It pays to be careful out there

[Beau Cassidy]

I just finished resizing a pretty good slug of .357 Sig brass and came across these 2 little jewels. This brass was bough as once fired. The first one I thought was maybe a fluke but then a few thousand cases later I came upon a second one. Neither had powder in them. In 25 years of reloading this is a first for me so I thought I might share. Both had previously been resized as they did not have primers in them but did have primer residue. They were Speer cases. I guess somebody may have tried to reload them at some point. These sure would have wrecked some decapping pins if I had not come across them.

[nagantguy]

Pay attention to EVERY operation at the loading bench just as at the shooting bench. Thanks.for the reminder and interesting pics!

[Bzcraig]

Wow, oops, oh carp!

[Old Scribe]

This could've ruined someones day!

[NavyVet1959]

Not much of a neck holding a .357SIG bullet in the brass. I have heard of this happening, but never encountered it. Once the bullet slips back, the powder can drain around the bullet.

[Beau Cassidy]

But they had already been deprimed !

[oger]

Looks like someone forgot to prime the cases and loaded them like they hadn't. Ball powder will run right out the primer hole. (I speak from experience)

[Tackleberry41]

Speer decided that they would use undersize holes in their 357 sig brass for whatever reason. I bought some once fired to reload, had to mod a decapping pin to be able to use them. Get the primers out then you can drill the flash hole no more problems, but you need to get them out first. Ran into the same issue w some S&B 22 hornet, ended up throwing them away after breaking the decapping pin in my die.

[Ola]

Usual reason for small flash hole is safety.

F.e. SAKO 7,62x53R cases have a really small flash hole because of the Mosin-Nagant rifles we have around here. If the primer gets "pierced", the high pressure cases will go inside MN's bolt and straight to the eye of the shooter. With smaller hole the probability of broken primer is lower.

[376Steyr]

Stuff like this is why I always put on my safety glasses the second I step up to my loading bench. Most of the "once fired" brass I buy is fine, but I've gotten batches that looked like someone had swept the floor of an old police department reloading room. I've found decapped cases, belled cases, primed cases, cases with the nickel worn off, and the occasional live round mixed in. Banging a decap pin into a live primer when you aren't expecting it could be startling.

[texassako]

I found a .223 case last fall like that. Picked it up and heard a rattle that I thought was a rock. Nope, it was the bullet.

[3leggedturtle]

Yep, every case gets looks at with a head lamp on high so i can see if the flash hole is berdan or boxer, had a few surprises with american made brass a few years ago, at least those bullets in there, were pretty obvious.

[Handloader109]

This is why it is worth it to clean my empty cases before I deprime. Allows me to sort out junk and different sizes (380 vs9mm)

[Wayne Smith]

Got ya beat. Once picked up a 45ACP case to find a wasp in it. Luckily it was cold and it was slow.

[huntrick64]

I had the same issue with 40 S&W. Broke a de-capping pin on my progressive when it hit a 9mm case stuck upside down inside the 40 case. After that I dug though the other 2,000 and found a few more like that. Came as bulk, once-fired so they copulated in the bin somehow.

[dtknowles]

Just last month I found a 5.56 cartridge jammed into the front part of another 5.56 case that had suffered a head separation. I check the shooters at the nearby benches at the range but nobody knew a thing.

Tim

[khmer6]

357sig is notorious for set back