Guys, how dangerous is reloading?
I will be taking a course soon, and may take the plunge later into my own equipment.
I'll likely wait until I get a bigger house and can create my own lockable room where I can load alone, with no distractions.

My intention is to load centerfire rifle only, and to use a powder that fills the case enough it cannot be double-charged.

I realize you have to be diligent and focused. Is there any significant danger??

Keep powder and primers in a dry, climate controlled area.

Never store pimers in any container other than the factory tray that they come in.

Never smoke around primers or powder.

No open flames around primers or powder.

Wear safety glasses when reloading.

Pay attention when reloading.

Think before you act.

If you can ride a bicycle and chew gum at the same time, reloading is not in the least dangerous. Smokeless powders and primers, if stored and handled according to manufacturers' instructions, are much less hazardous than the can of gas you keep around for your lawnmower.

1.Get the latest handloading manuals published by the major manufacturers, and stick to their STARTING level loads until you have acquired enough experience to feel confident in attempting to approach more powerful loadings. 2. NEVER EXCEED a published maximum load, and you will have no problems.
3. Never smoke while loading.
4. NEVER LET ANYONE OR ANYTHING take your attention away from what you are doing when weighing or measuring powder charges. At first, use slow powders that fill the case to the extent that a double charge will overflow the case, so you can't get too much in!! This is particularly good practice when loading pistol cases using a powder measure.
5. Never have more than ONE KIND of powder on your bench at any given time.
6. Never put powder into any container except the one it came in!! Good luck!!

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Larry

Anything which generates 60,000+ PSI held inches from your head is dangerous. Reloading is like anything else, abuse the laws of physics and bad things can happen. HOWEVER, done correctly, it is very safe and a whole lot of fun.

Take the course and find someone with lots of reloading experience help you. There are a lot of small details that can make all the difference.

A basic answer!
Its no more dangerouse than driving a car if you don't pay attention you have an accident!

it only gets dangerous when you start thinking you know it all.

Keep your head out of your a##,don't have any distractions,and follow your instructors teaching,and buy manuals,likehornady,speer,and so on and follow them exactly like they say.

there was this guy a civil war buff?, blew out the back of his garage this week in Bedford Ohio. he was welding and had canisters of black powder around.????
he also had granades, fake supposedly, and other parafinaly.. how dum is your neighbor..
get a reloading manuel and start at the beginning and read it throughly and do not do as the buff above and there you have it.
hiv.

I would say no different than riding on the interstate highways near the big cities during rush hour traffic. I think reloading is safer from the accident reports given on the news every day.

From what I know, I think that there are many more dangers in driving. You are in control when reloading, it would be hard for someone eles to make a acsident.

The single most dangerous aspect of reloading (in my opinion) is human ignorance and error. The best thing you can do to prevent an accident is to educate yourself on safety and then practice it. My 1st reloading "bench" was an old surplus ammo crate on the floor of my apartment bedroom. I now have a bench in the utility room in my basement along with a safe and locker for equipment. Don't be afraid to start small or "cheap". I started with all LEE equipment. Since then all components have been "upgraded". Last week I sold all that old LEE stuff to a guy starting out for $40. Good luck mister.

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From my cold, dead hands!
Thanks Chuck!

How dangerous is reloading? That's a weird question. How dangerous is it to cross the street? More people get run over and killed than get blown up while reloading. How dangerous is it to eat at a restraunt out of town? More people get food poisining than get killed while reloading. In fact, who do you KNOW that was killed while reloading? I would have to tell you that lots more people are killed riding motorcycles that are killed reloading, yet sane people keep riding motocycles. Why? because it's fun...so is reloading....but reloading is safer.

I can't believe nobody mentioned lead poisoning.

In the process of handloading typical centerfire rifle cartridges, you come in contact with spent cases, bullets, and primers which all are contaminated with a small amount of lead, that means :

ALL RELOADING TOOLS AND THE WHOLE RELOADING BENCH AREA MAY BE CONTAMINATED WITH LEAD
NO EATING
NO SMOKING
NO DRINKING(not just alcohol)
DO NOT USE FOOD TRAY/CONTAINERS IN RELOADING
WASH YOUR HANDS AFTERWARDS

For general safety :
DO NOT PLAY WITH PRIMERS EVEN IF THEY SEEM TO HAVE BEEN FIRED

CLEAN UP SPILT POWDER WITH A BROOM, NOT A VACUUM CLEANER.

REMOVE CARPETS FROM THE RELOADING BENCH AREA.
(It may trap lead contaminants and powder)

WEAR A SHOOTING GLASS TO PROTECT YOUR EYES.

ONLY ONE TYPE OF POWDER SHOULD BE PLACED ON THE BENCH TO AVOID CONFUSION.

Thanks for the replies.
Auto, it may seem like a wierd question, but after reading a few stories on these forums of EXPERIENCED reloaders making mistakes, it is a valid question.

I'm think of starting reloading, and wanted a feel for the safety issue.

Johnny, reloading is as safe as you are. Yes everyone here has made mistakes (me too), but we learned (and oft times thought we had figured out "a better mousetrap", hense some of the mistakes) and moved on. I have never known a reloader who injured himself without doing something stupid. I know that sounds harsh (please remember I speak from personal experiance here) but it's true. I know of one person who injured themselves with a Dillon auto-primer feed tube (primers aren't coming out, I'll just take this small rod and tap them through, whoops)and the only other injuries I know while reloading were pinched fingers. Shooting reloads, yes, be careful. There has been some excellant advice given on this post, if you follow just 90% of it the chances of anything happening are slim to none. Remember, we do this for fun. Take care and good luck - Dan

I hate to admit this, but I study personality and behavior in my day job.

There is a whole pattern of behavior called Conscientiousness. A few ways to describe people with this trait are:

Organized
Detail oriented
Perfectionistic
Methodical
Follow the rules
Responsible

In everyday life we call people with a big dose of this trait ANAL! It's not a black and white thing, we all fall somewhere along a continuum of this trait.

SO, what's my point?

If you're a dirtball/space cadet who can't keep your IMR4350 and your H4350 straight, and you don't like to follow directions, and doing things precisely seems like a drag instead of fun, you might want to stick to factory ammo (or stay away from guns altogether!).

Being a little anal is good thing in this hobby. Some people have an innate safety orientation that really helps. I've studied it a lot in over the road truck drivers. The ones with over a million accident free miles are the folks who do a walk around of the truck and double check tire pressure, etc. They're just a touch paranoid about other drivers and things that can go wrong.

Honestly assess whether you have the patience and detail orientation for the hobby. I have a friend who doesn't. He comes over and keeps me company while I load for his guns.

Having said all that it's not rocket science, and if you are of average wit and can follow directions, you're probably fine!

Roger

Don't have your "buddys" over to watch or "help" you reload. You get to talking, maybe we'll just have one beer, etc....you see how it can go.

You've had good advice. The real danger is getting side tracked, using light loads, and double charging.

While it maybe a bit more expensive, using slower, more case filling powders is a really good fail safe technique.

I remember the first time I lit a double charged 45 acp in my detonics, using bullseye, or unique. I made damn sure, from there out, that when that powder was gone, I went with a powder that required more grains, so I couldn't double, even by accident.

Other then that, it's easy, and fun, if the press is a single stage, like the dillion.

I recently picked up a rockchucker, for 375, and 30-06, and I can't wait to get a rifle back from the smith, so I can start using em.

gs

Here's my two cents (or three)worth:

In my opinion, being out on the firing line (especially public!) or in the field hunting is far more dangerous than reloading at home.
I think I can safely say that more people have been injured or killed this way than when reloading. So pay attention to safety afield also - be sure to follow all safe gun handling, operation and maintenance/cleaning
rules religiously.

Before you try reloading READ and DIGEST the instructions in a couple of good reloading manuals so you understand the procedures THOROUGHLY. That's what I did when I started as a teenager. Go slow and very carefully the first time - after a while it will become easier. Avoid double charging by visually checking powder levels in ALL cases at the same time before seating bullets (mostly handguns).

One question though, with that name you have, WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF!

Reloading is as dangerous as getting married. As an old retired homicide investigator from California, I can tell you many a story of a man that did something stupid in his marriage and brought on fatal gunfire. There are rules in reloading. Learn them. Follow them. The rules came about from the collective experience of those that came before you or me. Done right, just like marriage, the joys are many. When you find that one right combination and you think you missed the target twice in a three shoot string only to see that all the shots went through the same hole; then you'lll know why you reload.

Plenty of good, helpful comments, especially the admonition that safe reloading is as much a matter of attitude as anything.

One thing I'm very blunt about is urging new reloaders to buy at least 2-3 good manuals and read the front sections completely at least twice before even buying their equipment.

The main thing I'd like to add to this thread is a warning that the "laws" of reloading physics don't always follow what most of us learned in school as the laws of everyday physics. The perfect example of this has to do with amounts of powder. It would be easy for a beginning reloader to look at the min/max loads in a manual and ASSUME that amounts less than the minimum would also be safe because, after all, if you reduce the amount of explosive then the explosion has to be smaller, right?

In fact, one of the biggest dangers in reloading is to load a rifle cartridge with too small an amount of slow burning powder. Instead of burning, which is what the powder really does, a very small amount of powder hit by the primer flash can truly explode (called detonation), and it can wreck even a strong steel action. Some manuals make a point of warning about this, but not all of them. They do all, however, caution reloaders to stay "between the lines" on min/max and to start off toward minimum, watching for pressure signs as you carefully raise the amount of powder used.

So, my advice is to study those manuals and err on the side of asking questions of a veteran reloader rather than making assumptions based on common sense. As I tried to illustrate in my example above, the "laws" of physics sometimes change when it comes to reloading.

[This message has been edited by Kentucky Fisherman (edited 03-20-2002).]

Thanks for the help guys!

You can bet I'll be back for more advice.

Good advise.

Things to keep you out of trouble.

Be careful with the powder. Only one can on the bench at any time. Check the manual for the load when you have the powder out to start loading. Then check it again.
Be very, very sure that the powder you intend to load with is the one you are using.

Example don't make the mistake of using IMR 4320 when you intend to use IMR 4831. In one manual I have - an popular cartridge with a 150 grain bullet -- 56.9 grains of IMR 4831 is a starting load -- 49.7 grains of IMR 4320 is the max load.
In this instance, 56.9 grains of IMR 4320 would be a problem.

As a general principle - don't trust load data like what I just put in this thread - I might have made a typo -- always consult a manual.

IMR 4831 is not the same as Hodgdon 4831. Same for primers, cases and bullets.

Go ahead and purchase a stuck case remover, they are cheap and sooner of later you are going to need one.

Hey Johnny,

Where can we place our bets at and what are the odds?

Also, c'mon give us more profile info...

"Where ya from, pilgrum?"

Western Canada - that's all I can say at this point. You see, I am a fugitive....a person wrongfully accused of not registering a nailgun.....now Cretien's cronies are after me. My only hope is to learn to reload, as I am no longer allowed to buy rifle ammunition.

Please help. Help!!

Tongue firmly in cheek. First two words are true.

Oh Johnny Ringo,

he was a rebel,

he roamed,

through Western Canada...

naaa, doesn't quite sound right!

How 'bout

"Oh Johnny Ringo, by God he was a Gringo.
Had no idea how to reload, but his 10" was a heavy load,
John Ringo, John Ringo he's the man""

I love Fridays after work.....

Couple of items that haven't been brought up here.

Reloading materials are somewhat toxic. Powder is essentially nitroglycerin or nitrocellulose (or both mixed togehter).

Bullets are lead or heavy metal brass/copper.

You don't want to eat or drink while handling these materials. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap/water.

No alcohol consumption seems REALLY obvious. But then I see people out at the "pit" with a gun in one hand and a beer in the other. Bad, bad, bad idea.

I've seen makeshift reloading areas set up on the corner of a really cluttered coffee table. Order and a deliberate sequence of operations in a clean, well lighted, and uncluttered space will produce more accurate loads. But it also keeps you from getting sloppy and making errors.

When dispensing medications, pharmacists, doctors, nurses, etc. read the lable THREE times. Once when selecting the item. Second time when opening and measuring the meds. Third time BEFORE dispensing as you're closing the container.

Same procedure for powder. READ the label. Read it again. Read it a third time.

The Marines train the troops to physically stick a finger in the breech to ensure that the breech is clear. It's easy to glance and assume. I hold the canister in one hand and run my finger across the label.

I've had the poise (weight) on the scale get moved/bumped. I confess to loading 5 gr. over on a 45 ACP load and blowing the web out of the brass. (I got lucky.)

Most loading blocks are set up in rows of five or ten. Check your scale and your load every tenth round. READ the scale. READ the powder canister. (It should be out where you can see it, not stashed away.)

I think most in here will agree that the reason they reload is NOT to save money. They reload to produce better ammo. So, you go at reloading with a deliberate, attentive attitude.

If you're in a big hurry to "knock out a box of ammo" so you can plink, you're probably better off just buying plinker ammo somewhere and skipping all the deliberate concentration.

It's as safe as flying an airplane. Not quite as tricky, but it calls for the same sort of attention to detail.

Watch for squib loads. I was right next to a trap door 45-70 that blew up! The shooter fired a shot that seemed very weak. Maybe it had no powder. At the next shot I saw a piece of the forend go by my face!

There was 4" gone from the side of the barrel near the end and the wood handguard too! We never found the piece of the barrel.

After filling the cases with powder I stand up and look down into the cases to check the levels.

"Progressive" loaders and in particular priming systems that have magazines give me the creeps. I used to shoot a lot of pistol ammo and it was all loaded single station. I know someone who blew up a Smith with ammo loaded on a Star loader.

Reloading is as safe or as dangerous as the person pulling the handle on the press.

Good Hunting,

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Andy Cooper