Have a laugh at my expense....

[Salmon-boy]

Ok, so I've been having problems with CB's tumbling out of my Browning Hi-Power.

With all your help, I've gotten real smart and slugged the barrel, found I'm sizing too small and should be heat treating boolits to get them up to speed in this puppy..

So, here's my dilemma... Loading up a couple hundred -as-cast- test rounds for the weekend, I THOUGHT I poured more than enough powder into the hopper...

I get down to the last round, look up and see the hopper's run dry. DOOOOOH!

Just proved my father in law's old saying.. "Send you to school and you eat the book covers!"

Luckily I only have to pull down 30 or so rounds.. As I only have a Lee safety scale, I can't weigh them to see which are light..

[smilie=1: Or, maybe I'll take them to the range and play "Squib Hunter".... :mrgreen:

[montana_charlie]

Or, maybe I'll take them to the range and play "Squib Hunter"....
Maybe you shouldn't...

If you thought you had more than enough powder in the hopper, perhaps you did.
That would mean that some of those loads may have more in them than they should.

If you didn't watch the powder until loading the last round, who knows what's inside?
CM

[Wicky]

I agree with Montana, low loads may just jam a boolit in the barrel but if you have some how managed to drop double loads there may be worse results to your Hi Power and yourself. Weighing them may not help either due to variations in boolit and case weights and I would think your powder charge isnt huge, or maybe they are now! :shock:My suggestion would be pull them all and start again better to be safe than sorry.:(

[C1PNR]

Well, you're not going to hear any laughing from this corner! It hasn't been all that many years ago I did much the same thing with my .45 ACP and the Dillon. Really got "in the groove."

Then I got a heck of a workout with the bullet puller.[smilie=1:

[NVcurmudgeon]

Luckily I only have to pull down 30 or so rounds.. As I only have a Lee safety scale, I can't weigh them to see which are light..

.... :mrgreen:

I'm not familiar with the Lee safety scale, but I wouldn't hunt for a no powder load or an overload with ANY scale when dealing with normal pistol charges. Accumulated variation in case and boolit weight would make it impossible to find the wrong one, heavy or light. Sorry, but it's the puller for you. We won't be laughing because most of us have done the same thing at least once.

[dubber123]

Curmudgeon is definately right, a variance of 10+ grains between case brands, or perhaps even individual matching headstamped cases is very possible. Add in the variance in cast boolit weights, and looking for a few grains difference in a loaded round is probably not going to yeild reliable results anyways. Best to pull them and try again.

[Jim]

THAT'S why I visually hand charge every round I load.

[nicholst55]

That reminds me of why I spent an additional $40 for the low powder sensor for my Dillon!

[Salmon-boy]

Glad I made some of your collective memories! The squib-hunter was a throwback to Bob & Doug MacKenzie. Toungue in cheek anayways... :-)

With the Lee Pro 1000, it's a definite movement to charge/seat the boolit. There's a definite feel on the push stroke (lowering the ram) when seating the primer. I hand seat boolits, so it's easy to get into the rythm of feeling the primer seat (or checking it if it didn't feel right), adding the boolit, and seating/charging on the downstroke (raising the ram). As such, I'm 100% confident that there are no double charges.. I've loaded over 2K .38spcl & .45acp and this is the first time I got into the rythm without checking...

Thanks for the input on the weighing idea. I figured there might be too much of a variation. If you can't tell, I'm not that anal that I weigh my cases and boolits for consistency... Well, YET anyways!

[KCSO]

Here is your answer, just hot glue a weigh of known value to the arm of the scale. Then set it to balance with a properly loaded round, then it will show light or heavy. A penny or a dime might balance out a 9mm with the Lee scale, yo aren't looking for weight just high or low.

[Blackhawk Convertable]

Shake the cases one by one. Most everything I load, you can hear the powder move. Pretty easy to tell which is which.

As far as weighing them: Bad Advice Bullets can vary in weight enough that can negate powder weight. A heavy bullet with no powder can weigh the same as a lighter bullet with powder.

30 is not that bad of a PITA. Take them all down and start over. Good lesson learned.

[DeanoBeanCounter]

OK I'll laugh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. That's only because I've had to tear down 250 rounds of .38 special. [smilie=1: Later I tore down 97 rounds of 30-30. [smilie=1: I know how it feels.
If we don't laugh at our selfs for blunders then we would go crazy. If we didn't learn from our blunders then we would be dead. :twisted:
Look at it this way. Large organizations buy large quantities of ammo and if one round does not go off like it should then they toss the whole lot out. :twisted:
Deano

[Goatlips]

Another reason to shoot Black Powder! :Fire:

Goatlips

[carpetman]

Another reason,besides the fact they will meter any type powder accurately to get a Belding&Mull powder measure----you see each charge.

[georgeld]

Hasn't been a month ago I had to pull down 330 .17 cal 20gr loads because I'd sized the shoulder too deep by 1/8".

You'd all get a great laugh seeing the knots formed on my arm muscle's from "Trying" to hammer pull those little pills without enough weight to move 'em.

Not a one came out with less than six real hard smacks, quite a few took more than 15.

At least after doing them all. I could fireform the case's and saved all but 13, when before just shooting them about 80% split the shoulders.

Those things required five trips thru the various sizing bushings to form. I'd been sent one from another guys gun before I got the chamber reamer and thought I'd get a jump start on the ammo supply. Major mistake it turned out to be.

After having the chamber reamed to match the case's sent to match the reamer is when I discovered the difference.

You got lucky there pal, 30?? HA! I wish.

[Saint]

Another reason to shoot Black Powder! :Fire:

Goatlips

Until you double load the muzzleloader that is. A few months ago I had my inline and my percussion rifles at the range. I was loading the inline and they called a cease fire so I stepped away from my rifle with 3x50 grain pellets loaded because the range officer instructed me to leave the rifle as is (last time I will do that). I went out to change my targets and when I got back I dropped in 3 more pellets. I then loaded a sabot round on top and by shear dumb, and bad, luck i grabbed the ramrod for the wrong rifle so when I measured the load depth it lined up fine. Pulled the trigger and found a whole world of hurt. I have fired a .50 caliber sniper rifle and I have never felt anything like the recoil of a 300 grain charge in .50 caliber muzzleloader. I could not shoot for about 2 weeks while my bruised shoulder bone healed. When I took the muzzleloader down later that day I could not get the breech plug out. I took it to a gunsmith and he told me the barrel was bulged slightly and that the breech plug was driven back with enough force to fuse the threads. The really stupid thing about it is that I never shoot 150 grain loads but I wanted to try it just once. Thank goodness for Walmart and their 90 dollar clearance muzzleloaders.

[nicholst55]

Until you double load the muzzleloader that is.

Or until you dry-ball it. And there's only two kinds of BP shooters - those who have dry-balled, and those who are going to dry-ball. ;)

[Saint]

Or until you dry-ball it. And there's only two kinds of BP shooters - those who have dry-balled, and those who are going to dry-ball. ;)

I dryballed my percussion pistol once on purpose because I wanted to make sure I could pull a ball when necessary. Does that count?

[Freightman]

There are 437.5 g in an ounce and you are going to find a7g variance in shells with a scale, my scale aint that good.

[Salmon-boy]

Ok, I know you've all been waiting... here are the results.

Weighing was DEFINTLY out. Playing squib-hunter was a joke, son. Get it, a Joke!

Somebody who wants to remain anonymous sent me a tip about using the powder funnel as a megaphone and shaking the cases. I read the post and tried it immediatly. I shook and listened to all 30 cases once and sorted into 3 groups. Good, Bad and Unsure. Here are the results.

15 fell immediatly into the Good category.
6 were obviously Bad.
9 I was unsure of.

Pulling them all down:
8 of the 9 unsure cases were full charges. 1 was a short charge.
5 of the bad cases were completly empty. 1 had less than 1gr of charge.
14 of the 15 good cases were full charges. The last had approximatly 1/2 charge.

Having loaded another 100 rounds yesterday, I realize what went wrong in the first place. The last 15 rounds I loaded I was paying more attention to primer feed than I was powder level. With the Lee Pro 1000, the primer feed below 10 primers is problematic at best.

Thanks all for the tips!

[Powderpacker]

You can put this experience in the "You ain't rode 'till you been throwed" file .

[oso]

"Peek when you seat" the bullet as part of your rhythm. Easier with a 9mm than .357 Mag case in the Lee Pro-1000.
I also have a colored wire twist critically placed on the powder meter return chain to flag if the chain separates.