Shiloh Rifle Forums

Did anyone note that GOEX blew up the mill again on June 22 this year. All the 1.5 OE is gone and the Schuetzen is out at most dealers.No deliveries before early next year I was told.

WOW, first I heard of this
Hope no one was hurt
Gary

Lumpy, I had not heard or seen on line anything about it until ordering powder and being told of it.One injury was a person running away trip and fall. The grinding mills are all remote controlled for this reason.

So are they going to rebuild or quit? Didn't Hogden's buy them out some years ago ?

Supplier said they would have GOEX powder back in stock early next year. News article stated it was the seventh explosion since moving to Lousiana. If for no other reason U S Govt. purchases for use in artillery naval and all those smokey salutes fired.
Every 105 round we fired, and it was a bunch had a tube thru the case filled with black powder to ignite the bags of smokeless.

I had forgotten the military use of it. Been kind of concerned if BP would still be available to us at least in the short term because if it drys up we are out of business in BPCR and muzzle loading. I'd hate to have to learn how to make my own black powder and primers.

A bit of trivia ‘bout Black Powder and Pyrodex. Back in the latter part of the last century I read in one of the yearly firearms publications that in the initial draft of the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), the manufacture of, the sale to, and possession by of Black Powder by civilians, was to be prohibited. Luckily, this section of CGA was deleted. According to the author, this was the impetus for the development and marketing of Pyrodex by Hodgdon.

A year or so later I attended the SHOT Show and sought the senior Hodgdon employee attending the show. After I explained the above to him, I asked if there was any truth to what the author stated. He said that as far as he knew and recalled, what the author stated was true.

More information on the GOEX June 2021 plant explosion and fire:

https://websterparishjournal.com/2021/0 ... explosion/

From the article: "This is not the first time a Goex building has exploded. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, this is at least the seventh explosion since the company located at Camp Minden in mid-1997. (Italics added: RCN)

Tank rounds also use a black powder igniter, as do the 5"/54s of the Navy. The bag charges for the Armys 8" howitzers each have a half pound or so sewn to one end for ignition. Missle stage separations also use it. Hodgdon/Goex probably sells more BP to the government than to us. Its considered a strategic asset.

Back in the '70s the Hodgdon Pyrodx plant blew up too. I don't think that ever made the press but I was attending an explosives safety school about 1979 or so and one of the attendees there was the new Safety Officer that Hodgdon had hired to keep it from happening again. There was also a black powder manufacturer in Utah (Green River?) in the late '70s run by some experienced muzzle loading shooters. That blew up too and we lost some good people there. Never got going again.

George