Sore Subject I'm Sure

[500MAG]

I have been reloading for many years now and have been lucky enough not to have any real foul-ups. I often have heard talk of blown up barrels and guns being ruined do to some bad loads. Would any of you be willing to speak of any past issues like this? The results and what led to them?:mad:

[kodiak1]

I have been reloading close to 45 years and the worst things I have had happen is forgot to prime case or didn't put powder in case.
I am very diigent when I reload and always take the time to put powders back in properly marked containers.
I don't know if it is luck or just good disipline but I have had no real problems and have never seen a real bad problem.
I have heard of it happening to other reloaders and it is a shame.

Be aware of what you are doing, What you are making and how you are making it would be my advise.

Ken.

[Wayne Smith]

There have been several threads of blowups in the past, a couple with pics. I have no idea how to search for them!

[wv109323]

I think one way to get in trouble real fast is not to empty your powder measure completely. There was a discussion a while back and it sounded like the guy had been loading a pistol powder and did not completely empty the powder measure then poured in some rifle powder and began reloading. The first load was thus some pistol powder and some rifle powder.
I have a RCBS Powdermaster and it is difficult to get all the powder out of the hopper.,

[OneSkinnyMass]

here's one thread on the subject,

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=150409&highlight=convertible

Skinny

[paul h]

Fortunately knock on wood I haven't had any major foul ups. I have had excessive pressure from following advice from an article in Handloader and Paco Kelley. Word to the wise is stick with published data from the powder and/or bullet manufacturers vs. somebody that likes to load hot.

I think the most important thing is to load when you have a big enough chunk of free time and are clear headed. If you're trying to get in a quick casting session, or are otherwise distracted or stressed out, you are bound to make a mistake. Take your time, take careful notes, and double check things when you aren't sure.

[500MAG]

Thanks Skinny. That thread was great. I think I will stay away from Unique. I prefer to use loads that will overflow the case with a double load.

[Longwood]

People are not machines.
People make stupid mistakes.
People make stupid mistakes under perfect conditions and when things are going smoothly.
People make stupid mistakes and I have seen it.
Last year a Cheap, Tightwad, Numbskull, Idiot, Stupid *******, handed me his pistol and the third round was a double charge.
I am glad/lucky that he was such a cheap bastard that his double load was puny enough that it did not split or crack the cylinder.
I went to the range one day in the 80's and was wondering what all of the fresh blood was about.
A double load had destroyed a Ruger 44 and a piece of the cylinder blew a chunk out of the face of the shooter next to the jerk that was too cheap/stupid to use a safe powder.

[MtGun44]

I double charged a .45 ACP case back in about 1983 or 4. The unsupported portion of the
case at the feed ramp blew out, split the grips, bulge the mag out into the grip frame
cutouts, and stung my hands.

Pulled the mag, trashed it. Replaced the grips and all was good.

My only reloading error of consequence so far.

Bill

[BossHoss]

I double charged a .45 ACP case back in about 1983 or 4. The unsupported portion of the
case at the feed ramp blew out, split the grips, bulge the mag out into the grip frame
cutouts, and stung my hands.

Pulled the mag, trashed it. Replaced the grips and all was good.

My only reloading error of consequence so far.

Bill

I was showing a friend who wanted to reload how to operate my RCBS Piggyback.

I have it set for manual powder drop. First time EVER anyone used the machine but me in twenty years......first mistake.

I sat him down to make 45acp....all was fine , he is very smart, with an engineering background, and many technical kudos to his name.

All went well....he made about 100 rnds. There were a few times we had to start, clear and start over, to show him the process.

Mistake number 2..............


At the range he was shooting his KIMBER Elite. KABOOOOM!!!

Indoor range , walls on either side of the booth.

Same happenstance....John Browning's design saved his hand. Grips bulge, mag and last round blown out the bottom. A Little pin scratch on his face, and a throbbing hand.

Kimber OK.

Double Charge of EXCATLY 10gns of Red Dot.. We checked it later....and a full double charge will fit and just barely compress.

MY BAD....not supervising closely enough, and/or letting someone else use my setup.

The student is now a master reloader, my rep got a mark on it at our club, and we now laugh at it.....but not then.

Do not break your routine , once you have established one.....EVER.

My only mishap. It's mine I own it, it happened on my press.

[snuffy]

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=117936

Here's my contribution to the Fatal mistake column,(fatal for the Ruger SBH)!

If you don't want to take the time needed to read the whole thread, it was most definitely a double charge.

This would have been prevented by using a loading block, charging powder in all cases being loaded, then visually inspecting the whole batch. I was loading on a lee classic turret, charging powder with the powder-through-expander-die. I simply got distracted, forgot to advance the turret after dropping a charge, dropped another one, then seated a boolit WITHOUT looking in the case.

[GT27]

The worst I have done is a overcharged 9mm on a Beretta 92,walked away with all my fingers,but the gun felt like what I would imagine firing a 500 S&W! The Beretta was ok also,(indoor range)embarrassing, and made me feel like a knucklehead! Every since all aspects of reloading get my full attention,and I fill cases and take a comparison look into the shells while their in the tray to have boolits seated! The best advice I have,"If there is ANY doubt what you have done,its better to break it down and start over until you are positive"! I have had the "normz" reloading too,upside down primers,crushed cases, tool misalignment!It's a learning curve that If not taken seriously can take fingers,up to your life! Absolute Attention= success!!! The majority of this is "common sense",you cant buy it, and put it in a plaque on the wall, you have it or you don't and we are in a time when that very thing is very uncommon!!!! GT27

[Rick N Bama]

A guy I used to shoot with has blown up at least 3 handguns with his handloads, A Glock 22, a taurus M608 & a Springfield 1911. Please note that I no longer shoot with him:)

He likes to load with max charges of fast powders so I think he's double charged the loads that blew the guns.

I've had squibs & no primer loads, even a primer or 2 installed upside down, but I've yet to blow a gun up, however I will admit to using Clays in 6 38spl rounds recently when I intended to use Universal Clays.

Rick

[geargnasher]

The only major faux pas I've had so far was using boolits that were too soft in a .45 ACP Kimber. Several rounds into a fresh magazine and KABOOM! I hadn't let them age enough, was using a custom, oversized expander, and tumble lube. The boolits were getting hammered deeply into the brass in the magazined under recoil, and when the boolits finally got deep enough to touch the powder, it did the normal "blowout" that 1911s tend to do. The last couple of rounds in the magazine (embedded in the ground between my feet where I was standing) had the boolit noses almost flush with the case mouth, that's how I figured out what happened.

Moral of the story? Check your boolit tension and make sure your cases are sized enough, and not expanded too much or too deeply with automatics.

Gear

[wallenba]

I never had an issue until I started using a turret press. It was with a Lee 4 hole auto indexer. My mistake was in using a manual powder dispenser instead of a case activated one.
They were 38 special 158 gr wadcutters. Midway through the box I pulled the trigger on a dud. Primer was struck, but no ignition. I tossed it aside after waiting a couple of minutes in case of hangfire. After seven or eight more shots, I got a wimp shot that got only as far as the forcing cone. There was NO powder in that round, and after carefully pulling the dud, NO powder there either.
My mistake was obvious. I had lost my 'rythmn' and missed charging those cases. In the quiet of my shop I shook the remaining rounds next to my ear one at a time. I found one more.
I prime and charge off press with that turret now, using a loading tray. It slows me a bit, but then I just, FL size, 'M' die expand, seat, then crimp. No issues since. (That FL die has it's decapper removed)
On my Lee Loadmaster I use an RCBS Uniflow that is case activated, followed by an RCBS Lock-out die.

[Char-Gar]

My first foray into reloading was in 1958 for a 30-30 rifle. The powder was 3031 and the bullets were 170 grain Hornaday. I did manage to forget the primers. At the range, this oversight was discovered when I pulled the trigger on the first round. I pulled the bullets, did it all over again and results were good. I never pulled that stunt again.

I loaded two or three rounds early on, without powder, but the error was evident when the trigger was pulled. I learned quickly not to do that again either.

Back about 2001, I bought a progressive reloader thinking that was what I must have, because so many other thought they were wonderful. I ran a batch of several thousand 38 Specials and everything was fine, until I pull the trigger one day and the old Colt Officer's Model bucked like a 357 Magnum. No damage was done to the handgun, but there was no doubt there was an overcharge. I quickly got rid of the progressive loader. You see, I can still learn.

I have never had any kaboom, damaged firearms or body parts of any kind. I made a few mistakes, but learned from them. Handloading mistakes are finite in number. If you don't repeat the same mistake, there is a chance you will run out of possible mistakes, before something really bad happens. It helps to learn from the mistakes of others as well.

[MBTcustom]

I have reloaded thousands and thousands of roundsand to date, I have only messed up twice. both were in my first 2 years reloading, and I knew there was something wrong with both batches but I was to stupid and lazy to pull the cartridges to be sure.
Screw up #1 was no charge in a 45ACP. The gun went bang, bang, bang, chunk! Fortunatly, I had the good sence to know what happened so I striped the pistol there at the range and used my truck antenna to poke the boolit out of the barrel. It was lodged right in the middle of the barrel and had I racked the slide and touched off another one, it would have been the end of a very nice 1911 longslide.
Screw up #2 was a bit more serious, even though I didn't get hurt with that one either. It involved a double charge in a 30-06 behind a cast lead boolit. I was shooting a modern winchester model 70. The only other cartridge that I have shot that kicked that bad was a 416 rem mag. I had to beat the bolt open with a rubber hammer, and the letters on the case head were stamped flat as a flitter to where I could barely read them. I just "knew" there was something wrong with that batch also, and I went ahead and shot them for the same reason that I shot that batch of 45s. Since that day, I have pulled three batches of 100 rounds. I cussed every step of the way, but as you can see, I'm still typing.

[Char-Gar]

Gear..Shoving the bullet back into the case far enough to cause bad over pressure can happen with factory ammo or proper handloads as well, IF the round is repeatedly feed from the magazine into the chamber. My Step-Son is an LEO and every night removed the round from the chamber of his Glock (357 Sig caliber) and put it back in the mag on top. He them rechambered the same round every day. One day he noticed the bullets was way back into the case from repeatedly hitting the feed ramp.

I did some checking and found this is not uncommon with factory ammo and auto pistols. Many LEOs put any ejected live rounds into a box for practice ammo and only chamber fresh rounds. It is now my practice that any round in the chamber is either fired, or placed in a practice ammo box, if ejected unfired.

Learning seems to be a life long process.

[David2011]

I double charged a .45 ACP once. Fortunately, it was with a very light load I used for steel plate matches and was only slightly over the normal max. Rather than get rid of the progressive press I implemented better self-imposed procedures. I had the progressive press for 15 years before making a mistake and have gone another 6 years without a repeat.

I noticed at a friend's house that he left the lever on his progressive press in the down position. The light came on and I understood it immediately. You know exactly what the state of the cases are if the ram is up. If it is down, you don't know if you had already make the stroke or not without inspecting all of the cases.

David

[ShooterAZ]

I double charged a .45 ACP case back in about 1983 or 4. The unsupported portion of the
case at the feed ramp blew out, split the grips, bulge the mag out into the grip frame
cutouts, and stung my hands.

Pulled the mag, trashed it. Replaced the grips and all was good.

My only reloading error of consequence so far.

Bill

I did the exact same thing, with the exact same results. Got a few splinters in my hand.

[StratsMan]

I'll confess my mistakes... Two of them, both around year 2 or 3 of reloading...

First mistake was arrogance... I was loading 45 ACP with a TV going... Thought I was too experienced to let it affect me, but I got distracted and didn't notice my powder container went dry... There were about 300 cartridges in the bullet catcher, and I unloaded them all. Only 10-15 didn't have any powder, but I couldn't know that without unloading all of them... I don't have a TV in the gun room anymore...

Second error was Full Length Sizing 223 cases too many times... they looked good, but about every tenth round I'd have a blowout. No cases got stuck in the chamber, but it sure did a number on some magazines... blew remaining rounds out the bottom of the mag... No stuck projectiles in the barrel, and the stinging in my hand didn't last too long... I disassembled all of that batch, too (about 1,000 of 'em)... Much faster and easier just to toss those bottleneck cases after a few loadings now...

[Walter Laich]

A pard was getting into CAS and bought a new open top Italian six-shooter.

As he wasn't into reloading yet he bought some reloads at a gun show.

On the third stage there was a loud boom and to top cylinder was blown open. No one was hurt but he was down one revolver.

About 6 weeks later I helped him outfit a reloading set-up.

[Wayne Smith]

A couple of mistakes, the most serious was my 41 Long Colt - I loaded two different boolits and shot one boolit and load well, shot the other one and on the first shot something hit me just at the hairline and the gun was smoking. Blew up the forcing cone, sprung the side plate. Took it to my gunsmith and he said he could fix it, set the barrel back and cut an new forcing cone. Opened up the cylinder and gave me the cartridges not fired. Load was supposed to be 5gr of powder - these had 15gr! That pistol survived (albeit with damage) a triple load! Gave me a new respect for old Colt double action revolvers. My mistake? I thought the large weight of the scale was set on 0, it wasn't. Every one of that type of boolit had 15 gr powder in it.

I have used a lot of Unique over the years, and once in a while had light loads or slightly overpowered loads. Then I discovered that every powder measure I owned (totaled 5) except one was capable of binding Unique in the down spout or tube. The only one that didn't is my Belding and Mull. That has become my major use measure and the only one I will use with Unique and Clays. This discovery is recent enough that I still have a box of 32-20 (100 rds) that was a little exciting last time out. One round was definitely overcharged.

[ColColt]

I started reloading in 1969. My first caliber was for a 30-06(forget the brand but it wasn't Remington or Winchester). I had little idea about how many reloads you could get from a box of 20 rifle cases back then but along about the 5-8th reloads I was at the bench testing some 150 gr Nosler's with 4064 best I recall and the round fired, I lifted the bolt to withdraw the case and nothing came out but the head. the rest of it was stuck in the chamber... case head separation. Fortunately for me the good ol' 98 Mauser action didn't warn me something had happened as I didn't know it until I extracted the case head. There was no damage to the action nor me. Turns out to be excessive head space from what the gunsmith told me and he fixed it.

Other than that there have been no major catastrophes. I've forgotten or overlooked to prime a case here and there but noticed it 90% of the time by the powder in the wooden loading blocks. Once I had primed a case but forgot the powder. Needles to say I had a lodged bullet in the barrel but I knew something was wrong by the sound/recoil and knew what happened. You have to be diligent as no one is immune.

[geargnasher]

I've made plenty of mistakes that were corrected at the loading bench. Upside-down primers from the Lee progressives, sideways primers, weighing finished ammo has caught a no-charge that I suspected and deliberately checked for, and the one boolit I somehow seated upside-down! The fact that I or my equipment makes these errors keeps it fresh in my mind and my QC ever-diligent. So far so good.

Gear

[Alan in Vermont]

I had one round that had no powder, 243 Win. Heard the striker hit followed by a HISS!

Just recently caught a double charge in 4 ACP on my RCBS progressive. I was having problems with that damn APS priming setup and managed to double stroke the ram. Caught it on the visual check before I put a boolit in the case. Weighed the other 199 that run and they varied only 3 grs max so I'm confident that none of the others are overloaded, so far none of the 50 or so that I have shot have been.

[500MAG]

I started reloading 25 years ago. After 5 years of loading I ordered a Lee Pro-1000 progressive. When it arrived, I ran a couple of hundred 44 mags thru it. I disassembled it, boxed it up and threw it on a shelf. Went back to my trusty Lyman Spar-t and my loading blocks. From reading all these post's, I knock on wood and am happy I boxed up that progressive loader.

[rtracy2001]

I can't really see why this should be a sore subject. A bit embarassing maybe, but IMHO any mistake you learn from is worth the occasional ribbing (so long as you are around to take the ribbing of course). You should never be sore, and you should not be tight lipped about it either.

With that note, here is my screwup:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=115949

[canyon-ghost]

I had one round with no powder in it, 22 Hornet. I keep an old cleaning rod to tap out bullets in the range bag so, no big deal.

When I load, I look in the cases. Of course, I single stage, that's the difference. I look in all five cases that I load (at one time) and look in them again when I seat bullets. I want to know they all have the right amount in them.
I also have track lighting over the bench, it's pretty brightly lit in there.

[MGySgt]

here's one thread on the subject,

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=150409&highlight=convertible

Skinny

There is speculation in the thread that it was a double charge of Unique that caused the destruction of this fine gun.

Hog wash - The individual was loading 10 gr of unique. (pulled boolit showed 9.9, close enough) 15.0 grains of unique is over 100 % capicity of a 44 mag case. In other words 20 grains of unique just overflowed 5 grains of powder.

Test it yourself.

A double charge of Unique will not fit into any pistol round a normal safe load will always be over 50% loading sensity of any straight walled case.

[captaint]

About 30 years ago, when I started loading my own, I somehow doublecharged a 38 spl case with Red Dot. Bang, Bang, BOOOOM. That was when I quit charging cases in loading blocks. Haven't done it since. Been OK so far..... Fortunately, the gun was a Dan Wesson revolver. It stayed together. enjoy Mike

[sw282]

Nothing serious since starting in early 70s. A couple times starting out l contaminated some primers w/oil. Starting back casting/loading last year after about a 30yr lapse and relearned again to ALWAYS clean flash holes at least twice of tumbling media.

[Junior1942]

Years ago I sold a friend a S&W M29 44 mag pistol. He took it to the range with another friend's reloads using a maximum charge of 2400. First shot destroyed the pistol but, luckily, not his hand. Forensics found a can of 2400 on the loading bench sitting beside a can of Bullseye.

I learned two lessons: (1) never shoot ANYONE else's reloads; and (2) never have more than one can of powder on a loading bench.

[MGySgt]

Junior - regretably I have heard that same seniero over and over again. I made a mistake of dumping a powder measure of Unique into a 2400 canister - caught it about the time I put the lid on it. - that was 1/2 pound of 2400 that went onto the lawn.

[Longwood]

I had one round that had no powder, 243 Win. Heard the striker hit followed by a HISS!

Just recently caught a double charge in 4 ACP on my RCBS progressive. I was having problems with that damn APS priming setup and managed to double stroke the ram. Caught it on the visual check before I put a boolit in the case. Weighed the other 199 that run and they varied only 3 grs max so I'm confident that none of the others are overloaded, so far none of the 50 or so that I have shot have been.

When I first came here, a member could not believe that I sort my brass by weight.
Your post is a perfect example of why I do.

[Longwood]

I read about people blowing up guns a few times back before the publishers got "Liability Paranoia" and thought it probably happened fairly often.
The internet has certainly proven my suspicions.

[Wayne Smith]

Junior - regretably I have heard that same seniero over and over again. I made a mistake of dumping a powder measure of Unique into a 2400 canister - caught it about the time I put the lid on it. - that was 1/2 pound of 2400 that went onto the lawn.

For me it was Power Pistol dumped into my Unique can. Not quite 3/4 lb of Unique/Power Pistol on the asparagus bed.

[45-70 Chevroner]

The worst thing I have ever done in the 41 years that I have been reloading is to pour about a 1/2 pound of unique into a 1/2 full can of Red Dot. I kept it around for about 20 years trying to think of some reloading I could use it for. I never came to that stupid conclusion. I finally burned it out on the ground about two weeks ago. I've never made that mistake again. Never keep two different kinds of powder on the reloading bench at the same time.

[Lance Boyle]

My dumbist; not a reloading mistake just an operator headspace issue; had a colt 1911 shooting 200 SWC cast bullets and I had been installing match gun parts for better trigger; I bought a lightened hammer, light mainspring, bunch of titanium parts; hammer strut, mainspring cap, firing pin, added an extra power firing pin spring. Well don't add titanium parts to extra power firing pin return springs and mainspring, they fail to hold the firing pin hard enough during iginition, the firing pin indent into the primer was inverting into the breach face and upon ejection the priming cup material was getting sheared off and left in the breachfaces' firing pin channel. After a bit there was enoug bits to cause insufficient firing pin force to fire. I examined the brass, saw the brass spot in the middle of the silver primer and deduced what was going on. I over rid the series 80 firing pin block and worked the firing pin in and out to clear the metal bits. While doing so I noted you could actually lock the firing pin forward with the tip exposed with the series 80 block. AND SAID TO MYSELF, THAT'S A GOOD WAY TO GET AN OPEN BOLT ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE.

I went back to shooting and figured I'd finnish the 2 boxes I had for the gun. Sure enough about 30 rounds later, I get some more failures to ignite. I redo the routine and clear the chips out of the breachface, insert another magazine and drop the slide and get a BLAM and a splash of sand to my front. [cursed myself with badwords for being such a expletive expletive stupid idiot for identifying the problem and blundering anyhow.] I packed up for the day and went home and inspected the damage. Only real damage was a ding in the wide band on the the firing pin tail. It was probably even still usable but I took it out and replaced it with the stock one and the problem went away.

Most reloading issues I caught on the bench. Recently made the mistake of seating a bullet over no charge while taking a call on the cell phone. I knew it as soon as I did it and had to use the hammer eraser. Only one that escaped me was a .223 round with a match bullet that had no powder. I fired the round and got no recoil or noice. I ejected the round with bullet still in place (crimped on cannalured nosler 77). When I got home I pulled the bullet expecting to find powder and a bad Wolf primer. Nope the wolf did it's job and the boat tailed bullet was soot covered and no powder inside. 20 years and that's the first one for me to make it to the range. I was suprised that the primer did not overtake the crimp. ( I was testing crimped vs uncrimped for accuracy.)

I don't recall any serious booboos. I did fry a firing pin in an AR with BLC2 and didn't notice until I was picking up brass and noted a few of the firing pin indents were black. Pulled my firing pin and saw it was chipped and or burned.

[RoGrrr]

I had just started using a Dillon 650. I was a bit uncomfortable with some of what I was doing and suspected a bad batch of ammo. I didn't want to pull down the 50 or so I had finished so I set them apart and started over with a new batch.

I shot that 'suspect' box the next day and one of them didn't fire. It simply sounded like an empty chamber, or a primer failed to ignite. I waited a minute and racked the slide to extract a case with no boolit in it. I looked down the bore to find the boolit just into the rifling. I easily drove it out with a brass rod.


What I don't understand is how anyone could think to rack the slide after an episode like that, NOT check anything and then proceed to blow up their gun.

Anyway, that was the only squib I've had with a pistol. Did quite a few back in the day I used to shoot scatterguns. Maybe that taught me better....

[Echo]

Junior - regretably I have heard that same seniero over and over again. I made a mistake of dumping a powder measure of Unique into a 2400 canister - caught it about the time I put the lid on it. - that was 1/2 pound of 2400 that went onto the lawn.

C'mon - that batch just became Slow Unique, useful for plinking loads.

I mistakenly mixed some Herco with Red Dot - that became Slow Red Dot, and is used for plinkers.

[Echo]

My Memorable booboo was loading 100 38 w/primer & boolit, but no powder. I had left the batch in the loading block the night before, came in the next morning, and withouit inspecting, seated boolits. Embarrassing...

[MGySgt]

C'mon - that batch just became Slow Unique, useful for plinking loads.

I mistakenly mixed some Herco with Red Dot - that became Slow Red Dot, and is used for plinkers.

Nope - in my house it became fertilizer.

[dunno.458]

Loading in a hurry the morning of a shoot (Never again!) I must have double charged one of the .45 ACP rounds capped with a Hornady XTP.
I was shooting them after the IPSC match just to try them out when about the 3rd round in the mag went BOOM!

Wow that was loud!
Whats all that black smoke?
Ouch my hands STING!

Destroyed my near new Glock 21. Burst the case in the unsupported area (I still have it as a reminder) smashed the mag release, blew the guts out the mag and the mag out of the gun, split the trigger down the middle, cracked the frame just above the trigger and blew it out against my finger (ouch) and locked the gun up halfway out of battery. When we hammered it open the barrel was cracked each side of the feed ramp and the ramp pushed down about 4mm.
I was lucky and got away with a couple tiny cuts to my finger. And my tail between my legs.

The lesson? Don't load in haste! Don't charge and seat individual rounds. I now do batches and inspect with a torch before seating.

The best bit? I held onto the remains until our handgun buy back, Hammered the feedramp back into position, super glued everything back together as neat as I could, then surrended it to the police and got 90% of new gun value.
THANKS JOHHNY![smilie=1:

[jakharath]

dunno.458 - read your post and thougt why in the world would someone use a TORCH to inspect powder levels. Then I noticed you are from Tasmania. Torch = Flash Light, not Torch = Blow Torch. :D

[Jens]

the other day i found a primer seated backwards? and a long time ago i found out that 41mag will fire in a 44mag revolver

[Elkins45]

Knock on wood, I've had a couple of squib loads, but never a double charge. I've also never pulled the trigger on the next round after a squib.

[.22-10-45]

I was about 16 or 17..thought I needed a tracer round for my .22 rimfire. I had made a .22 mould for re-loading rimfires & took one of these bullets & drilled from base, as far forward as I dared. I then soaked paper match-heads in warm water & stuffed this cavity full. I reasoned that it would burn gradually..just like a struck match did & give me a nice tracer burn...What I failed to realize is that under the heat & pressure in a gun bore..it would probably go all at once!
It was a dark night & I imagined my little bullet would look just like a little shooting star, as I aimed at a 45 deg. angle over a thick unpopulated wooded area.
The muzzle flash looked to be like a grapefruit in dia...and the blast sounded like a centerfire! There was smoke coming out around the bolt..the case head had ruptured..I was lucky that time!

[Longwood]

When I was about 16 I heard about spoke guns made from bicycle spokes.
I loaded one as full as I could pack it with nothing but the white part of strike anywhere matches.
When I set it off the barrel exploded into tiny fragments that imbedded themselves in several spots on our front porch.
It sounded like when I fired a 30-06 from the porch.
I wore a piece in my hand for years.

[Gisli]

Back in 1969 I was shooting 222 Rem Mag. I reloaded and all was well till I got split neck or two. I asked a very knowledgeble person about it and he told me all about the brass hardening and that it needed to be annealed. What he forgot to tell me ( I think ) was that only the neck should be heated. So with a propane burner I annealed all my cases, from bottom up.

Several days later I fired the first shot, at the range. There was a tremendous recoil and the action of my SAKO was stuck. When I managed to open the bolt, with a mallet, the cartridge was gone. It had simply blown out of the pressure hole in the side of the action. Now that was strange. To the range again, fired one shot with almost the same effect. This time the ejector was gone, as well as most of the cartridge.

I dumped all the cartridges I had, ordered some new ones and made discreet inquiries about what would happen if "someone" were to anneal the whole case.

[MGySgt]

Reykjavik??????

MSG????

[FLDad]

Full stokes are important on the Lee Classic Turret. I've caught myself double-clutching that handle on the flare/charge die and it double-charged that case so fast I couldn't figure out how it happened at first! Those LED lights I added came in handy and made it easy to spot before I seated the boolit. There's just no substitute for checking every charge -- either by eye or a check die.

[bearcove]

None so far.

But I only load single stage. No progressives. Slow but consistant.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I started reloading in 1959 and I have weighed every powder charge since I started. I tried using two progressive presses but never actually shot any of the ammo loade on them. I did however make one boo-boo. I aquired a large quanity of 45 cal wadcutters and decided to try some in my 45 Auto. I charged each case with a small amount of bullseye, I think it was less than three grains. I set the bullets almost level with the mouth of the case, bad idea. I fired one round and did that pistol jump. The rest of the box remains unfired. The pistol was not damaged.