Powder?????

[Pressman]

Needing to load some cast boolit indoor range loads for my K-31 I had to pull the bullets I had loaded for long range shooting. I only have 20 pieces of brass and a box of factory ammo. That's waiting for warmer weather when I can get outdoors again.

So, I dug through a box of bullet pullers till I found one with a 30 caliber collet and set to work. Easy job. Bullets are back in their original box, the cases are ready to reload with cast and then powder? - Well, there is no powder. Somehow I managed to load all 20 cases without putting powder in them. I have no idea how I forgot that one most important step. Even the label on the box states how much and which powder I used, or didn't use.

Posted as a word of caution as it goes to show one can never be too careful when reloading.

Ken

[Teddy (punchie)]

man o man . glad your safe, thanks for posting

[Wayne Smith]

Yup, haven't done that one, yet!

[XDROB]

Wow, that's a big whoops. Glad you found it the safe way. I have made it a practice to not load if tired or just distracted.

Thanks for sharing!!

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[Hossfly]

That would be a squib for sure. I made some ladder loads for testing 9mm once, produced a squib in the bunch and when it happened, had the sense to stop and investigate. Added a powder check to progressive press to try and prevent that problem. Still look into each case before seating a boolit.

Went off one evening and left the collator motor running with empty hopper, found it 2 days later still running its little heart out. Good motor so far. Put sticky to turn off when done

[Three44s]

Glad it worked out!

I had a squib in 243 once. The jacketed bullet did not leave the case, a non magnum primer as I recall. It sure shakes one’s confidence, that’s for sure.

Best regards

Three44s

[dverna]

Well, look at the bright side. If you reloaded those to shoot indoors, it is better than having double or triple charged one.

Let me guess...you use a loading block. One reason I never use one. Drop the powder then seat the bullet. Can never get a squib or double charge that way.

[XDROB]

Even with my Inline Fab led lighting l always worried about under or over charging a round on my Hornady LnL. So I got their Powder Cop for station 3. So far no issues.

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[gnappi]

Back in the day when the Dillon 550 was just released, their powder measure had a problem sticking in the "dump" position and zero powder was in some cases. Luckily I was using a heavier charge of powder and weighing them all caught the few that got no charge so I could pull the bullets and re-load the cases. Dillon promptly replaced my powder measures.

Lessons learned? Use a powder checker or look in every charged case every time, and if I'm disturbed and interrupted while reloading stop and check EVERY station to make sure I know where I left off.

[Prairie Cowboy]

Working from left to right, my single stage press powder charging process includes:

1) inverting the fully prepared and primed case and tapping it on the bench, to verify that it is empty,
2) charging the case with my powder measure, which is mounted on a stand,
3) checking the charge with a conveniently mounted strong light,
4) immediately seating and crimping the bullet.

While it had never happened before, one time I glimpsed inside a case after charging and found....nothing. A powder bridge had formed, and no powder had dropped.
I operated the powder measure lever several more times into a catch cup, and still nothing. After adding more powder I tapped the measure about a dozen times and proper operation resumed. After weighing about ten consecutive charges, I continued without any further problems.

What I learned from that is to never assume that a powder measure is always dropping a charge. You always check the charge visually. With a powder bridge, you might get no powder dropped, or you might get a partial charge dropped.

[XDROB]

I agree I thankfully never had an over or under charge happen. But it worried me enough to add a powder cop to my press.

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