Dumb sh** you do.

grimblyd

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Not sure why I'm starting this thread, just reflective I guess.

I have finally ordered a kinetic bullet puller. Mostly to break down my OOPS! 9mm and .223 rounds, but also to get rid of this can of .45 ACP OOPS from my first reloading adventures that I have been packing around for 20+ years.
I sold my IPSC .45 in the 90s, but never did anything with the OOPS! rounds.

So getting this monkey off my back finally after 20 years, transported through 3 moves...

I still kind of shake my head at myself wondering why I didn't just drop them in a dud box, or get rid of them some other way in the last 2 decades. I always felt guilty when I thought of disposing of them as it seemed like they were my mistake and I need to take care of it, but never got around to it.

Who knows why I/we do things like this. /shrug
 
Hey, I charged 5 cases before I realized I hadn't yet installed primers. I kind of wondered why powder was leaking out onto my bench. Yes....it took me 5 cases before I realized what I was doing.
 
I loaded a few hundred rounds of 9mm after excitedly setting up my new dillon 650. scanned through my notes and set the dies. chatting with my friend who introduced my to shooting and reloading and mentioned how something seemed off with the coal and he promptly informed me I had loaded for hollow point coal and not rn coal. Pulling bullets is not fun.
 
Some kinetic bullet pullers are great. Others will break easily when pulling bullets from commercial ammo or surplus ammo.

I have both the Forester and RCBS collet pullers. They are very positive as long as there is a straight portion of the bullet to grasp onto. About the same speed as the kinetic pullers and not as messy if things go awry.

Having a bullet puller around has saved me and likely others a lot of money and grief. I have purchased large lots of milsurp ammo just for the components. Usually the powder and bullets are fine but the Berdan primers are bad. I picked up a several thousand CETME rounds several years ago. The bullets are excellent and very accurate. They are also around 127 grains and can be loaded to some very quick velocities. I use them for Coyotes and other varmints. The powder is very quick and comes in handy for 7.62x39 loads and a few others.

All of this was purchased for a few hundred dollars including shipping.

Every once in a while both commercial and surplus ammo lots that have issues come up for sale as components only. Usually the price on this stuff is around half the cost of just the bullets and that includes taxes and shipping.

Another buy last fall was three crates of 9x19 commercial ammo that had been in extreme heat. I pulled all of the bullets with a kinetic puller, dumped the powder into the garden and got rid of all the primers. Over 4000 new cases, and bullets for $150 and my time. Cheap like Borscht. Couldn't have taken advantage of that without a puller.
 
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Trying to load rounds a tad too quickly and smacking the casing off of something right after charging it and having powder go all over your equipment/bench and the rest of the charged cases sitting in the loading block waiting to have bullet seated.
 
Getting my finger caught between a 9mm case and the die on the upstroke three times so far, makes for a little smiley cut on the finger.
 
Trying to load rounds a tad too quickly and smacking the casing off of something right after charging it and having powder go all over your equipment/bench and the rest of the charged cases sitting in the loading block waiting to have bullet seated.

And I thought I was the only one.
Lesson learned and I had a re-do of my whole setup, and routine.

On my first attempt in the .5moa challenge, down to the very last round, and I was in.
Round #25 was a click. Primer was in backwards.

Then there was the time I stripped my SKS at my loading bench. Took the bayo off and it went flying 100mph in to my full powder measure.

Another time I primed and charged 200 cases. They weren't sized properly, bullets just fell in. It was about 1am the night before a match.
 
Didn't FL size after annealing. Should have realized when they were a pia to size, rather than getting to the range and not a single round chambered. Had to pull and FL size 50 rounds, then FL size the other 50 that were leftover.

Then I accidentally drop a bullet next to charged cases and they all cases hop dumping two or three kernels per case... had to dump them all back in the powder measure and re do.. I was hand trickling to my load too +/- 1 kernel. I had about 30 cases charged too.
 
I Never have a drink when charging cases but after they are charged, checked , rechecked and the bullets are set on the cases----perhaps a wobbly-pop or two. was doing .45 auto with cast boolits with lee alox. Single stage press, got in the rhythm, and away we go, six 50 rd trays, didn't notice the build up of alox on the seating die. Next day I was putting them in boxes, you guesed it more than half of them were way too deep in the case. bullet puller got lots of use that day.
Lessons, don't drink, use way less alox, check oal often, don't be so cheap and buy plated bullets.
 
Having 2-50 round trays full of primed&charged .45acp casings(awaiting bullet seating) and dropping the can of powder over top of them while refilling the dispenser. Dumped every case, cleaned up spillage and start over :(


Great thread!!
 
Haven't had any reloading misadventures YET, but I know i will. Now, if you wanna talk about stupid Sh!t I've done around the acreage and brewery......oh boy.....

It is a great thread.....if you can laugh at yourself it's a sign of a good dude....
 
Not checking the finished rounds coming off my Lee LM often enough and consequently creating 50+ rounds complete except for primer - the primer feeder had jammed. They were a pain to pull because the powder was spraying out of the open primer pocket as the rounds were getting whipped around in the kinetic puller.
 
I try and prep my brass first.
Load 20 rounds at a time.
Made 'nuff small errors at the beginning to be overly kawshush.
Never ever ever dump yer loads before yer shooter sells.
Lernt this last gun show.
Figured I'd sell said shewters and awwfer up brass and dies accordingly.
Shewter came home and now gartzs tuh reload the unloaded ammo that wuzz reloaded prior
to ...........well you gitts it.
 
Adding powder to my RCBS Chargemaster and not remembering to close the dump gate on the bottom. Powder in, powder out. Just that fast. Argh!!!
 
Using a hammer/inertia style bullet puller for the 1st time many years ago, was putting the bullets in backwards, using the cannelure to catch the insert on. Don't know what I was thinking, or how I was expecting this to work on bullets without a cannelure...

Also, wet tumbling some reloaded .308 rounds with bulk hp bullets, and sure enough, the pins are just big enough to fit inside the hp. Shot fine though..
 
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