Thank God for Ruger SRH strength

[HeavyMetal]

A sad example of how this country is breeding the common sense out of the average joe!

In this case he will, eventually, blow up a gun and, when he does, he will sue the maker because it must be thier fault!

Trey 45 has it right: some people are just not cut out to reload!

Now with a little luck he may have an "epifinay" and figure out that he's going down the wrong road but I won't hold my breath!

Maybe it's just me but it sure seems the 44 magnum brings out the most stupid in shooters / reloaders.

Seems every time I've been around someone doing something dumb at the range a 44 magnum, or a 458 Winchester, is involved!

The real question is: how do you fix the problem?

You did right to advise this guy he was endangering himself and others! Member of the range board or not I'd have told him the same thing!

The down side is a literal "Ticking Bomb" is walking around looking for another place to shoot and when, not if, it goes off the "shrapnel" will hit us all in the backside!

I wish we could be more proactive in these cases, any ideas?

[Frank]

Potsy:

Biggest problem I run into is some kid emptying his 30 round clip out of his SKS, sandbagged, of course, because he's got a scope on it, and hitting nothing at 50 yards.

Plays havoc with your nerves when you're shooting under roof.

Exactly. Teen shooters frequently means havoc. Good word.

[ole 5 hole group]

You should see it at the range this time of year.
They all come down from up there. We call them Snowbirds. Yet, they live!

You have to be referring to our brothers & sisters residing to the north of the 49th parallel north; otherwise, not a damn thing was learned from the War of Northern Aggression.

Getting back to the OP - I just hope this guy isn't teaching others less knowledgeable than him, for if he is, someone is going to pay the price for his stupidity- big time.

[jwp475]

Just got back from the range
One of our members was plinking at the 100 yd gong when I got there

He was using a 9 1/2" Ruger SRH in 44 mag
Every time he pulled the trigger , I thought OMG that was loud even with my muffs on and him in the next lane with a wall between us

After a little , we all went down to change targets
On the way back he was complaining about the short case life he was getting
2 reloads and new primers would drop out of the brass

That got me and another member asking questions

He was loading using a MAX load of Unique for a 240 gr jacketed bullet
But had run out of the 240's , so he started to use up the 300 gr jacketed bullets he had

But he never changed the powder charge

The primers were completely flat and were flowing around the fireing pin

We both had to argue with him that he was risking his safty with every pull of the trigger

He kept saying he had shot 150+ of this load over the last week and other than hard extraction everything was fine ( he had to drive each case out with a dowel , 1 at a time )

As a truste , I flat told him that IMO his load was a safety problem and he was to stop using it at the range or he would loose his range rights

After a few choice words he left , I wrote up the safety violation form , had the other member sign it also and pray he never shoots up the rest of those loads


Anyone have a clue what pressures he was running ?
I looked on his ammo box and saw his load there
His UNSAFE LOAD was .3 gr over what Allaint is currently listing as max for a 240 gr jacketed bullet
A 300 gr Hornady bullet loaded in the shorter length canalure and a Winchester LP primer in Winchester brass

I am guessing somewhere close to 60,000 PSI

Just glad he was shooting a Ruger SRH and not a Taures or Smith
As IMO he would have blown up his gun if not killed himself

I just wounder sometimes how people even think they are not going to hurt themselves or others when they will not follow safe loading practices

John

I asked a friend to run this through Quick Load useing 1.3 grains of Unique under the 300 grain Hornady and this what he came up with

Quickload has two entries for that bullet, it probably has two cannelures. That is an assumption on my part because the bullets are listed at different lengths, which would not be right, but the same part number. Possibly there is one flat point and one hollow point version which would account for the difference? But that would imply two different part numbers, I would think. If I understand the database correctly, the deeper seating depth ends up at about 42,000 PSI and the shallower one at about 39,000 PSI.

Pretty hot for Unique...... treat this info with caution, because something isn't quite 100% correct here.

[EchoSixMike]

The problem is that when the idiot blows up the gun, he probably isn't going to severely injure himself, it's the people to either side are going to be *****. The cylinder will be sprayed to both sides, the bottom strap will probably preserve his fingers. S/F.....Ken M

[Moonie]

Potsy:
Exactly. Teen shooters frequently means havoc. Good word.

Wow, you really don't like younger shooters, would love for you to shoot against either of my teenage boys, but then they are both Marines!

[Frank]

Moonie:

Wow, you really don't like younger shooters, would love for you to shoot against either of my teenage boys, but then they are both Marines!

In the military they call it, Friendly Fire. Yeah, right. "Friendly". With friends like that, who needs enemies?

[joelpete]

@ JWP475 Excellent illustration! I'm mostly an automatic shooter in handguns so I've always just kind of thought of revolvers as indestructible tanks. (NO, I WOULD NOT LOAD LIKE THE A$$CLOWN MENTIONED BY THE OP) The picture you posted clearly shows where one model has the capacity to be much more durable than another.

[Potsy]

Didn't mean to sound too crabby when I was talking about the younger guys with SKS's. I've emptied my share of bannana clips in short order when I was young.
It just adles me under roof.

Stupid people really have loused up the whole firearms industry. Everyone wants to cram evolution down our throats but lawyers are there to constantly interfere with the process of natural selection.

[9.3X62AL]

That story is almost UNBELIEVABLE--but not quite. That idjit is either COMPLETELY unacquainted with reloading manuals and their content, or is trolling for a lawsuit. People like that are out there. John did right by ordering his act off the range and documenting the incident.

[joelpete]

This reminds me of when I was about 13~14. We went down to my Aunt and Uncles house and did some plinking out back. Another Uncle brought his .357mag and let me shoot it (I hit nothing). He let me keep some of those nickle plated casings because they were split down the side. He shrugged it off at the time and said he usually put a little extra in while reloading. Wow... that all just hit home with me.

Fast-forward 23 years and I'm just getting into reloading. I read the Lee book before loading my first round. It took me a long time to find out just how stupid that former Uncle of mine was.

[jwp475]

Another person ran Quick Load with I think better parameters

and this is what he came up with for a 10.3 grains of Unique under the 300 grain Hornady bullet

I asked Hornady about this bullet last year. They told me the correct length is 0.860" +/- 0.005". The nose to the front cannelure is 0.310" +/- 0.005" (due to the length variance). That is for nominally seating it to 1.600" COL. The cannelures are 0.025" wide. The bottom cannelure is 0.45" +/- 0.005" from the nose for seating to a nominal 1.740" COL in long cylinder revolvers to get more powder capacity. They list no load data for that, however.

I get 48,500 psi and 35,600 psi, for 1.600" and 1.740" COL, respectively, using QuickLOAD's defaults. Bear in mind that QuickLOAD is really better geared toward bottleneck rifle cases than handgun cartridges. Revolver loads, in particular, are subject to barrel cylinder gap bleed down and other issues that the program can't account for. Nonetheless, I would be working up toward 10.6 grains with extreme caution from about 8 grains in .3 grain steps. Especially given Unique's tendency toward erratic metering in many powder measures.

As a side comment, I really don't see a good reason to run such a hot Unique load. You could get the same velocity in the shorter load from about 11 grains of Power Pistol, but do it at the pressure of the longer load, above.

[Geraldo]

You have to be referring to our brothers & sisters residing to the north of the 49th parallel north; otherwise, not a damn thing was learned from the War of Northern Aggression.

The 49th Parallel makes up part of the US-Canada border, and we certainly do get overrun by them, but I think docone31 is referring to all snowbirds, which I would classify as anyone north of the 28th Parallel.

On topic, I recall being at a bowling pin shoot years ago and one guy was getting rocked by his M29, the muzzle blast of which looked like a flash-bang going off. His buddy had made him some "hot" loads to knock those pins down...

[saz]

A couple of years ago I ran into this kid who looked in about his early 20's and said he was shooting his first handloads and asked me to take a look at them. He seemed really nervous at first and when I asked him what the load was (because there was nothing written down anywhere that I saw) he replied with "the load is fine". In reply I asked "what do you want me to look at then?" He grumbled something while I walked off, so I just kept an eye on this guy. 1st round, click...... 2nd, click and some more grumbling. 3rd sounded really funny- not enough report to be a 30-06 load. 4th was the same. I asked again along with the explanation of why I was asking what the load is and that you cannot download some powders. He replied with 22 grs of IMR 4350 and hornady 150 for a "light" load. I looked a little closer and it looked like he had charcoal spray on his face. Looked at the brass, black about half way down and primer never even tried to set back into the case. I also asked where he got this load data and what manuals he was using. He said that he didnt know there were such things as load manuals and that he did all of this stuff under the watchfull eye of his uncle in his shop, which is also where he got the "load data". Not trying to hijack the thread, just made me remember that.

[OldSchool]

Redhawk on left S&W M-29 on right

jwp475, thanks so much for this image. I had heard about Ruger being stronger, but this tells it all. I just hope I can remember this thread when I need to explain the quality of the Blackhawk/Redhawk to someone else!

[OldSchool]

Another person ran Quick Load with I think better parameters

and this is what he came up with for a 10.3 grains of Unique under the 300 grain Hornady bullet

Revolver loads, in particular, are subject to barrel cylinder gap bleed down and other issues that the program can't account for.

Which brings up another issue: What kind of erosion is he causing to the forcing cone and cylinder face? That SRH will need some work in a short time, I would think.

[dubber123]

I going to play the cold hearted SOB here. I hope he finds a nice solitary place and finishes out the rest of the ammo. It's time people started embracing the benefits of natural selection and stop saving others from it. The only thing I am upset by is his endangering YOU. For thousands of years, stupid people have been removed from the gene pool by natural selection and now, man, with his twisted reverse sense of morality decides to save the village idiot. It makes no sense to me. I have paid for my stupidity and so too should everyone else.

You are my new best friend.... I absolutely agree with your post. I hope I suffer for doing something stupid. It reminds me to not do that again, it's nobodies fault but my own. Babysitting fools benefits nobody but the fool.

[DeanWinchester]

Dubber123, you seem to have pretty clear vision. I'd buy you a cold one anytime.

[Johnch]

I wish I could have just let him blow up his gun

But then he would have probely tryed to sue the club or Ruger

But as of sometime this afternoon , his key card would not work
The head trustee called him and told him and that we would be returning his 2011 dues

As I called the other trustees and we all agreed to boot him

As he had been writen up 2 other times for safly viloitions

Just no need for a Darwin Award winner to be a member of the club

John

[btroj]

2 previous safety violations? Really? Who would have expected that?

Yu guys made a very wise decision. He was only going to give the range a bad name, not to mention what he is already doing to responsible gun owners. Sad thing is it would be most likely someone else he would hurt. Bringing a friend to try his big gun and all. What an idiot.

Glad to hear your club did the right thing. No amount of dues is worth dealing with e risk posed by people like him.