I was reminded of a valuable lesson this morning.
It's a krappy day outside, the kids are gone to work, I got nothing to do.
So I grab up my beloved 340 Savage .30-30, a box of reloads and head off for the indoor range.
I have a lot boxes of .30-30, this one was marked 30gr. 3031, 150gr. Sierra indicating it was one of many boxes I had loaded sometime in the past.
I get in my lane, get the target all set up and load a magazine full of rounds.
The bolt won't go home! What the hell!? To make matters worse, the bolt won't open!
I finally get the bolt open and realize that, right at the crimp is a bulge. Not too obvious, but enough to keep the round from going into an apparently tight Savage chamber.
I fumble around in this 20 box, find some rounds that look better and get some shots off.
Long story longer, out of 20 rounds I have 10 that will not chamber in my rifle for various reasons. I have 3 that look as if they had started to fold over at the very bottom of the shoulder?! Add to that 3 dead primers!
Then it dawned on me what I had done. I had been reloading .30-30 several months back and had been interrupted for whatever reason.
Coming back to this pile of brass, I went ahead and primed and loaded thinking I had already resized them!
Apparently not!
Once again I was reminded of what I was taught as a high schooler when I started reloading. When you start a certain lot of brass to reload, do not quit until all the steps are done!!
At the indoor range it was merely inconvenient. With game in my sights I would be going hungry. Defending my family, such a mistake could be life changing!!