The BoneHead Confessionals

[357maximum]

It came up on another post but not wanting to seriously hi-jack that thread here goes.


I am a BONEHEAD

Awhile ago while loading a few j-word 7mm-08 rounds of a proven recipe I had one of them moments that haunt a feller for awhile.


I dropped a large rifle primer on the floor when it popped out of my bench prime prematurely on my 3rd round loaded. I picked it up off the floor set it in the prime tool and primed my case. I continued to load the rest until finished all 50 rds. I then grabbed the first five rounds out of the block and headed outside to my personal 440 yard range to pop a few at my 400 yard swinger plate. The first 3 hit just like they should....the 4th round went bang/pssst and I felt something hit my right cheek. Puzzled I opened the bolt and the brass was glued to my bolt face in the rifle. I tried pulling the brass off the bolt after removing the bolt....no dice. So I came in and sat down at the bench and fiddled with the bolt/case till I free'd it from the bolt. My primer blew and expanded the case head enough to crack the bolt head ring above the extractor...damn. As I sat there contemplating what had went wrong I see a primer on the floor....it was the one I had "dropped and picked up" earlier...hmmmmm me thinks...***. I had inadvertantly "actually" picked up a large pistol primer I had dropped a few days earlier while loading some 45acp. doh

The rifle was fixed at my expense and in all reality it was a cheap lesson...it could have been worse ...by far


Heres to better house keeping :drinks:and be careful out there...I am very careful...but I am also a slob at times......dont be like me...clean up everytime...not just sometimes.

Michael

[Nueces]

Thanks, Michael, you'll never know how many crania your words might have saved.

Mark

[rvpilot76]

Learn from the mistakes of others, for you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.

I would have thought that a large pistol primer would have more poop than that. It's not like you were using a magnum rifle powder or load in your 7-08, right?

[BABore]

It had plenty of poop, just too thin of skin. It blew due to the top end load and thinner cup. Kind of like an aneurisum.:mrgreen:

[jdgabbard]

This could go both ways though. Rifle primer in hot pistol load. Could produce way to much pressure. This is why I am extremely observant when loading. I visually inspect everything, and then double check it.

You're a lucky man that it didn't go much worse.

[357maximum]

almost 30yrs of handloading and it CAN still happen to everyone....that is why I shared....quite frankly it scared me a bit.

[copdills]

Thanks for sharing michael

[Boomer Mikey]

I'm glad you weren't injured Michael,

This could happen to any of us if we become complacent... I've been lucky so far...

I'm over 60; everything I do seems to end up on the floor... Just last night, while I was making some 41 Magnum hand loads I spotted a primer on the floor while priming cases - picked it up and started to put it in the primer tray... oops the primer was a WLR and I was using WLP's. How did I know it was a WLR???

Large rifle and larger pistol primers have different color anvils. The WLP's have a gold color anvil and the WLR primer I picked up had a green anvil.

If it were the other way around the large rifle primer would have been sticking up proudly out of the case warning you something is wrong (high primer).

Paying attention to the details can save your assets sometimes.

Boomer :Fire:

[Bret4207]

I hesitate to admit to the many boneheaded stunts I've pulled. Most I've gotten away with, a few I bear the scars from. Lets just say there aren't too many common boneheaded stunts (BHS) I haven't experienced first or second hand.

[No_1]

Dang Michael,

The other day I dropped some primers while loading the flip tray. Never found all of them. I guess it is time for a major clean-up before I have a major problem.

R.

[Rick N Bama]

There's no telling how many dropped primers I've picked up & used.......also there's no telling how many I couldn't find. I don't think I'll use a dropped primer again!

Sometimes it's hard to admit when we make mistakes, but in doing so we may well save someone else from making the same problem.

Thanks for sharing that with us.

Rick

[targetshootr]

I was using the grinder one day and pow, a primer went off from the sparks. Took me a minute to realize what it was. No damaged to anything but eardrums.

Off topic, once I was at a farmhouse to wire a heat pump and thought I'd take a second to read the warning posted on the electric fence. About halfway through, someone called my name and when I turned around my reflex was to reach out to keep my balance and of course I wrapped my hand around the top wire. It turns out that warning label was entirely accurate.

[HeavyMetal]

You want scary?
Dropped primers on floor... started picking them up. Got about 10 or so in my hand and realized I didn't have any more to pick up????

Watched the cat eat the last one as I figured out what she was doing!

Didn't stand behind her for a week!

[leadeye]

You want scary?
Dropped primers on floor... started picking them up. Got about 10 or so in my hand and realized I didn't have any more to pick up????

Watched the cat eat the last one as I figured out what she was doing!

Didn't stand behind her for a week!


Now that's scary!

I always vacuum mine up when I clean up. Never thought about them going off in the canister.

[fatnhappy]

I'm glad you're OK Michael. Everything else can be replaced.

[kmag]

In 1970 I was loading some 357 dropped a primer and picked it up. When I shot that batch of
shells I had one that failed to ignite the powder. left the boolit stuck between barrel and cylender. That was the last time I picked up a dropped primer. If I drop 1 or a tray of 100 they are food for the shop vac.

[357maximum]

Off topic, once I was at a farmhouse to wire a heat pump and thought I'd take a second to read the warning posted on the electric fence. About halfway through, someone called my name and when I turned around my reflex was to reach out to keep my balance and of course I wrapped my hand around the top wire. It turns out that warning label was entirely accurate.

[smilie=1:To further prove how dumb I can be[smilie=1:...I have an electric fence story also. About 10 yrs agomy F.I.L bought this little red boxed solar powered/6volt electric fencer for his garden. After he had it all set up...My brain says to me "what a stoopid idea , there is no way in haites that thing will keep a rabbit out" so ...I get down on my right knee and quite willfully and quite brashly grabbed ahold of the bottom wire like I knew what I was doing...turns out I was verry verry wrong :confused:about the power of that thing. My knee and elbow went numb instantly and ached for quite awhile.....solar panel and a 6volt battery...huh ..what...who woulda thunk it. My F.I.L did enjoy the show though.

[Alvin in AZ]

I don't think I'll use a dropped primer again!


That's never happened to me because I look inside the primer and compare it
with the ones it's supposed to match.

Not saying there aren't primers out there that're-different but look-alike it's
just that I've never ran across any of them so far. :)



Sometimes it's hard to admit when we make mistakes...


Not me or my brother! LOL :)
We were raised by a "momma's boy" and automatically don't want to be like him.

He never made a mistake and was never wrong about anything -in-any-way-
in his entire life.

He was such a joy to be around. ;)
LOL :)



Thanks for sharing that with us.
Rick

Yeah. :)

Alvin in AZ

[NHlever]

When I was pretty young I was visiting my uncles, and had to pee. My uncle said "betcha can't hit that wire"............ I did, and didn't grow up to be an electrician.

[runfiverun]

primers in the vacuumn?
only once: i remember my mom vacuuming up some spilled primers once.
and i still remember the duct tape over the hole in the side of the vacuumn.
mom never cleaned the reloading room again.

[deltaenterprizes]

I am surprised the pound fired a LP primer is shorter than a LR primer,thank God you were not hurt.

[454PB]

My most recent screwup was fairly innocuous. I had two guns on the same bench, a Redhawk .44 magnum and a Puma model 92 in .454 Casull. I grabbed the wrong ammo, and fired a .44 magnum in the Puma. It didn't even split the brass, just put a bulge on it above the rim. I keep that case on the shelf above my loading bench as an attention reminder.

[357maximum]

I am surprised the round fired. A LP primer is shorter than a LR primer,thank God you were not hurt.

FWIW....I have intentionally shot quite a few LP primers in rifles(severely light pistol boolit loads)..I never had one fail to go bang....this time however it was not intentional and it had a full house load of H335 under a 120 grain sierra. The gun proably could have actually been fired after the incident, but I doubt it would extract very well...My brain was larger than my berries and I did not find out if it would in fact go bang in it's condition after the oops.

I watched that LR primer hit the floor (or so I thought)...the real primer dropped that day was about 6inches from the KABLOOEY PRIMER and was barely hiding behind the leg of my bench.

[Pitmaster]

Now that's scary!

I always vacuum mine up when I clean up. Never thought about them going off in the canister.

Here's a thread from GlockPost.com (http://www.glockpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4466) where a guy was vacuuming his carpet and set off a primer. Pictures included.

[Buckshot]

..............One of my boyhood friend's dad got tired of the cat's yodeling at night on their back wall. He rigged up some kind of electric wire on top, held up by pieces of old garden hose. For power he used (IIRC) some old flourescent light ballasts or transformers or something like that. This was back in the early '60's.

They had a Doughboy swimming pool and I was over swimming when I couldn't stand it any longer so I asked Steve (my buddy) what that smell was? He didn't know and I guess didn't smell it. We got out of the pool and began peering into the bushs by the back wall and found a dead cat. Come to find out years later that whatever his dad had hooked up was putting out some kind of hellacious juice into that wire and had electrocuted it.

We had an electric fence around the pasture we had our horse and mules in. It was a juicy one, and would actually clip off small plants and stems that got up against it. I never saw any of'em ever get bit, but they must have because they all knew about it and respected it. I had a neon tester with a probe and the electrified wire stopped by the gate on the hinge side, and on the other end of the gate was their water barrels. The gate was by the feed shed and I kept the tester there.

Once in awile there'd be a couple of'em lounging around by the water barrels so I'd get the tester out. The neon end had a hook on it and all you had to do was set that hook over the wire, and at that tiny sound you had their total and completely undivided attention :-). An equines' facial expressions are in their eyes, ears and the set of their head, having no facial muscles, however you could read volumns into what they were thinking.

They'd stand there with their attention rivited on me. All I had to do was move the probe close to the stock wire fence below the hot wire, and at maybe 1/8" or a bit less seperation it'd arc. At that sound they were gone! They'd swap ends and haul butt. It was actually quite hilarious because it didn't matter which of'em were down there, it was always the same deal over and over.

.................Buckshot

[Bass Ackward]

Bonehead? Oncest or twice. :grin:

I used to keep my casting stuff around and under the reloading bench. As I loaded and found a bad (enough) bullet, I would chuck it in the pot.

That is until a mystery primer that I never saw went off with me. It had fallen into the dipper, sight unseen, and apparently wedged itself in the spout. It used the short barrel spout for a launching mechanism that worked better than I would have thought it would.

No more casting stuff around the bench for me.

[waydownsouth]

yep ive got a vacum cleaner with scorch marks on the inside from cleaning the reloading room floor

I also fired a couple of 243 rounds through a mates 6.5 x 55 when we were sighting in his rifle and i took the 243 along to test a few loads no damage to the rifle but did end up with some intresting looking 243 brass.

[looseprojectile]

got a six inch S&W 629 in trade really cheap. He couldn't hit anything with it. It came with a box of ammo with six bulged emties. They were .41 mag shells. I never told him. Be careful out there.
Life is good

[nicholst55]

I have a 3X3X12" block of steel in my shop, that I once knocked over onto a dropped primer. The very loud BANG startled me - nad caused me to sweep the floor. Since then I don't allow an accumulation of dropped primers and spilled powder.

[docone31]

I have never kept things that go pop, with things that heat. Just my way.
So far, I have been lucky. Real lucky.
Way back when, sometimes I even had a drink or two. It was always during that time I experimented with reloading. Why? I cannot tell you to this day.
However, loading my 30-06, one of my buddies brought me over a box of jacketed bullets. Herters, .309.
I had gotten into the habit of using compressed cases. Why? I have no clue, I certainly do not do that today. I do have double torn rotator cuffs.
That night, I never had black outs, just serious grey outs, I always remembered sooner or later, I decided to load some hot loads using the .309 jacketeds just to see.
My buddies came over and not to lose face, I grabbed my box of loaded shells and proceded to the range.
I am glad I only used magnum primers back then! I suspect if I had used the primers mentioned here, things might have turned out differently.
I picked up my rifle, chambered one of the rounds, lined her up, pulled the trigger.
It is hard to explain what happened.
I had fired a gazillion rounds through this rifle, I knew the recoil very well. It was just plain comfortable to shoot. She and I could do anything. Well, almost.
The shot felt different. It was unlike any recoil I had experienced. Almost a push rather than a thud. I had summoned stupid courage to fire it, kinda like my first reload, and it shot better than it ever did.
The primer however, was a different story. The rear of the case had machine marks from the bolt face where it never had before. The primer was more than cratered. The case ejected from the bolt/reciever, the primer stayed in the firing pin guide! I had to pop it out with my knife. Same with the next one, same with the next one. I ruined 100 cases with one shot each!
Well, today is different, but I never forgot that.
I have paper patched, made duplex loads, installed Lyman 57D reciever sights on an 03-A3. They are tough recievers. Only broke one tap.
The case pressure on the primer, stretched the primer pocket to where I could hand push a primer into it. Some fell back out. The spent primers went into the firing pin guide and were absolutely flat with deep milling marks from the bolt face.
That Savage was a great rifle. Shot great, took a beating, felt good to hold. A great rifle.
Those loads did not hurt it.
A compressed case of IMR 3031 behind a .309 150gn jacketed soft point. Stupid, stupid, stupid and dangerous. I had gotten overconfident, careless, and got away with it. I take chances, but nothing like that again.
I do not know why I never got a pierced primer. I should have at least gotten one. Nothing blew past the primer from the stretched primer pocket. The bolt never got hard to work.
I load with dippers. I check my load with a digital scale even if it is a reccomended published load. Hey, why not? Today, I stay with minimum loads. Someone else can do that.
That was a stupid thing on my part. I have made mistakes, but that was just plain dang gone stupid, preventable. That was my doing,no one else's. That I got away with it.....
I tell people that.
Someone was looking out for me that day.
I think about it every time I reload. I get lots of loads in my cases today.