What's the most stupid thing you did casting/reloading that you won't do again!

[Sig556r]

almost lost a digit converting 223 brass to 300BLK/277WLV with that cheap HF mini-saw...it has a safety stop which I took out to streamline the process, well, it's there for a reason that I now know...

[MrWolf]

Turning down a Ruger Red Label shot gun for $600, was the thing I will always regret

Was buying a bunch of guns from a family before went to a gunbroker. I didn't care for Winchester over my Marlins. Was offered a NIB Winchester 45 colt lever. Just spent a bunch and said no. I still kick myself and it has only been about six or so years.

[RED BEAR]

I actually didn't start reloading to save money. I started so i could shoot more with the money i had.

[Wayne Smith]

Missread my powder scale. Thought the slide was on 0, it was on 10. The difference between 5 and 15 grains BE took off forcing cone, put a piece of it against my skull, and bent the side plate of a Colt Army Special 41 Colt. I'm still amazed it didn't come apart more - that is one strong gun.

[Mica_Hiebert]

In my teens I was teaching myself to reload and found out the hard way that H4831 and imr4831 are not the same. I got some powder burns and a damaged rifle.

[Petander]

Mistake: I stopped casting bullets for a few years.

Another one is trusting a phone's SD card for chrono/load data. Those cards do fail just like any other digital media,I should have know better,working with computers since the 80's. Oh well.

[Walks]

Using the RCBS Primer Pocket Swager to swaged 1500 G.I. 45ACP cases. Pushing really hard, actually hitting the handle to pop off the case from the nipple gave me PERMANENT Tennis Elbow.
Can only be fixed by Surgery.

[C-dubb]

Loaded a few rounds to try out my brand new Interarms Mauser 270. Doubled a load and it was the very first round I fired in my brand new rifle. Took a hammer and a piece of wood to get the bolt open but that action was undamaged.
That was 40 years ago and it was a lesson well learned.

[Winger Ed.]

gave me PERMANENT Tennis Elbow.Can only be fixed by Surgery.

You're lucky shooting is your hobby.
Otherwise, you might have ended up with Golf balls.

[Daver7]

Mistake.....Nope not me. I've never made a mistake.
Anyone who tells ya different must be mistaken.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[MrWolf]

Just realized that the NIB Winchester lever 45 was for $200 and I didn't buy it.

[Burnt Fingers]

Loaded a few rounds to try out my brand new Interarms Mauser 270. Doubled a load and it was the very first round I fired in my brand new rifle. Took a hammer and a piece of wood to get the bolt open but that action was undamaged.
That was 40 years ago and it was a lesson well learned.

What kind of .270 load allows a double charge?

For me it was buying a Hornady LnL AP instead of a Dillon 650. I lost my shorts selling all my Hornady stuff.

[dondiego]

I discovered when I was around 15 years old that my dad's pristine Trap Door Springfield 45-70 is not a very strong action when loaded with Hornady 500 grain jacketed bullets. I should have bought that loading manual and scale. First reloads..............

[sniper]

You're lucky shooting is your hobby.
Otherwise, you might have ended up with Golf balls.

[JimB..]

I bought out an estate and with it got tens of thousands of reloads in .40, .45, .357, .380, .500, and .223/5.56. I pulled some for the components, but eventually was just looking for how to get rid of the things. Called a local gun range and they said that they would dispose of them. Cool, they were labeled in ammo cans that I wanted to keep so I just dumped some into a dozen mfrb’s and took it to them. Their guys took it out of my car and took it to their cars, I asked how they were disposing of it, and they said they’d just shoot it.

Didn’t take them any more, and never heard of a problem, but it still irks me. Was pulling down the last of the .357 a couple weeks ago to salvage the winchester silvertips and unfired starline brass, they were loaded at 175% of book max, clearly labeled and confirmed by weighing several loads.

So the dumbest thing was not stopping the guys and taking it all back home. Probably not my problem, but I’ll still feel bad if one of them blows off a few fingers or a hand. I don’t shoot at that range very often.

[truckjohn]

Probably the dumbest thing is trusting electronics for my records rather than doing it the old fashioned way and writing it all down in a bound book..... "Oh... I will never loose that info" spoken right before the electronics horks out it's brain and looses EVERYTHING!!!!

[Land Owner]

I was a Grasshopper at the beginning of the journey and heating my (one and only at the time) new 45 Devastator HP mold by dipping it into the melt in the pot. In an instant of mind-checked-out-for-a-second when the top side of the mold was hot I nonchalantly turned it over and stuck the mold and its screw-on wooden handled HP insert into the pot. Another Homer Simpson (face palm), "Dooph!"

By the time I came back-to-the-future and withdrew the mold the heat had scorched all of the finish off of that wooden handle and it had started to cook the wood. Still works well though, but I think about that insanity every time I use that mold...and wonder how I could have been so STOOPID?

Eyes on the Boat or bad things can happen that one would least expect.

[skrapyard628]

Havent done stupid with reloading. But I did get myself a horrendous case of poison ivy at the range. The range is an old gravel quarry pit and there are benches/tables at the top of the pit and you shoot down into the pit there.

I was shooting an AR15 with a scope and bipod off of the table. I squirmed around a bit to get a better position and because I was looking through the scope I didnt notice I was knocking my pistol off the front of the table by hitting it with the bipod leg.

It slid about 30 yards down into the gravel pit and stopped when it disappeared into some bushes. So we called a range break and I climbed down there to the bushes to rummage around and find my gun.

Paid no attention to the fact that those "bushes" were mostly poison ivy because I just wanted to find my pistol. Found the gun. Got home and wondered why I was so dang itchy....Arms, legs, neck...poison ivy everywhere!!!

[15meter]

Loaded some 06 cast loads on my Dillon 550 with 4759. Had one that bridged and dropped a tad heavy on the next round. Took a heavy wood mallet to open that bolt.

And that case sits on a shelf right in front of my reloading press as a reminder, don't be stooopid. I don't have any place to store it.

I don't have horns like a steer. Steers have got horns to store all the extra stooopid they were born with.

No ugly stick powders in progressives where you can't visually check EACH AND EVERY round for powder level.

[RogerDat]

Well since we are limited to reloading I can't really claim every day after the first 3 dates with my ex-wife.... so I'll go with teaching my wife of the last 22 years to shoot. If I'm alive when she actually looks at the price tags on the boxes in the primer inventory or powder inventory and does some basic math I won't be alive long after.

My receipt book for lead and scrap would likewise at the very least get me kneecapped with a nice lady sized .38 special, good thing it is a revolver she only has 5 shots and doubt she would be mad enough to reload.

Recently while melting some pewter in a large pot I went to dump it into a small pot on an electric burner, just as I started to pour I realized the small pot was cold and could..... tried to stop pouring heavy pot and jump back at the same time. Only sloshed a bit from the big pot as I aborted the pour but that bit hit the cold put and promptly exited after a super brief rumble.

Splashes on concrete floor not too bad to clean up, metal table, easy, the stuff that landed on the empty upside down plastic buckets? Eh, not so good. Embossed itself into the plastic. Only one bit hit my full length jeans and it was cool enough to do no harm. So if one is going to toss molten metal to the tinsel fairy I suggest expensive tin is by far the best choice. At least that way all the scraping and collecting to clean it up is worth it. Man all that for $1 a pound lead would have been like twice as annoying.

It better be hot or it better be not. Need a sign for my casting bench that says that. Maybe next to my full face shied hook.