Friends-

Hard to believe, I have been handloading for 30 years. And the more I reload, the more I realize that there is still so much to learn. So, I thought this might make for some light hearted reading.

I know in 30 years I have done some really "bone headed" things in handloading. So, I am going to "throw myself under the bus" first.

The other night I was handloading some .22-250 rounds. I use a ball powder (thank God) and everything was going just swell. I have a Pact electronic scale and dispenser. Push the button and out dumps your load. How easy is that. While it's despensing another load of powder, you just pop the case in the die, stick the bullet on top and press case into the die and "presto chango" out comes a loaded round right?

Well all was going well, repeated the steps and had just dumped a load of powder into the case. Picked up the case, put it into the shell-holder but, I sensed something wasn't quite right. I went ahead and put the bullet on the case and ran it into the die. I grabbed the round from the shell-holder to put the "loaded" round in the loading block and I noticed something spilling into my hand. It was ball powder.

Duh, no primer. I then looked at all of the cases in my loading block and long story short, there was a column of five rounds that I had missed priming.

Needless to say, I had to prime the remaing rounds, pull the bullet on the other round, prime, load, etc., etc.

OK, so no belly laughs but, I look back on and laugh.

Who's next??

Been there, done that!

Fortunately, I've only had a few screw-ups over the years. One example: I was loading some 45ACP with W231. About half way through, a quarter full can of Bullseye fell off the top shelf above my bench. Rather than put the can back, I left it on the bench. When I was done loading, I had 2 cans on my bench, W231 and Bullseye. Which one do you suppose the powder got dumped in? Made good fertilizer!

I had broken one of the cardinal rules - only one can on the bench, and paid for it.

Luckily my only bone head move has been the same. I got about 30 rounds charged with powder and was getting ready to seat bullts (Single Stage Press) and realized I forgot primers.

Was reloading some rifle shells a while back for a friend. When he showed up at my place, he brought his components but not his rifle. I explained to him that whenever I reload, I always have the rifle handy to run a round thru after adjusting the sizing die, seating the bullets, etc. to make sure everything functions properly but since he hadn't brought his rifle we would just go ahead and load up. Can you see where this is leading? When he gets home he calls me up and says the rounds won't chamber in his rifle. Seems that when I crimped the brass in the cannelure, the die was set down too far and the shoulders were pushed out. Had to pull all of the bullets and resize

embarrassing moment? Hmm.

- I decided to wet clean some cases - when they were all soaked I realized they were all primed

- On the range the rifle just popped - later when I pulled the bullet, I found out there was no propellant, duh!

Friends-

When my children were young, I would have my oldest daughter help me. At the time she was probably three. Back then I had a balance beam scale.

Well, we were a good team. Fast forward, on one particular day I was hunting and I had a really nice white-tail buck in my sights. I squeezed my trigger only to hear a big "click." Needless to say, I was amazed. I worked the bolt and chambered a new round. The old one hit the floor of the hunting blind and sounded like a sonic boom.

Luckily, the buck froze and looked at me. The second round found its way home. The first round obviously did not have a charge of powder. The primer was ignited or, at least, dimpled but, did not send the bullet into the barrel.

brand new proper headstamp .416 taylor... primed it, dropped poweder.... went to seat bullet, then found that the cases needed neck sizing... only ruined 2 of them, before we figured it out.....

Was in way to big a hurry to get some rounds loaded for a morning session at the range. When establishing a OAL I read my dial caliper wrong and then made a simple addition error and the cartridges ended up .050 to long to chamber. I didn't double check length "They're OK, I've done this a hundred times before" Didn't find out they were too long untill the next morning at the range,Oh well, it was a nice drive anyway.

I've only been reloading now for about 3 years, and can say that I have experienced only a few errors. The most notable would be an unprimed case dropping H380 all over the place....must be something about loading 22-250's I guess, eh 30 cal mag fan?

The other error that sticks out is once after tumbling, resising etc, I used alcohol to clean the sizing lube from the cases, but didn't allow one of them to dry enough, which soaked the primer when I primed the case, rendering it useless. Luck would have it that I wasn't hunting with that round but testing the load at the range. I cycled this round into the chamber, squeezed the trigger and 'click' but no bang. To this day it's the only round I have ever pulled....knock on wood!

I was about 15 years old and decided to start loading for my Trapdoor Springfield. Being on a very, very limited budget bought a Lee Loader. Worked fine until I was trying to seat a primer and it went off...scared the bejeesus out of me, and my mom. My parents arranged a "loan" to me and the next day went and bought an RCBS Jr. press, dies, powder measure and scale.

Trying to prime rifle cases with a Lee Loader is the best advertisment for Lee Autoprime there ever was. I always wore a glove on my left hand.

I wa sloading 45acp and was checking them before boxing them.I found 2 with the primers in backwards.Not bad for doing about 40,000 rounds over the years.Good Luck

In the days when we were allowed to shoot pistols here in the UK, was reloading 38spl for 1500 comps. Sat at my stool and started cracking the handle on the progressive and went into "automaton" mode. Churned away for a couple of hours making wc loads only to realise the powder hopper was as empty as my head had been... F$*K!

Back many MANY years ago, it was very cost effective to reload shotgun shells. Had a nice place set-up at one of the Elders and when we(the young'uns) needed shells, we would go over and make 3x the number we wanted, take 1 bunch and leave the other two for the Elders. They had a "Kitty Can" they tossed component money into when they stopped by to get their shells and all was good.

Fast forward to college. Needed shells, so I got a press and mounted it to a 6'x2"x8" board, got components and went to cranking out my own. There is apparently some unwritten Law that says "Filling a Lead Hopper over shag carpet is sure to result in Lead in/on/throughout the carpet. Apparently the Lead Sack acted as if it had a Slinky built into it and ..... - pitiful! Always place a sheet under the board!
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Had a doughnut-eater friend stop by one day who wanted to load some 38Spls. No problem, just need to remove the "Spacers" from the Flair set-up and Seat/Crimp set-up, show him the routine and then back to what ever I was doing. All went well.

Next buddy showed up and saw me busy doing something and said he was going to do some Loading. He and I had loaded together for many years and I thought no more about it. He had already Flaired the 357Mag Cases the day before, so he was ready to add powder and Seat/Crimp. Not sure why he didn't notice the "Spacer" removed, and really not sure why he had to totally collapse 5 Cases before he bothered to ask what was going on.
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Early on in my Rifle reloading, I was caught off-guard when I went to measure the OAL on some Wildcat Cartridges. Could not imagine what I'd done wrong, so I pulled the Bullets and went to resize that bunch of Cases. Planned to keep whatever I'd done wrong a secret.

Got the entire Lot re-resized, lube removed, but noticed there did not seem to be any undue pressure needed to do the re-resizing. Huuummm!

Powder carefully put back in, Bullets reseated and the OAL was STILL all over the place. Finally had to ask an Elder who laughed and told me it was probably due to the different "Lengths" of the Bullets within the same box.

Sure enough, that was when he showed me about checking the Casehead to Ogive distance with a socket from a toolbox. I did a lot of Bullet measuring and sorting back then.

Nothing like pulling the trigger on your Rifle Shotgun or Pistol and hearing silence !.

Anyone who has re loaded long enough has had that deafening experience .

the real show stoppers for myself personally are shotgun shells . No feeling on this planet ,like being

on the line be it trap skeet or clays or Heaven Forbid hunting ; and have your friends see the shot

dribble out the end of the barrel .

Although thankfully this never happened to me , I did witness . Shot gunner pops of a dud fails to notice

wad didn't clear, next round POP UMP Winchester 101 barrel bulge .

Can we say BACK BORE or enlarging the forcing cones ?.

Wish I had a dime for every over load I've seen. Bill Gates would be a popper compared to my wealth

!.

OK Two more ; I Watched a fellow who loaded his own and shot with on occasion sever a mighty expensive

Italian Shotgun one evening at the trap Ramada . Clays DBL loaded in 12 gauge .

Those of you old enough or sharp on shotgun manufactures might remember about 30-40 years back a Russian outfit , that made a nice little Coach gun Dbl barrel outside hammers ?.

I was rabbit hunting with factory loads and pulled both triggers . Surprise Surprise in my

Left hand was the forearm and action and in my right hand was the butt-stock .

No wonder they laminated stocks on military stuff !!!.

Well I hesitate to put my ¡™£¢∞§ out there for everyone to step on but the first evening I got my first Dillon progressive I was ready to load 500 rounds an hour! Yea....

By the third evening I had everything figured out and was going along smoothly. My friend called to go varmint hunting the next day. "No problem" I told him, with my nifty Dillon I promised several hundred rounds of 223 for us to shoot.

I took 400, 200 of em had primers in backwards. And to top it all off I was in such a hurry to hunt that I fired the first one with a backward primer.

Now the only good thing about this story is that I somehow wound up with all the bad rounds. My buddy had the 200 good ones. He thought I had some magic recipe, he couldn't miss and I had to come up with a lie about my gun so I didn't have to try and shoot any more! Oh well

Howabout being in a big hurry to get out the door to the range and still got a couple of test rounds to size and load up.
Where the hell is the powder coming from in the block that holds the rounds?
Oh ya....gotta put primers in em or the powder leaks out slow but sure.

I just learned today that just because your mag box is long, doesn't mean your chamber is. I just loaded some test rounds for the 250 Savage and made them much longer than the factory 100gr. So I am at the range today and I'm ready to go and none of mt rounds will chamber. Get home measure the brass ,the , took one of the rounds and seated it deeper, then deeper again till I was at factory length, problem solved. No dummy round dummy. FS

Was trickling in some powder and went just a bit over, so I turned the knob the other way (like turing the volume know down). Took me a split second to see what I had done!

Loaded a few primers in backwards.

Once tried to run a Berden (not sure on the spelling) primed case through a size die. Spent all night with a file getting it out.

While reloading cartridges...

No primer.
Primer in backward.
Waking everyone in the house seating primers the way the instruction on a Lee Loader says.
A spent primer that somehow ended up in my primer feed and got loaded again.
No powder.
Backward 38 special hollowbase wadcutter...pretty neat load for a bellygun but not so hot for PPC league.
Setting up a 243 Winchester Lee collet die wrong and bumped out the shoulder but didn't figure that out until I'd filled a 50 round box.
357 magnum cases in a batch of 38 special cases going through the Dillon.
44 special cases in a batch of 44 magnum brass going through the Dillon.
Decapping Berdan cases with a Boxer setup.

While muzzleloading, which is sort of like reloading...

Putting a dry patch down a fouled bore.
Mixing components in my bag so that ended up trying to seat a large ball and thick patch combination.
Dry balling.
Losing a patch in the bore with no worm in my possibles bag.
Shooting with the ramrod still in the bore...last seen sailing over the 50 yard backstop.

Worst thing I ever saw personally...a fella loaded some pistol ammo then switched to rifle powder without emptying the rotor in his powder measure. He disassembled a Remington 7400 with one shot...way too exciting.

Do this stuff long enough all sorts of goofy stuff can happen. Take your time, create good habits, wear safety glasses.

Let's see...
Like maybe shortly after I'd gotten my Dillon 650 and was getting the "feel" of the press...

I was seating a primer...

Lucky for me only one primer went bang!! A week or so later I did the same darn thing!! Again, just one primer got loud on me.

I guess it took twice for me to get the "feel" for the seating. It's not happened again.

But when ever I have to de-cap a live one I WEAR my muffs!! (yes, I ALWAYS wear safety glasses while re-loading...always have).

Bob

Not a reloading moment ,but it did involve reloading powder!
I had a very old BMW 3.0csi sports coupe, it had a completly rotten exhaust, so I decided to by a pattern exhaust and fit it myself.Needless to say it didn't fit,A bit of jiggling and a few cuts with the mini grinder i Had it marked and ready for welding.
I took it into the workshop and popped it on the bench, it took ages to line up all the marks I had put on the exhaust,everytime I let it go the marks moved, all I wanted to do was tack it and then I could see if it was in the right place,The only thing that was to hand that was a perfect fit was a new sealed tin of Nobel 80.I hit the exhaust with the arc welder,Don't remember much after that, overalls melted, all my hair was singed and I had a perfect pattern on the top of my head where the straps from the mask had been.It was only a small workshop and every spider was burnt to a crisp..
I still laugh to this day, but my mate who was there it took him about a week to recover he laughed so much..

I tin of Nobel 80 shotgun powder and an arc welder will definitely wet your dress..

regards
griff

quote:

ll my hair was singed and I had a perfect pattern on the top of my head where the straps from the mask had been. It was only a small workshop and every spider was burnt to a crisp.

I'm not laughing at you; rather with you - THAT was funny!

Started reloading nearly 60 years ago for a model 92 Win. 38-40 when I was 14 or 15 years old. Used cast bullets and #6 pistol powder IIRC.

Money was definately an issue and for whatever reason, I decided to pull the bullets on a few (fortunately very few) rounds. Looked around and the only suitable receptacle in which to save the powder; all I could see was my dad's ashtray.

Well, something more pressing came up, as it often does with a teenager, and I interrupted my (un)loading project. Left the components on my workbench and went on to whatever.

Yep, you guessed it, dad looked around until he found his favorite ashtray on the workbench and was not pleased when he place his cigarrett in the tray.

Wasn't bad enough that I put the powder in the ashtray, it got a lot worse when I laughed.

Regards,
hm

I have been reloading for 20 + years,and I have had my share of mistakes ....all listed above ...

But an elderly gentlemen has a pre 64,Model 70 Win in 308 win that wasn't grouping well....I sold him on reloads ...he also needed new mounts for the ole Mod 70,as the flip off's were worn out to the point the rear mount did not click in any longer ???? I also floated the barrela and loaded up some partition rounds for him and got a one inch group at 100 yds with the ole winchester .....he was tickled ,to say the least ....but he came up to me a week or so ago at deer camp and suggested I should get a QC guy to oversee my operation ....as he handed me the cartridge ,I could see the powder draining from the case .....somehow this shell had lost it's primer ????? I assured him his winchester had extracted the primer ! BB34

My wife lately saw my new dillon xl650 on my relading table. She asked how much did that cost? I said i had no idea.
. dave

When I went thru my divorce...my $200.00 Dillon 650 (and all the accessories) was itemized as one of my assets

I was reloading .45ACP the day before I set off for a three day shoot & a moment's distraction whilst resizing let my trigger finger get in the way.
The case did a fine impersonation of a cookie cutter RIGHT where triggers rest.
Needless to say, my performance was more abysmal than usual.

Just yesterday I mixed what I thought were two batches of the same bullets I'd been moly coating as I found time. Poured about 400 55 grain, cannelured FMJ's on top of a similar number of mollied, cannelured 55 grain Hornady SP's. All bullets were mollied so the lead tip of the Hornadys was exactly the same silver color as the rest of the bullet. Only the bases were different.

Two hours with a strong light and my reading glasses had them segregated again but it was quite like picking flyshit out of the pepper shaker!

Mark

Oh , What fun??? Load some A-A 12gauge shells with black powder. At the next registered Calcuta shoot, slip them into your buddy's shooting vest pocket.
You probably don't want to tell anybody it was you that did it. roger

Roger where you ever at Raahauge's over in Corona ?.

Should have seen the commotion when it was back over by the Dam Parada ?I believe that's the name .

Pheasant hunting with a up and coming trick shot clays and Skeet shooter , Man was VERY GOOD !.

Anyway a group of us head down from the club house towards the field I'm riding with John .

So I pull the old switcheroo and slipped 5 BP loads in Remington hulls into John's pouch .


First two shots and birds went down all normal , about round 6 or 7 got real funny real fast .

You should have seen the look on the dog handlers face !. Once the smoke cleared , YOU COULD !.

John laughed about it and we all had tales for lunch . I did have to clean his Italian Shotgun though !.

Mike the owner thought we had stared a fire ; That was another laugh as somebody shooting clays saw the

smoke and reported it as fire .

quote:

Originally posted by Doc224/375:
Roger where you ever at Raahauge's over in Corona ?.***YES***

Should have seen the commotion when it was back over by the Dam Parada ?I believe that's the name .

Prado Dam roger

I was loading 308 to shoot 1,000 yard practice about 20 years ago. I had finished running some 168 gr match kings and decided to load some 190s for the long range practice. I found out latter I hadn’t reduced the powder charge. Well it was quite cool when we started, I noticed it was flatting primers pretty bad in my 40X but was shooting great. As the temp and the temp of the rifle increased it started to blow primers. I decided to stop shooting that load before I damaged my rifle. Sad part is I had 8 hits on target and with the 2 “misses” it scored 175 6X. I still wonder….
Had to pull almost 200 bullets.
Bill

I fired a .30-06 in a .308 norma magnum rifle. Blew the floor plat open and scattered powder everywhere. Quite surprising really.