PDA

View Full Version : Finally went to the range again and...



housedad
05-19-2009, 12:55 AM
Well, my life is getting to a somewhat normal level again, and a young man who I have seen grow up through my fire company had finally gotten his first gun. a Glock 40 caliber. Well, I thought it would be good for me to go to the range again, and to teach him how to shoot safely and properly before he got into bad habits.

I brought a Ruger mark 2 22 and a S&W mod 27 to ease him up to it. He did well, very well. He shot out 200 rounds of 22, 50 rnds of .38 24 rnds of 357, and then 100 rnds of .40 in his new glock. Started hitting the paper consistently after the first 50 rounds or so.

Anyway, I brought along some .38 cartidges (about 50) that a guy had given to me. Said his father had loaded them and they were left to him after he died. So I decided to go ahead and shoot them to get the brass. They were plain cast semi wadcutters. If they were loaded wrong, I knew the mod 27 was strong enough to take it.

So, after I get the youngin finished shooting, I go ahead and start shooting these cartiridges. About the moment that the trigger finger finished pulling on the first one, I knew something was wrong. There was a lot of smoke that smelled familiar and the bullet did not make it the 30 feet to the target.

Nope, it just popped out and landed just short of the target on the ground.

Now, I thought, this must be a bad load, so I pull the trigger again, and durn if the same thing doesn't happen.

I start laughing, waving away the smoke, and go get the inertial puller from the car.

After I got a couple open, I found what I thought was in there. For some reason, the guy that loaded them put in a small amount of black powder as the load.

Whoever it was was probably trying to work up a load with BP for some reason. I took the rounds back home and took the rest apart.

The things folks will try to load.

HeavyMetal
05-19-2009, 01:21 AM
It's amazing what I've seen people load!

Years ago I bought a bunch of reloading "junk" from a garage sale. Mostly wanted the case's and boolits had no plans to shoot this stuff.

Found what looked like a batch of 270 win load's except the were made from 30-06 case's! This is easy enough to do what amazed me is that every case neck was cracked! I could push sidewise with my thump and see the crack widen under mild pressure!

Pulling these boolits was very easy!

I also found a .375 H&H case necked down to 22 caliber, loaded and ready to shoot! Still have that case somewhere if I spot it I'll post a pic.

Taught me that any reloads I find in a garage ( ANY) sale will absolutely be pulled for components!

Be glad the previous loader did not have the hots for a triplex load using BP, bullesye and 2400! I've seen this load used because some moron thought pistol rounds were like three stage rockets! Each powder would burn progressively and then ignite the next slowest powder! The guy slinging this bull in late 1969 says he only blew up two model 19's getting the load "perfected"!

He never could figure out why I never stayed at the range when he showed up.

DLCTEX
05-19-2009, 08:45 AM
25 years ago a feloow gave me two boxes of 12 ga. shells that he said he loaded "hot". He wasn't kidding! I had a Winchester 1300 pump and the rounds opened the action and ejected the hulls about 20 ft. away. After a couple of those I broke them down for components, used the powder for fertilizer.

Storydude
05-19-2009, 09:50 AM
25 years ago a feloow gave me two boxes of 12 ga. shells that he said he loaded "hot". He wasn't kidding! I had a Winchester 1300 pump and the rounds opened the action and ejected the hulls about 20 ft. away. After a couple of those I broke them down for components, used the powder for fertilizer.

Those are the new "speed Pump" rounds. The ones that turn a Pump into a Semi! :D

sheepdog
05-19-2009, 10:49 AM
You know 38 started as a BP cartridge right? Surely they can't be that old to be original.

housedad
05-19-2009, 11:10 AM
Yes, they were not even near to that old, at most a few years. But to put in just 8 or 10 granules of powder was not much of a load. It just had no point. Not even for indoor target in a basement. The smoke and noise would have precluded that. If I had put them in my 1894 marlins they would have probably gotten stuck in the barrel.

You just have to wonder what the guy was thinking.

sheepdog
05-19-2009, 11:12 AM
Probably had some BP he got from someone and thought "I got no front stuffer so what can I use this for?" and the rest is history. Did the powder have that rancid smell? Probably lost its pow long ago.

Daniel964
05-19-2009, 11:18 PM
I've thought about looking up the amount of BP or pyrodex to use for reloading .38 spl and trying it.