Lane and other doubters,
All I can tell you is I confirmed as compleatly truthfull that my friend went shooting on Tuesday Oct 6th and on Saturday morning Oct 10th he removed his Encore to clean it only to find the bore badly rusted.
He stores all his long guns in a Liberty Fire proof safe along with a large containor of silicon disicant. In his fully finished basement is a dehimidifier located next to his safe that is set to run 4hrs on, 4hrs off 7/24. Both his bottle of BH209 and mine do not have any instructions on it concerning cleaning or swabing ASAP after shooting and prior to storage. The Encore went from air line aproved hard sided gun case to be stored in his Liberty safe. I also closely inspected the safe and the gun case for any moisture and found no hint of any. He also has one of those expensive home weather stations that among other things monitors the humidity both inside his basement as well as out side. When I was there it read 36% humidity, hardly considered high.
And lastly the fact that BH209 has changed the wording on its powder jugs leads me to belive they must have received more than just a few complaints about bores rusting. Not to say that some people do not contribute to the problem by leaving their MLs sit to long fowled with BH209, as im sure some who had problems did just that.
All Im saying and realy tring to do is make people awere that the fact that BH209/Western Powders are some what remiss in using the term "noncorrosive" to describe the qualities or advantages BH209 has VS all other BPsubs. I say this because the vast majority of people who reload or shoot modern noncorrosive ammunition would take the meaning of noncorrosive as it applies to BH209 to mean the same as it applies to powders like H-4198 and so on, unless they are educated otherwise by BH209, as obviosly they have with the new labling on thier jugs of BH209.
Both my bottle and my friends have the same advertising on them devoid of any cautions about cleaning ASAP and in no less than three different areas use the term "NONCORROSIVE".
That is no longer the case on the newer bottles of BH209. This situation could have been easly avoided if BH209 had from the begining labled thier bottles as they do now.
I have personaly used a little over 1 and half bottles or 15-17oz of BH209 and absolutely love the stuff and will continue to use it. I will just make sure I clean my bore ASAP after Im done shooting for the day.
BH209 is still my one and only BPsub of choice, but it is IMHO not a true noncorrosive powder.
As a example I have no less than five rifles in my gun safe that have not been cleaned since being sighted in for hunting. One has been dirty for over nine months, two for at least six months, the rest a little less than six months, and because tha ammunition fired out of them was all loaded with "NONCORROSIVE" powder none have any rust at all. My two dedicated turkey shotguns bores have not been cleaned in well over a year, and that inclueds weeks of hard, hard hunting, and again zero rust.
And lastly my friend also has seven other long guns in his safe all of which were put away with dirty bores, none showed any signs of rust and all are made of blued steel like his Encore.
I know people have used BH209 without cleaning and had no rust, this was not the case with my friends Encore and I can not honestly say why as I strongly doubt the Encore was exposed to exsessive amounts of humidity.
