After 29 years as a cop and a lot of Range time I can relate Oh maybe .......a dozen or more accidents.

Kid out gopher hunting sticks his hand over the muzzle of his mini-14. A buddy grabs for the rifle and it goes off. Blowing away 1/3 of this teenagers hand. LIFE changing accident.

A man and his Daughter return from a hunting trip. Their rifles are in a 2 gun rack in the rear window of the pickup. She reaches in and grabs her .22-250 by the end of the barrel, pulls, and blows most of her face and head off.

Lady is huntng antelope. Her gun is too big and heavy for her so she has been resting the butt on the ground a lot. Her husband rags on her about scuffing the gun butt up on the dirt. SO she now rests the MUZZLE on the top of her foot. You guessed it.....gun goes off and blows about half of her foot off. A .264 Win mag with 120's.... another life changing accident.

I have about ten more about cops, and about five about Glocks....... FN in MT

"familiarity breeds contempt" Remember that! ALWAYS be careful with weapons.

As far as powders. Never have any powder,bullet or primers on the bench, other than the components you are currently loading. TOUGH to do but a real lifesaver.

A far less grim goofup that I just made a few days ago: I set my Ruger tang safety M77 on the bench sandbags and turned away, thinking it was stably nestled on the batgs. It wasn't. It toplled off on the concrete bench, slid over the edge scraping all the way down the side (over that sharp, rough concrete edge), hit the bench and bounced off on the concrete floor. That thing's 20 years old and DID look like new. It's really marred up now. All cosmetic. I've got some work to do.

Once found out, when new to reloading, that I had loaded 100 max loads with Norma 200 instead of 203-B for my .308win. These loads would have been hot indeed, I got an annoying feeling something was wrong and double-checked everything...

Pulling the bullets out of 100 cartridges can teach some manners.

When I first got my progressive press the primer feed was very sticky and contrary with a lot of jam-ups, but man would that machine turn out ammo even with the primer issues.



Loaded up all of the bullets I had in 38 and 44.

A couple of 30 caliber ammo cans full of 38 and about 500-1000 44s.

Off to the range to shoot my favorite gun, my trusty Super Blackhawk. About 100-200 rounds in to the plink and play session I was shooting at a clay pigeon on the 100 yard line, I shot one and was lining up on the second one when I noticed the rear sight blade was missing . . . . Hell, the whole rear sight was missing along with the top strap and the top half of the cylinder. Dang I was REALLY lucky as nothing was missing or bleeding on me!

21 grains of a powder with 14 listed as a reloading manual max will exceed the design strength of a great revolver . . . even a strong one!

I now have a RCBS powder check die in station 3 of the tool heads.

A club member found the top stap a year or so later and I keep it on my loading bench!

Do you have any idea how long it takes to disassemble all those rounds with a RCBS kenetic bullet puller. I waited over a year before I even started.

Oh, A LOT OF TIME!



Ruger would not repair the SBH for me . . . imagine that . . . but sold me a new one. It is the MOST inaccurate gun I own, which is made worse by the fact that the distroyed gun shot VERY WELL!



Live and learn



I have since learned that judicious application of soft pencil lead with slick up sticky surfaces on primer feeds as well as powder slides.



A progressive press that does not auto index CAN LEAD TO EXCITING TIMES IF IT TAKES A ROUND THROUGH THE POWDER STATION TWICE.





Maybe this is a hint that only full power loads should be fired in the 44 Mag, NONE of that woosey plinking stuff!



Powders . . . I keep them some distance from the loading bench and have to bring them up to the bench and then I set them right in front of me to remind me what powder it is I am loading and a double check that it is the "right" powder for the load!

Thanks, Roger!

About 12 years ago was reloading for 357 in a lee progressive I think there was about 80 primers in the tray when I think a primer went in sideways into primer pocket. There was an almighty bang, bits of primers and tray all over the room. I was not wearing safety glasses at the time and for about a week had an eye irritation then about 3 weeks later the eye irritation came back. Went to GP who sedated the eye and tried to dig the fragment out with a needle. The GP had no luck so had to go to the eye specialist, who did much the same, had an eye patch for about a week. Always wear safety glasses now, lesson learned the hard way, luckily no permanent damage.

I have a couple of funny ones. When I was a boy, a good friend of mine Thad(a whimp/nerd), had bought a Lee loader with a powder scoop. Well Thad Mother was dating a man(another wimp/nerd) that had a S&W M-10 and thats what the loader was for. Thad loaded up some 148HBW s and went out close to the house. Thad shot a big Knot on a mesqt tree and the 148 came back and hit Thads moms boyfriend in the shoulder. Well he was a bit dramatic about it to say the least(just a welt on his shoulder) and I couldnt stop laughing, he took us home and told my father how insensitive I was. I got a speech from my dad, but it must not have been hard enough, because I still think its funny to this day.

Now my bullets... Twice fraged by my own doing. Once when doing a fragmentation test on cement with a long rifle, that felt like a weedeater whipped me a good one. When I pulled my pant leg up I saw blood. The frags were very thin and I pulled/dug them out myself.

The second time... I was hunting coyotes and nearly stepped on a rattle snake, well thinking I was some gun-slinger, I shot the snake with my SBH 44 mag. The projectile hit a large burried rock, and jacket fragments went into my leg. I had to go to the Hospital for that one. The snake was dead.

John! That really is a sad story. I can surely feel for you. roger