Funny reloading/casting stories and lessons learned the hard way

[ndh87]

We've probably all been loading long enough to have a few funny stories, oopses and cautionary tales. Lets share a few.

Last night as i was depriming 38spl brass i got a bit distracted and tried to deprime my finger - lesson - pay attention and move my finger before stuffing a case into the die.

[GRUMPA]

For me right off the top of my head, Cleaning any lead spatters off the bench, floor, tools is nothing compared to finding out that the adhesive quality of lead parallels super glue when trying to remove it from clothing.

[Shiloh]

Did the trick with getting my finger in the way. Cut a nice string of meat off my finger. Took forever to heal.

The linkage to the powder measure came apart once on the Dillon. I seated about 60 rounds with primer only. Found them at the range with a loud "Pfftt" enough to drive the slug into the bore.

This is why I usually have a .22 rf with me. Saves a wasted trip to the range. Ended up pulling about 90 rounds to get them all.

Shiloh

[Huntducks]

loaded some 243 rds on a md 600 rem that I just bought, and thought I would give a round a try for fit, closed the bolt and bang shot my gun safe, got lucky as it went off the safe and out the wall of my loading room and the fragments hit a tree, panic set it that it hit the house next door never did that again.

[kbstenberg]

My finger was permanently flattened. The Instructions for the Lee sizer never told me to get my finger out from under a bullet before sizing.
Kevin

[rintinglen]

Casually sweeping up some lead splatters, I was rewarded with a very loud bang when a primer got caught up in the pan and subsequently dumped into the pot for melting.

My reloading bench and casting tables are separate now.

[1Shirt]

Many years back, I got to screwing around with making screwey looking ctgs. Made one with a 311284 seated in a 30 luger case. Made another with s 375 H&H case necked down to 22. (took some doing, but I finaly got it done). The one that I had the most fun with was a 30-06 case that I annealed very soft and expanded the neck to take a 44 cal blt. Took awhile to get it opened up without crushing, and of course it was a wierd looking critter, that would be impossible to make a chamber for. Had fun with those cases at gun shows showing folks my new wildcats. Even had names for them, but it has been so long that I can't remember what I called them. Do remember telling some that the 44 on the 06 case, required a special chamber that was two piece and that I called a clamshell chamber.
That was probably 40 or more years ago, when I had more time than anything else including money for powder and primers.
1Shirt! :coffee:

[I'll Make Mine]

The one that I had the most fun with was a 30-06 case that I annealed very soft and expanded the neck to take a 44 cal blt. Took awhile to get it opened up without crushing, and of course it was a wierd looking critter, that would be impossible to make a chamber for.

Really? The .30-06 has the same case head dimensions as a .45 ACP -- if you could get all the taper out of the case (say, by fire-forming), you should be able to load a .45-06 that would beat the heck out of a .45-70 Govt. Now, if you leave the original shoulder and just stretch the neck... :confused:

[popper]

Don't throw loaded rounds into the smelting pot. Have the T shirt for 1-6.

[Reg]

Many years back, I got to screwing around with making screwey looking ctgs. Made one with a 311284 seated in a 30 luger case. Made another with s 375 H&H case necked down to 22. (took some doing, but I finaly got it done). The one that I had the most fun with was a 30-06 case that I annealed very soft and expanded the neck to take a 44 cal blt. Took awhile to get it opened up without crushing, and of course it was a wierd looking critter, that would be impossible to make a chamber for. Had fun with those cases at gun shows showing folks my new wildcats. Even had names for them, but it has been so long that I can't remember what I called them. Do remember telling some that the 44 on the 06 case, required a special chamber that was two piece and that I called a clamshell chamber.
That was probably 40 or more years ago, when I had more time than anything else including money for powder and primers.
1Shirt! :coffee:

Always wanted to take a trash can and neck it down to a phonograph needle.
Good for one inch , one hole , one shot groups at 1000 yards.

[geargnasher]

I was just last week depriming a bunch of .45 ACP for cleaning and thought it would be fun to see how far I could poke that decapping pin through my finger. The answer is "up to the hilt" next to the fingernail. It's still healing from the inside out.

One of the strangest things was when I loaded four boxes of .45 Colt with "green" boolits only a few days old. I checked a few randomly in the revolver that has the smallest chambers as I always do. Imagine my suprise when I took a couple boxes to the range a few weeks later and NONE of them would chamber! The boolits grew a full thousandth as they aged and would no longer go in the cylinder throats. People will tell you boolits don't grow as they age, and sometimes they don't, but sometimes they will. I'd like to know what was in that batch of alloy that caused that, it's done it with other stuff, too, so I just learned to wait a month before sizing.

Gear

[nicholst55]

I once decapped the web between my thumb and forefinger - I dunno the scientific term for that part of the hand. It hurt; bled like the dickens. I have a 3"X3"x12" steel block that I use as a door stop, makeshift anvil, etc. I once had it standing on end, and knocked it over. BANG! It landed on a 'lost' primer, and I swept the floor afterwards. I was once decapping some fired brass (I forget the cartridge, but it was large), and broke the decapping pin. Checked to see if the case was Berdan-primed, and a .22 LR case fell out.

[crabo]

I bought a Contender and was loading ammo for it. I had never shot it, and wanted to badly.

It was raining and thundering at the time, so I stepped out on the back porch. I waited until the lightening flashed, counted to 3, and shot it into the ground.

I know the neighbors must have thought, that one hit really close!

[rtracy2001]

This is a long one, but worth the read (I think)

Years ago when I was in JR. High, My dad, little brother, and I were big into shotguns. We each had an old beater that dad had picked up from the “well if you really want it” box at the last gun show. I had an old sears knockoff of a JC Higgins bolt action, and Joe (little bother) had an old Stevens IIRC pump. The Stevens did not have any lockout mechanism, so if you held down the trigger, it would fire as soon as you closed the bolt. We didn’t know about that little feature, and this is how we found out:

Joe’s shotgun developed a bad habit of spitting loaded shells onto the ground, usually every third or fourth shot, and never in any predictable pattern. Well, after a nice Saturday morning of clay pigeon shooting, we were in the basement reloading/gun room cleaning the guns and dad decided it was time to figure out what was going on with Joe’s shotgun. He started out with trying to cycle empties through the magazine, but they wouldn’t feed at all. An empty shell crimped closed would cycle, but the gun wouldn’t act up because it was too light to fall out. I volunteered to make up a few full weight dummy rounds on my press, but dad decided he just couldn’t wait and started using a few live rounds (we all know what is coming but the journey is half the fun). The slide release on this gun was in an odd position (compared to dad’s old Wingmaster anyway) and it was difficult to push the slide release while watching the feeder fingers load a shell AND having the gun upright so it would act up. Dad found a compromise that allowed him to work the action a good 10 or 12 times (I remember the shell hitting the floor 3 or 4 times) by reaching through the triggerguard. I remember Dad saying “I know what’s happening now” and then BOOM!! Dad had closed the slide on the live round while inadvertently holding the trigger. The three of us were the only ones home and to Dad’s credit he had excellent muzzle control, so the three of us stood there for a couple minutes looking at the hole in the floorboards above out heads (unfinished basement). Finally Joe realized that we were directly beneath his room and he tore off upstairs to see what he had lost.
The shot came up right next to the door casing. Bits of carpet fluff were everywhere. The wall showed a clear pattern of #6 lead shot streaking up towards the ceiling with a few stray pellets in the wall. Most of the pattern was in the ceiling, and none penetrated the roof. Finally Dad spoke: “If Mom sees this, we’ll never shoot again.” Mom was at work and would be home in 2 hours, less if things were slow at work.

Dad stuffed as much carpet back into the hole as possible (couldn’t see it if you didn’t know it was there.) The wall and ceiling needed some spackling compound we didn’t have, so Dad handed me a few dollars and I rode my bike to Eagle to buy some spackle and a putty knife. Dad and Joe started moving furniture out of the room in preparation for paint. We got the wall patched and the whole room painted in less than 2 hours. We even had time to fix a quick lunch before Mom walked in. She was so happy that we had taken the initiative to paint Joe’s room. We were all on pins and needles for a couple days, but it soon became apparent that we got away with it. It wasn’t long after that that Dad got laid off and we moved 100 miles away. I moved back years later, and I still can’t help but smile when I have occasion to drive past that house. Dad learned his lesson too and took the gun to the gunsmith. He also had some action proving rounds made up for every caliber that we had at the time.

Joe and I finally came clean and told her what had happened . . . two years after Dad died. Her words at finding out were classic: If I had known something like that had happened the three of you would never have shot another gun as long as I lived.”

[0verkill]

At least I'm not the only one to try to decap my finger, sorry to hear some have come closer to doing it than me.

Learned the hard way to label all my boxes of bullets and actually read the labels. I was trying to get everything organized a while back. I have a LEE 150gr SWC Hollow point mould and found 2 boxes of these. I thought "they'll all fit in one box. After dumpi9ng them all in one box I remebered sizing some smaller, sure enough 1 box was marked .356 I was going to try in some light 38 super loads in a .355 barrel. Rather than measure each and every bullet I just sized them all to .356. Now I better find a good 38 super load.

[geargnasher]

My FIL's .38 Super dotes on .358" boolits, FWIW. The groove is .3565" and .358" boolits give an even thousandth total chamber "neck" clearance, it will reliably evaporate push-pin heads at 25 yards from bags in a little game I call "see who can make their target fall off first".

Gear

[Ola]

My little girl, then age 4, was helping me reload. After I put a .44 Mag case in the caseholder, she would pull the handle. At one point her timing was not perfect...
It's amazing how little it takes to push the case through the finger and fingernail. It hit the bone but luckily slipped and did not break it.

After that I have avoided using 4 year olds as drivers of any kind of machinery.

[Plinkster]

I narrowly escaped having my finger decapped by my 4 year old, ONCE. He now takes the loaded rounds off the press and boxes 'em for me. Works pretty well unless he gets his timing off and tries to box a charged case with no boolit.

[Jim]

Y'all wouldn't believe the responses I got awhile back to my thread on my .308 and 8MM blanks. If I had pulled out one of those rounds in a group of ten people, they would have run in eleven different directions.

[Echo]

The goor thing about the Star lube/sizer is that it's fast. Sometimes too fast. My son nearly resized his thumbnail off once...

[**oneshot**]

I sized about 2 hundred boolits for my 357mag using the wrong die. I also shoot a 38spec that needs a 357sized boolit. I had sized both a few weeks ago and left the 357die in the sizer not the 358 sizer. At least I had pre-fluxed lead to start my next pot.

Once and only once did I try to shoot some primer only cases. The one I fired back out and siezed the firing pin, I did learn that if you put a dowel through the barrel and into the cylinder--- give this a good whack it will bump the firing pin back.

[helice]

A friend was down in his basement cleaning his bolt gun. When he finished he put the bolt gun back into his safe and pulled out his Rossi M-92 for a bit of dry fire. Well after sticking his finger down the chamber he felt he was safe. But there in the magazine was a stow-away. He dry fired once, worked the lever, swung the muzzle to a red fire extinguisher hanging on a post and BAM. He turned that whole dang basement white with powder. His wife still doesn't know about it.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Great Stories, :mrgreen:

A friend was at another fellows house, who happens to have an FFL and sell from his home.

Apparently not overly smart, as this fellow had a loaded fire arm on his table when our local gun shows were held in the University of Idaho Kibby dome. That bullet, .22 as I recall, ended up in the roof.

Any way, the friend was over to the Dealers house to look at some guns. Picked up one off the rack and went to dry fire a shot while aiming at something out the upstairs window. New glass sure is clear!

The FFL dealer was a baker by trade, and likely he would have better off selling donuts! Safer for everyone!!

Keep em coming!

CDOC

[smokemjoe]

A friend of mine was casting bullets, something fell on the floor and he got done to look for it, a loaded 30-06 rolled of the top shelve above the pot and into it, It went off while he was on his knees, Had a pool table in the shop next to the pot, The poor table caught it all.

[paul h]

Not sure I want to admit all the dumb stuff I've done, but the one that comes to top of my mind has to do with a 218 mashburn bee contender barrel. I was all kinds of excited to get my first custom barrel, and decided to fireform a few cases in the garage. For some reason I got the silly idea that a few grains of red dot behind a 60gr hp should be nonthing more than a popgun load. I had some misc 2X4 and a 4X4 cutoff so stacked them on top of eachother and popped off a round. It was a bit louder than I expected, and each piece of wood I turned over had an entrance and exit hole. As I recall there were 3 2X's and the 4X, which is 8" of wood. After turning over the final scrap I found the bullet had hit the concrete floor and completely turned itself inside out with the bullet jacket nearly the dia of a quarter and a nice spall in the garage floor. Note to self, even mild loads can penetrate like crazy, and the range is a much better place to fireform brass.

As far as making dummy cartridges, I once cut down a 50 bmg case and turned down a piece of aluminum to make a .75 acp. Pretty neat looking round, but somebody persuaded me to give it to them so I no longer have it.

[Aces an Eights]

Soon after buying reloading gear and a Hornady book, I bought an old MkIII 303 off a friend just to play with. Anyhow he happened to visit a week later to find me in the paddock with his old rifle encased in sandbags, a string tied to the trigger on one end and me on the other hidding behind the truck about to give the string a yoink.

He says to me, "You know you can trust that rifle, I've fired it and it was ok." I replied, "Oh, would you like to try out a few of my reloads?"

:not listening:

[Wal']

My little girl, then age 4, was helping me reload. After I put a .44 Mag case in the caseholder, she would pull the handle. At one point her timing was not perfect...
It's amazing how little it takes to push the case through the finger and fingernail. It hit the bone but luckily slipped and did not break it.

After that I have avoided using 4 year olds as drivers of any kind of machinery.


Same happened with me, its great involving your kids with your little pleasures in life. ;) mine was a .38 case.

But when they near take the end of your finger off, you really get to appreciate those special moments with your kids & swear to never repeat them ...:smile:

Took months to completely heal. [smilie=b:

[Lead Freak]

A long time ago, far far away, I got the bright idea on Forth of July to dispose of a pound of FFG black powder that I had left over from a Lyman .36 cal Navy that I had sold a few years before. At the time, another hobby that I had was black and white photography and still had a few bulk .35mm film cans that I had kept for nuts and bolts. I filled one with the FFG and wrapped it 6 ways to Sunday with duct tape. I would guess that it held about 3/4 of the 1 pound can of FFG. I poked a hole in the top and poured the rest of the powder in a thin line that stretched about 6 feet from the film can. Forgetting how quickly black powder flashes, I dropped a match on the line of powder while getting ready to bolt. In about 1/10,000 of a second the can ignited. After I stopped running into the house and into the shower to cool off the left side of my body, the hearing in my right ear slowly began coming back. The next day, I was out in the back yard talking to the next door neighbor and he asked if I heard that big blast late last night. I said WHAT DID YOU SAY! I never did tell him how stupid I was, screwing around with that much powder. A few weeks later the hair had grown back on my right leg, arm and side of my face. :shock:

[Newtire]

A long time ago, far far away, I got the bright idea on Forth of July to dispose of a pound of FFG black powder that I had left over from a Lyman .36 cal Navy that I had sold a few years before. At the time, another hobby that I had was black and white photography and still had a few bulk .35mm film cans that I had kept for nuts and bolts. I filled one with the FFG and wrapped it 6 ways to Sunday with duct tape. I would guess that it held about 3/4 of the 1 pound can of FFG. I poked a hole in the top and poured the rest of the powder in a thin line that stretched about 6 feet from the film can. Forgetting how quickly black powder flashes, I dropped a match on the line of powder while getting ready to bolt. In about 1/10,000 of a second the can ignited. After I stopped running into the house and into the shower to cool off the left side of my body, the hearing in my right ear slowly began coming back. The next day, I was out in the back yard talking to the next door neighbor and he asked if I heard that big blast late last night. I said WHAT DID YOU SAY! I never did tell him how stupid I was, screwing around with that much powder. A few weeks later the hair had grown back on my right leg, arm and side of my face. :shock:

You might have heard a few of the M-80's that I used to "time fuse" with one of my Dad's Pall Malls going off down at our little railroad walkway at the end of your street. I would be sitting watching TV when it would go off. He asked me one time, "Was that you?" All that time, I thought that my Dad never knew.

[500MAG]

When I was a kid I found an old Winchester 1893 shotgun in an abandoned warehouse. My father and I tried our hardest to action the slide, but it wouldn't budge. We pulled back the hammer and clicked it off several times but nothin happened. Put it in my closet till I had a chance to break it down. My uncle came to visit that summer and my dad told me to go get it. We starting messing with it and smacked the butt on the carpeted floor a few time while trying to action the slide. When I went to stand up with it I hit the trigger and BLAM double ot buckshot threw my mom's livingroom ceiling. Man, was she mad. Lesson learned? The gun is always treated as if it is loaded.

[popper]

M-80's that I used to "time fuse" But that was fun - perfect alibi. Match book works good too. You can hold lady fingers with your finger nails, but not 'black cats'. You put fire crackers someplace and then light them, you don't light and then throw them. Cherry bombs in a drain pipe with a tin can on top will send that can into the neighbor's, 2 doors down, yard.

[Freightman]

Old SG's are dangerous, my Okie cousins found one out in a pasture and went home trying to get it to open with a hammer, one was hitting the other was holding and the other brother was laying on the bed with his arms stretched out. "BOOM" hit the brother on the bed at the right elbow, after 10 surgeries in OKC and months of rehab he had 60% use of it, bothered him for 60 years until he passed.

[Lance Boyle]

I'm too tried to decap my finger, I had inserted a case but not quite fully, run it up and it hit the flat on the expander ball with the case mouth. Back down, push over, and run up again with finger not yet withdrawn. Dang that smarts!

So far I've managed just one round of .223 with a cannalured 77 grain nosler firmly crimped with no powder. Fired it at the range and the bullet never budged. Pull the bullet at home and the boat tail was heavily sooted up.

Recently I had some .30-06 Lake City cases that I had used the dillon military crimp remover on. Only I didn't do it enough for the russian LR primers. Seating was a bit firm with about 5 in 15 cases primed so far were a bit too snug. I set them aside as I went on about on case 20, I get another firm one and use a bit more muscle figuring it'll pop down like the others. Bang! My right ear rang pretty good. I deprimed the 5 stickers in the garage slooooowly and redid all the remaining cases with the dillon set to swage them even more. I already knew the russian primers were quite variable on width so I should have stopped sooner and reswaged the primer pockets.

[WILCO]

I was casting with some Gun Range lead and when the pot was halfway down, I reached for another muffin ingot marked GR from the shelf. Dropped it in and noticed one "W" as the other"W" slid below the surface. Not a major problem, just ended up with a different alloy than planned........