years many parts were ruined before they figured out packaging. On USN minesweepers there are discharge wands for anybody working around mines. 

Rick