Woops

[metricmonkeywrench]

Friday the weather was great so off to the range. Had a grand ole time with a .38, wrestled through an anemic 9mm load that would not cycle my M&P but the trouble started when I pulled out the .357 SAA. This was my first load with AA #7 under a 156g gas checked bullet. Loaded up the six and the first round didn’t feel right, Way too powerful with a pretty good muzzle flip. Went to pull the hammer back to the loading notch to upload and look at the brass, and the gun was tied up hard. Luckily I was able to get the base pin out and work the cylinder out. The 5 remaining rounds fell right out and somewhere along the way the primer fell out of the fired case which was well stuck in the cylinder. Back in the range bag for the trip home. The case was stuck pretty good but punched out out of the cylinder with a good sharp rap. So far as I can tell the gun survived the encounter, nothing looks cracked, broken or bent.

In the post analysis, I broke down some of the remaining remaining rounds In the box and found 17g of #7 not the expected 10. Not sure how I did that!!! I generally double check powder loads using my trusty 5-10 and an electronic scale to confirm

The only thing I can figure is that my process was interrupted by something like the wife, dog, grandkid, phone and so on and I missed the confirm powder dump setting on either my Uniflow or Lyman 55.

[Winger Ed.]

It's easy to do.
When I have a interruption while loading, I get up and walk away from the bench.

[Neverhome]

4 kids still at home here. I do most of my prep stuff in front of the tv but when it’s time for powder I sequester myself someplace private. Stupid Great Dane tail is NO help either.

[rintinglen]

I once had to pull nearly 200 357 cartridges because HP-38 canisters looked the same as H-110 canisters. At the time. all my reloading was done with 5 powders, and each was in a completely different container. WW-231 in a 4 pound jug for most pistol cartridges, Unique in a round cardboard container for my 44 Spl., H-110 in a small, 1 lb, round, plastic container for Magnum stuff, WW-748 in a rectangular plastic bottle for 30-30" and 308's and IMR4350 in a maroon metal can for my -06. All was well until a friendly neighbor gave me some of her Dad's reloading stuff that he could no longer use. Lead, a mold, a case trimmer, and a nearly full container of HP-38. A round, plastic, one pound container. So, I had a batch of empty 357 brass and some Gas-checked RCBS 162 grain SWC's raring to go. 15.7 grains of H-110 was THE load for that boolit, with a CCI 550 Small pistol primer to set things off. I grabbed the small, round, black plastic, 1 lb. bottle off of my powder shelf and proceeded to fill my powder measure and set to loading, carefully checking every 10th round or so to make sure I was getting the right amount, but it was metering wonderfully well and not a hiccup was noticed. At length, every case was full, every bullet was seated and a stout crimp in place to insure complete combustion, so it was time to clean up. My practice then and now is to only have one canister of powder on the bench at a time, so I unscrewed the powder measure and lifted it to pour the unused powder back into the container. The one with the yellow and white label that said "HP-38."

I was momentarily flabbergasted. Then I remembered putting away the gifts my kindly neighbor had given me, including the powder, the powder which now was nestled under my carefully, cast, sized and gas-checked boolits in quantities more than double the maximum recommended for a booloit that size and weight. I am grateful I caught it then, but it took me the rest of my free time that weekend to break down those rounds. All of the gas checks separated from the bullets and had to be tipped with a screw driver and pulled out with a pair of needle nose pliers. I learned two valuable lessons. 1st, double check your powder, and your powder charge from your source before setting out, and second, use crimp-on gas-checks.

Be careful and stay safe.

[Burnt Fingers]

I have CFE Pistol, CFE Black, and CFE 223 powders in my inventory.

I'm VERY careful which powder I pull off the shelf.

[megasupermagnum]

I have CFE Pistol, CFE Black, and CFE 223 powders in my inventory.

I'm VERY careful which powder I pull off the shelf.

I never did like the way Hodgdon named powders. I hate that there are 4 versions of clays powder. Clays, International Clays, Universal Clays, and Alliant makes Clay dot. All four distinctly different.

[LUBEDUDE]

I never did like the way Hodgdon named powders. I hate that there are 4 versions of clays powder. Clays, International Clays, Universal Clays, and Alliant makes Clay dot. All four distinctly different.

I agree 100%! I brought that up to someone at Hodgdon’s. His reply was, “nobody complains about Red/Blue/Green Dot powders”.

I tried to explain to him that most people are visual as opposed to aurel for memory. That’s why highlighters come in colors, and people color code almost everything. He would not concede and he held to his guns.

[Burnt Fingers]

I never did like the way Hodgdon named powders. I hate that there are 4 versions of clays powder. Clays, International Clays, Universal Clays, and Alliant makes Clay dot. All four distinctly different.

At least they changed the labels.

Now it's Clays, Universal Clays Technology and International Clays Technology. In each case the Universal and International are in larger letters than the Clays Technology.

Clay Dot can't be blamed on Hodgdon.

There's also IMR Red, Blue, and Green

[Silver Jack Hammer]

I recently posted how I read my scale wrong and set it for 10.3 gr. instead of 13 gr. I’ve used that scale primarily since 1978. Dah me. My loading process involves throwing ten and weighing them. 10 x 13 was 130 when I was in school. I was getting 103 gr. Took me a while to untangle where the problem was.

I was loading some AA #5 in .45 Colt recently and noted the small powder dose was down at the bottom of the case where it was hard to see. If AA #9 is also a low loft powder, then wouldn’t it be harder to see in the .38 which is smaller case? I don’t have any experience with it personally.

This is why they developed Unique powder in the first place, the old Bullseye was too easily double charged.

[Biggin]

I'm not gonna say I'm perfect cuz I could screw up the next time I load something. However thrre is reason why I don't get around to loading as much anymore. It's like riding a motorcycle or flying a plane if my head ain't in it I don't load. Simple as that.

[onelight]

Sure glad she held the pressure .
I would check where the cylinder is cut for the locking bolt I have seen a 45 colt with enough of a dimple Inside that a fired case could not be ejected without a hammer and a drift .

[metricmonkeywrench]

I got real lucky, been over the frame and cylinder and just don’t see anything telling. I don’t have a ball gauge set but a fired case from a different box rattles around pretty much the same in all 6 cylinders. I didn’t have the foresight to mark the effected cylinder. I’m beginning to believe since it was a 357 on the P frame it survived an Elmer Keith level load....

My last check will be cylinder gap once I get everything scrubbed down to get an accurate reading and find the specs, may not be a good check though as I don’t have a before measurement.

Then it’s off to the range to shoot something proper.

[osteodoc08]

I had similar happen to my 586. Shot one and recoil was fierce and stung my hand. Cylinder swing out normal but used a dowel to pop the offending casing out. Weighed the rest of the batch and all appropriate charge. Don’t know if one bridged in the Dillon 550 or what. Those were all scraped.

Stay ever vigilant my friends.

[gwpercle]

When the fired primer falls out of the pocket and you have to drive the fired case out the chamber with a rod....sure sign of just a wee bit too much powder ... might want to back that load down.

I did that in my ignorant youth but luckily the Ruger Blackhawk was built heck for stout ... I shot all 6 !!!
Gary

[Art in Colorado]

i never did like the way hodgdon named powders. I hate that there are 4 versions of clays powder. Clays, international clays, universal clays, and alliant makes clay dot. All four distinctly different.

amen brother!!

[metricmonkeywrench]

Welp final update, though everything looks fine I did bulge the cylinder a wee bit. Went out to the range today to check out the gun and a new mid range load. Everything moves correctly and it locks up tight but when I went to eject all but the one dropped easily and I had to lean on the ejector pretty good to get the shell out.

So for now I have a five shooter. Guess I’ll have to mark that one as the SAA “skip one” empty cylinder for the hammer to fall on until I decide to replace it.

[cp1969]

I would not use that cylinder any more.

[cp1969]

I had similar happen to my 586. Shot one and recoil was fierce and stung my hand. Cylinder swing out normal but used a dowel to pop the offending casing out. Weighed the rest of the batch and all appropriate charge. Don’t know if one bridged in the Dillon 550 or what. Those were all scraped.

Stay ever vigilant my friends.

I had the same thing happen with a supposedly <1000 fps WW231 load in a Redhawk. Never did find out what happened.

[uscra112]

I'd make a tight-fitting wooden plug to fill that chamber, to make it impossible to forget which one to not load.

[Alferd Packer]

I recently posted how I read my scale wrong and set it for 10.3 gr. instead of 13 gr. I’ve used that scale primarily since 1978. Dah me. My loading process involves throwing ten and weighing them. 10 x 13 was 130 when I was in school. I was getting 103 gr. Took me a while to untangle where the problem was.

I was loading some AA #5 in .45 Colt recently and noted the small powder dose was down at the bottom of the case where it was hard to see. If AA #9 is also a low loft powder, then wouldn’t it be harder to see in the .38 which is smaller case? I don’t have any experience with it personally.

This is why they developed Unique powder in the first place, the old Bullseye was too easily double charged.

Unique powder was developed first if I remember right.
Then bullseye was the fines that were left when they screened Unique to get out the powder dust and pieces of Unique that were smaller than the size Unique needed to be to burn uniformly.
They then canned up all the fines and measured its burning rate finding it much faster of course.
They found it worked as a pistol target powder and named it Bullseye.
It was way too fast for shotgun powder or rifle powder.
Worked well in .45 acp and.25acp as well as .32acp and even
.38 special, but only enough for target velocity. Double charge would fit easy and destroy the pistol.
Unique was better for .38 pistol and .44 and .45 Colt.
I read that somewhere years ago in an old book about the Laflin and Rand powder company.
Anyone else read that book?