Results of "Creative" Reloading

[rugerdude]

This applies to both rifles and handguns so I thought this would be a good place to post it.

A couple of days ago, a guy brought his Remington 710 in .270 into the shop where I work and wanted to know if we could get the bolt open and fix any damage. (Uh-Oh) He stated that he had been test firing some handloads and after firing one of them he could not get the bolt to open. He had tried to open the bolt at home and broke the bolt handle off!

Red flags went up and alarms started going off.

We made a few inquiries and consulted a few manuals and the best we can tell, he was somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 grains overcharged! :holysheep

Anyway, this is the case we removed from the chamber after a bit of "gentle persuasion".

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc209/rugerdude29/Badreloads005.jpg
Please note that the primer in the photo is a spent large rifle primer that I had on hand. The customers primer did not survive the trip.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc209/rugerdude29/Badreloads006.jpg
Note the "belt" near the casehead.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc209/rugerdude29/Badreloads009.jpg
Side by side comparison of a fired factory load. Both cases are Remington.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc209/rugerdude29/Badreloads008.jpg
Side by side comparison of caseheads. Note the flash hole.

To all of you who reload, please be careful. I tell customers in the store all the time, if you want to reload don't get creative!! Follow the recipes in CURRENT manuals to the letter and you're fingers, ears and eyes will thank you for it!

[Rusty W]

WOW!!!! And he wasn't even hurt?

[JRW]

My father once used the older speer 110 grn hp in a 300 win mag. warning on the box of bullets said not to exceed 2800 - 3000 fps. they aren't kidding. he blew the bottom of the jacket out the barrel with the first shot, and did not know there was a ring of copper jacket still in the chamber. shot the second one and had to 'help' the bolt open. the pressure erased the headstamp after swaging the 30 cal down to whatever the inside diameter of the jacket was. that particualr bullet was great in the 30-30 and the carbine, but was never meant to be hotrodded.

HEED ALL WARNINGS Never assume because we have been doing this stuff for years that we know it all!

[waksupi]

Holy crap! Take his guns away, and give him some knitting needles!

[Marvin S]

Pretty strong gun eh.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Pretty strong gun eh.

That is what I was thinking . . .not that I'm gonna try that in my 700bdl . . .!

[Freischütz]

Primer doesn't look unusually flattened - must be ok load. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[happy7]

Pretty strong gun eh.

That is what I was thinking too. Wow.

[MT Gianni]

Another case for case filling loads. Poor powder selection Big Time.

[44mag1]

WOW 15 grains of what powder? I cant think of any powder that you could get 15 more grains in that one would usually use for a 270 unless it was pistol powder.

[crabo]

Holy crap! Take his guns away, and give him some knitting needles!

I have a friend who scratched her ear with a knitting needle, punctured her ear drum, and is now deaf in that ear. Maybe not a good idea for him.

[2ndAmendmentNut]

:-DWhat’s the problem? My reloads come out looking like that all the time.:-D

Just teasing. Wow that’s amazing that guy still has all his fingers. Was the rifle okay once the bolt handle got repaired? What powder was he using? All the powders I use in the 270 and other descendants of the 06 come near to or completely fill the case as soon as max loads are approached.

There should be a sticky with pics and stories of this and other “creative” reloading experiments.

[stubshaft]

The problem as I see it is when one of these "xpurts" is shooting next to you and you don't know it. There are three of these people at the range that I frequent and I refuse to shoot next to them.

[lylejb]

I hope that guy knows how LUCKY he is!!

If not, please tell him!!

On second thought, if you have to tell, him it probably won't do any good!!

That gun should have come apart.

[rugerdude]

Our gunsmith is still checking the gun over and taking measurements to determine whether anything is bulged, cracked, etc. to see if the rifle is repairable.

The customer comes in fairly regularly. The next time he is in, I am going to see if I can get some specifics about his load such as powder type and exact charge weight.

All I can figure is that he used too fast a powder and was able to get too much in the case. He may have even compressed it some.

I REALLY want to know what his load was.

[EMC45]

Reminds me of a buddy loading for somone else's .308. Called me all fired up wondering why he had to beat the bolt open. "Well" says I, what kind of brass and how much powder? LC brass and max charge of powder. "Therein lies the problem" says I. Approach max loads with caution, didn't you read that in the manual? Well yeah, but..................

[GabbyM]

I'm sitting here wondering if he may have turned his load book one page over to the 270 WSM. That may be enough to do it. Plenty of room in a 270 Win case.

[cabezaverde]

Maybe he was using Bullseye powder, and figured it was accurate stuff.

A case full would have to be super accurate.

[jameslovesjammie]

We were loading for the .270 and accidentally grabbed a can of IMR 4831 instead of H4831. Ended up 3 grains over MAX with a blown primer every other rounds or so. And LOUD. You would have thought he would have figured SOMETHING was wrong during load development.

[Sensai]

Kind of hard to tell from the pictures, was that primer pocket enlarged a little???:kidding:

[Mavrick]

In 1967, I needed to load some ammo quickly, and chose a load I'd used quite a bit. I wasn't being creative, I was in a hurry. The scale I used was a Pacific that used an allthread for a beam, and the loader added together several small weights, then adjusted the beam to level.
I took the gun into the back yard...I lived out of town in those days. At the shot, I got some dirt in my eye from the wind, which was blowing that day. I live in Nevada, and I know from wind! But...when I looked down at the rifle, there was smoke curling up from the back of the bolt! Not a good thing, I thought.
I needed a LARGE hammer to open the bolt. The rifle was an M17 Enfield. Would you believe the case was STILL stuck in the barrel? The extractor on that M710 was a good one, as it tore the rim from the case, but any one that has used an Enfield knows what it'll do. I tore a full 1/3 of the rim off! I figured the barrel was ruined, so I used an arc-welding rod to bang the case from the barrel.
Strange for an '06 case, but it, too, was belted. The primer was slightly flattened(OK a little more than flattened) I was able to drop the primer from 6" up into the pocket, and it stayed!
I sat down and thought until I figured out what happened. It took me about 2 hours, as I kept coming back to how close I'd come to losing my eye, not to mention fingers, face, and/or life.
The cases were LC 61 Match with Frankford Arsenal primers. The bullet was a Sierra flatbase spitzer and the powder was...H380. It wasn't a good load, but it was one I'd used a lot, at the time. The deer I killed with it didn't know there were better loads.
The barrel wasn't hurt, and I used it for about 10 years more, until I rebarrelled to .300 WinMag, and I still carry that rifle today.
I threw the scale away shortly after, not for the scales' fault, but so I wouldn't make the same mistake again. I used RCBS and Ohaus for quite a while, but now I use a Dillon digital.
I've used a LOT of H380 since, but not in '06's. H380 is a double-base powder, and once you get into it's high-pressure zone, the pressure curve becomes pretty quick.
The case is STILL in my collection, and I look at it from time to time, just to remind me of several things.
Have fun,
Gene

[JesterGrin_1]

I think you can reuse that spent case. Just do a full resize and a Shotshell Primer. lol. :)

[dominicfortune00]

He stated that he had been test firing some handloads and after firing one of them he could not get the bolt to open. He had tried to open the bolt at home and broke the bolt handle off!

IIRC, the bolt handle on the 700 is silver soldered to the bolt body.

Still, that was a lot of force to break the silver solder joint.

One time while shooting surplus ammo in my 1917 Enfield I had one round that had more recoil than the others and the bolt handle wouldn't open.

So i tapped it open with a 2 x 4 and extracted a case that had expanded at the case head, the primer pocket expanded to the point that the primer was very loose, and the case head flowed into the ejector slot in the bolt face. You could still read the headstamp though.

I traced it to the bullet being loose in the case. Some of the lot of surplus ammo i was shooting had loose bullets, so I thought I pulled out all of the loose ones to be recrimped.

Guess I missed one. I figure that under recoil the bullet must have moved into the case deeper while in the magazine; and raised the pressure.

Other than being hard to eject, no harm was done to the rifle.

[NSP64]

WOW 15 grains of what powder? I cant think of any powder that you could get 15 more grains in that one would usually use for a 270 unless it was pistol powder.

I load 13.0 gr of reddot in my 270 all the time, So it would be easy to get 15.0 gr more in there. You can't be distracted while reloading.

[HORNET]

Maybe 3031 instead of 4831.....They're almost the same, right:kidding:

[elk hunter]

That shows just how strong modern firearms are, pressure had to be 80,000 or more to do that.

Glad nobody was hurt.

[nicholst55]

I have heard of more than one Rem 710 bolt handle breaking off; they appear to be hollow. I've got a pic of one on my confuser at home (at work now) that I'll post later. I've heard of hot loads before, but... holy sheepdip! I guess those Remington 710s are a pretty darn strong action!

[MT Gianni]

I think you can reuse that spent case. Just do a full resize and a Shotshell Primer. lol. :)

Yea, Once fired brass. Who knows what it is really.

[GabbyM]

I have heard of more than one Rem 710 bolt handle breaking off; they appear to be hollow. I've got a pic of one on my confuser at home (at work now) that I'll post later. I've heard of hot loads before, but... holy sheepdip! I guess those Remington 710s are a pretty darn strong action!

When I broke the bolt handle off one of my M-700's last year I was a bit shocked to see it had been glued to the bolt. Think it was made in the late sixties. Never heard of Remington gluing bolts knobs on but I'm usually lucky that way. If their was one in a million out their I'd get it. It was also a used gun when I bought it so may have been broken before. Had my plumber silver solder it back on.

If posted gun was mine I'd torch it then throw the pieces in the scrap pile. The inspections it would take to certify it good to shoot would cost more than a new rifle. Looks like Remington's “ring of steel” bolt face did a fine job of holding the case head together.

[JIMinPHX]

That guy is lucky to be alive. He should not play with guns anymore, except under proper supervision.

[jcwit]

Have an older friend (over 60) who overloads for accuracy!!! Can't tell him different as he knows better, I just stay a little further away.

[nicholst55]

Here's the pic I threatened to post:

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g120/nicholst55/Rem710.jpg

Is it just me, or does that sucker look hollow?

[725]

A good testimate to the strength of that gun, and a reflection on the abilities of the expurt behind the trigger.
I've seen a double charged old single shot shotgun blow (shattered receiver) and was on line once when one of those expurts blew up a Mauser. He looked like hamburger, the guy next to him lost his front teeth, and I (#3 on the line) only got hit with non-injurying schrapnel. Follow the book, no hot-rodding, and think safety first. No "do- over's" in this game. Consequences come rather fast and are completely unimpressed by what kind of expurt you are.

[wallenba]

Dang Jethro, theys a lot more room in that there case! Filler to the top.

[jcwit]

Yup stupidity is not illegal.

[jlchucker]

Holy crap! Take his guns away, and give him some knitting needles!

He's lucky to still have fingers with which to grab knitting needles! This guy was extremely fortunate to not get hurt. He should read the post by 725 this morning, then get down on his knees and pray to the Lord giving thanks that he still has eyes to be able to read with.

[TAWILDCATT]

why must you all load to max.I am loading a 1903 with lead 160gr/185gr and 13.5
gr red dot I have cronyed it at 1680.if you think that wont kill a deer you must be into the magnum is better crowd.If its over 200yds I dont shoot.the Maineiacs are still killing deer with 22LR.the game warden cant hear it.
my 1911 shoots 200gr SWC with 3.6 of 700X and my 38 take 148 gr LWC with 2.8 of 700X.I dont want max.the only one I shoot heavy is a Bertier with french ball D.
236 gr bullet.and thats changing as I pull the bullets and drop the load.:coffee:

[jcwit]

While I agree with you completely TAWILDCATT, my friend says it all about accuracy.

But then all .22 rimfire target ammo is of the sub sonic type.

But what do I know?

[JIMinPHX]

why must you all load to max.

My standard M.O. is to buy a gun one caliber bigger than I think I need & then load it down a little. That's what I do 90% of the time. Sometimes I go with a full bore load, but not that often.

[trk]

why must you all load to max?
...


Some folks don't. We load for ACCURACY.

10 bullets in a row with MOA accuracy is my goal for load development. (No gas checks either.)

[Bulletlube]

I always check in 2 or 3 manuals before I load. The books have mistakes sometimes. Better to be safe than sorry.