I bought an 8lb keg of 8208 XBR at the local gun show this past weekend. Since I Rarely carry much cash and mostly use my check card, I paid via the check card. The vendor at the gun show asked to see my driver's license. I originally assumed that this was to either make sure I was old enough(BTW I turned 47 that same day and have more grey hair than dark hair) or assumed that this was due to making sure that my name on the lisense was the same as the name on the check card, (more likely this reason). The vendor then told me that smokeless powders are being dyed by lot number as a form of some kind of government tracking. He stated that if I had used cash that there was no way to track the powder past him but since with the card, my address is easy for the government to track, they would be able to tack the lot# to me. Now i'm not the paranoid type but I have seen no information in any of the typical "scare you about big brother watching" type e-mail's that we all see to much of but.....Anyone else heard of this and care to ponder on if this is true or if maybe this vendor was lying through his teeth trying to convince me to use cash.
It could be feaseble that dying powder could be used in criminal investigations. I am sure at the temperature and pressures at the moment of ignition, a dye in the powder could color the rear end of a projectile and hense marking it for the lot number of that powder which would narrow the possible search for the culprit in said crime. And then again, this would mean....how many hues of dye would be required to mark every lot number of every different type of powder from today forward??
