Awesome!  Sounds like a good Muster!

I had a about an oz. of Shockley's Gold in pre- opened OEM plastic container packed away.
It was at least 7-8 years old, though its lid was tight it had laid on its side for several years.
The powder was clumped and kinda stuck to the inside of the bottle.

I know I loaded, several 100 44 special and some 44 Russian from that bottle.
The Russian were all fired, but I still have several boxes (50 each) of the Special.

I wonder about the storage life of the loaded rounds.

So, as a test and a lark I decided to sacrifice the 1 oz remained to a POOF test.
I had to kinda shake and rattle the bottle to loosen it up.
Poured it on paper towel and wrapped it up, then place it on a Newpaper page, lit the newspaper and backed off.
It took about 45 seconds to reach the powder pack and POOF    
no compression of course, so no bang, but plenty smoke.
Certainly, not scientific or even safe really, but I was 30 feet away.

I'm thinking it still had some life.
I have another un-open sealed can of Shockley's Gold, bought at the same time (7-8 years) 

I'm thinking my 44 Special are fine as is the sealed can... what do the sages say ?
 

Morning y'all.
Coffee and tea are hot.

'Tis 58 and overcast. "Partly sunny in the morning  then cloudy with showers likely and a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 70s. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph shifting to the southwest 10 to 15 mph in the afternoon. Chance of rain 70 percent."

Slim

Were it me/mine, I'd first check the End Shake to see if the cylinder bushing needs shimmed (fail to fire).  Teflon on the Base Pin ain't a bad idea at all for a "little use" CAS player.  No reason at all not to get it out and play with it.

Depending on just how much you want to play with it, maybe a little money into it to fix the Barrel to Cylinder gap and permanently fix the base pin wobble.  Being a [arts gun you already know it's not financially worth a full restore.  Fun gun fer CAS for sure!!

Parts gun = shooter gun. As I see it, the only need for a letter is to see what you need to restore to as original as possible, if that's your intention. Now for me, ifn it were mine, I'd take it to Ten Sleep, Wy and have Lever Action Bill fix the wobbles and gaps, make it a sound reliable shooter, leave the finish as is.