Reloading Fail!

[rr2241tx]

It's been long enough ago now that it is beginning to be humorous, so here goes:

For reasons I have long ago forgotten, I had cleaned all my brass in Lyman Green Cob with NuFinish. This invariably results in almost every case having from one to many particles of cob wedged into the primer pocket and flash hole so over time I realized it was faster to run all of them through a Lee Universal Decapper than to inspect each one and poke out the little bits of cob. This particular time I had procrastinated more efficiently than usual and found myself performing this task while supper was cooking because the BPCR match was the next morning. As usual, a few kernels of cob ended up in the loading blocks causing some of the cases to sit crooked. I whipped out my Lee Autoprime and discovered that it had only a couple of WLR primers in it and that the brick I had been working out of was empty. So, I began excavating the case of WLR primers from the stash. About that time supper got ready and I closed the door to the reloading room and went upstairs. As frequently happens at the end of the day, the Honey-Do List had a job for me after supper. When I finally got back to the reloading room, I proceeded to charge the 60 cases and compress the powder and noted sort of in passing that there was more "stuff" getting caught in the grease ring building up at the top of the press ram. But, it was now well past midnight and I still needed to seat and lightly crimp these then get them into the range box so I could go to bed. When I began to transfer the loaded rounds into the MTM bullet down boxes it was apparent that I had primed only the first half dozen cases and that the remainder of my match brass was filled with compressed black powder and crimped onto very soft boolits. I could barely stay awake at the match and iron sights might as well have been covered in electrical tape. I have since changed my cleaning media and put the primed cases back into the loading block upside down so I can SEE that they are primed. Short term memory isn't what it used to be.

[Yodogsandman]

One of the first basic rules of safe reloading is to only do it when you can concentrate on only reloading with no distractions. Bad ammo is a lot better than ammo that blows your face off. Thanks for reminding us all to be more vigilant and to pay attention!

As I pick my cases from the sifter after cleaning, I poke each primer flash hole with a piece of wire, each and every time.

When priming cases, they're put back in the MTM box primer up for visual reference, each and every time. Basic stuff here.

[fredj338]

Next time leave the spent primer in place. Unless you are wet cleaning, not benefit in depriming first. As noted, reloading ammo & being at all distracted is just a bad idea.

[robg]

After tumbling I use a spare recapping rod to push through every primer hole .

[mdi]

OOPS! Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I've done similar things, and I'm a very careful reloader...

As human beings we'll start off telling you how to do it "right" and that our way is superior to whatever method/technique you are using. But you obviously have experience and have developed a good technique, but were distracted. No big deal...

So, now go my son and sin no more...

[popper]

If you were the first to load unprimed cases!!

[Loudy13]

I was loading some 6.5X55 Swede and couldn't figure out how I was getting powder grains all over the place. I change funnels 3-4 times thinking it was pouring past the case mouth and still had the problem. I then figured out that none of the 50 cases had primers in them.

Probably wont be the last time

[Harter66]

If you were the first to load unprimed cases!!

Oh I'm sure he's the 1st ........... in the last 30 seconds or so...... :)

The only things worse than finding an unprimed case in the chamber is the 1 that goes pop , shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh H H H and the cylinder wont turn . At a board event ....... w/your range kit at the room........ then it happens 2x more ......to last year's hunting loads .........

So you go home with your head in your hands ,and shoot the other 30 into the berm not 1 miss or hang fire just those 3 you had to drive back into the cylinder in front of the whole world .....

Nope don't know the 1st thing about click- what the.

[Walter Laich]

What till you have to pull 200 rounds cause you're not sure you had a working powder measure...

and find out they were all empty! All I lost was a bit of time--my pride had long since died based on my lack of skills

[osteodoc08]

I've charged cases without priming first. Didn't realize it until all 50 cases were perfectly
hand measured.......doh!

[runfiverun]

wait till you realize that 59.6 is not the same as 56.9 and those are the only rounds you have with you just as you pull through the gate to the match 175 miles from home.
heck 3400 fps ain't all that fast is it?

[Hick]

Apparently this kind of things happens to us all-- even manufacturers. A few days ago I went to the range early and found the 'leftovers' from the day before. Someone left behind the remains of 50 rounds of 223 Remington-- 15 fired cases and 35 duds!! All 35 had very nice deep firing pin impressions but had failed to fire! I took them home and pulled the bullets and they all had powder-- but none of the primers had fired. Bad day at the primer factory??

[woodbutcher]

:bigsmyl2: There you sit so spick and span,where you was when the fur hit the fan.BTDT.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[w5pv]

If you haven't messed up you haven't done anything.

[Wayne Smith]

If powder dribbles the FIRST thing I check is the primer! Yeah, it's that common for me. Just grab the wrong box of brass, the only one of the four that I hadn't primed. Can't tell you how many times I've done it.

[dale2242]

When I prime my brass I always stand them in the loading block with the primers up in an attempt to prevent uncharged cases.
I saw a friend try to shoot an AP match with a primer inserted upside down.
Kind of embarrassing....dale

[bessemer20]

My bosses saying at work fits "if you don't have a screw up every once in a while you aren't doing anything at all."

[Half Dog]

I'm glad to see that we can own up to our mistakes and publish them. Reading about mistakes brings them to the front of my mind and reminds me to pay attention to those areas.

I remembered the warning about casting in flip-flops and guess what happened later that day...

173565

[Blackwater]

Except when load testing, I tend to load in batches of 100-500 at a time. This means doing everything in batches, step by step. Sizing, cleaning, neck expanding and trimming if needs be, priming, charging and seating bullets and criimping, if applicable. That means I'm doing very repetitive work in large batches, which can get really boring after the first few, and that's a time that's ripe for mistakes to happen, especially if something or someone interrupts the process. Having blown up one gun, I am VERY conscious of not repeating that mistake! So, when re-engaging the process, I VERY thoroughly review where I'm at, and get CERTAIN of what I've done before resuming. I learned through bitter experience that I'm fallible, and I now take that VERY humbly, and do my due diligence so that such a thing can never happen again. So far, it's worked well. I assume NOTHING, and confirm and reconfirm everything before resuming my work. I surely hope it keeps working for me! It's no fun blowing up guns. It's expensive, and there's no assurance I'll be as lucky a 2nd time as I was the 1st, in not getting hurt or hurting someone else!

We CAN hurt ourselves or someone else with our great hobby. Only infallibility can prevent that, and none of us can achieve that, and the next best thing is eternal vigilance. And I also never load when I'm tired and sleepy, too. I have no desire to repeat what happened once!

[LakeviewBulldog]

This was from one of my first few casting sessions. I had a hot plate that I had purchased and a stainless steel pot that I got for a bargain at the thrift shop. I noticed that the pot was little pitted but I figured that at $2 it was a steel. My first session that day went smoothly. Hot plate kept up and I cast some nice boolits. I came back later that afternoon for my second session of the day and got the pot up to temperature. Then I noticed that the lead in the pot kept solidifying and liquefying randomly. Eventually I thought that perhaps there was something wrong with the element. I pulled my pitted bargain bin pot off the hot plate and lo and behold... the lead had run through the pitted surface and almost completely filled up the space under the element melted down through the hot plate and puddled on the table. Needless to say I've never used anything but a cast iron pot from that day forward. My $2 pot cost me a $30 hotplate, 2-3 lbs of lead, and a burn spot on my table. I wish I had taken pictures of it because looking back it was pretty funny.

[Echo]

This was from one of my first few casting sessions. I had a hot plate that I had purchased and a stainless steel pot that I got for a bargain at the thrift shop. I noticed that the pot was little pitted but I figured that at $2 it was a steel. My first session that day went smoothly. Hot plate kept up and I cast some nice boolits. I came back later that afternoon for my second session of the day and got the pot up to temperature. Then I noticed that the lead in the pot kept solidifying and liquefying randomly. Eventually I thought that perhaps there was something wrong with the element. I pulled my pitted bargain bin pot off the hot plate and lo and behold... the lead had run through the pitted surface and almost completely filled up the space under the element melted down through the hot plate and puddled on the table. Needless to say I've never used anything but a cast iron pot from that day forward. My $2 pot cost me a $30 hotplate, 2-3 lbs of lead, and a burn spot on my table. I wish I had taken pictures of it because looking back it was pretty funny.

LVB, we have to be able to laugh at ourselves, or else we shouldn't laugh at any thing else...

[gwpercle]

I've charged cases without priming first. Didn't realize it until all 50 cases were perfectly
hand measured.......doh!

I watched a guy on a U-Tube video , load ammo this way! Had some reason about it speeding up the process and said not much powder would come out the flash hole while priming !

This type of horse hockey is exactly why I stay away from the "U-Tube experts".

[Oklahoma Rebel]

runfiverun , how did you find out the amount of powder you loaded ? if tthey were already loaded ? couldn't hear the powder when you shook it because it was compressed? just curious, I doub not you wisdom, I have read many of your responses to questions, including more than a couple of mine.

[OS OK]

"Screw up? Who...me...never!"

173701

[snowtigger]

I was new to the world of Dillon presses. I was loading 9mm with lead bullets. It's been so long, I don't remember the specifics, but I had loaded 1500 rounds before I realized they would not chamber. That's one thousand, five hundred!!
I forced myself to sit down and break down each and every one of those and I have not ever forgotten to check EVERYTHING before proceeding since then. Funny now wasn't funny then....

[rintinglen]

My own bone head moments are more than they should be but the worst came when I mistakenly grabbed a can of HP38 thinking it was H110. Back in the 90's I had decided that all my loading could be done with 4 powders H-110 (Hodgdon), IMR 5350 (IMR), Hercules Unique (Hercules), and WW-231 (Winchester). Each canister was severely different from the others, so at a glance I could tell which was which. This worked well until I was given some HP-38 by a friend whose father had passed away and was getting rid of his reloading stuff. My standard 357 lad was and is 15.7 grains of H110 under anRCBS 38-162 GC. I loaded up 197--ran out of magnum primers--and was then putting things away when I discovered I had grabbed the wrong black round bottle. I spent the day the following Saturday pulling the boolits with a kinetic puller and cursing my inattention.
Nowadays, I read the label out loud.

[OS OK]

Heck...I can read the labels out loud all day...it's the comprehension that I'm working on.

What did I just say?

[45workhorse]

"Titegroup" "titewad"
Enough said.

[Walter Laich]

Heck...I can read the labels out loud all day...it's the comprehension that I'm working on.

What did I just say?

same here. I can sit a screwdriver down on the bench and when I look down for it, it will be gone. never took a step away from the bench. Ah, old age....

[rosewood]

OOPS! Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I've done similar things, and I'm a very careful reloader...

As human beings we'll start off telling you how to do it "right" and that our way is superior to whatever method/technique you are using. But you obviously have experience and have developed a good technique, but were distracted. No big deal...

So, now go my son and sin no more...

Amen!

[dondiego]

My own bone head moments are more than they should be but the worst came when I mistakenly grabbed a can of HP38 thinking it was H110. Back in the 90's I had decided that all my loading could be done with 4 powders H-110 (Hodgdon), IMR 5350 (IMR), Hercules Unique (Hercules), and WW-231 (Winchester). Each canister was severely different from the others, so at a glance I could tell which was which. This worked well until I was given some HP-38 by a friend whose father had passed away and was getting rid of his reloading stuff. My standard 357 lad was and is 15.7 grains of H110 under anRCBS 38-162 GC. I loaded up 197--ran out of magnum primers--and was then putting things away when I discovered I had grabbed the wrong black round bottle. I spent the day the following Saturday pulling the boolits with a kinetic puller and cursing my inattention.
Nowadays, I read the label out loud.

Sure glad that you caught this mistake before you touched one off!

Don