Reloading incident. Remeber to check before seating bullets.

BUSHMAN79 said:
That is why I always advise people to use only blackpowder in their antique revolvers. If you double charge your original .44 Russian, you simply don't have the safety margin you would with a modern revolver. Of course, the folks on the BP and Antiques forum don't make mistakes.......;)
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I just advise people not to double load. :)

I drive. If I forget to look at the road signs I could have a serious accident, and yet I still feel confident driving. Reloading is less complicated and far less dangerous than driving a car. But we don't advise people to stop driving. :)
 
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A chill goes down my spine worrying about this. A 44 spl came in once with 2 projectiles stuck halfway down the Bbl. Needless to say, thank G@d it was a S&W or somebody would be missing some face.
 
This has happened to me 1 time as well . I am grateful it wasn't a double charge . I took a phone call . And missed charging a case . Without a cleaning rod it ended shooting that rifel for the day. Lesson learned. Pay attention.
 
It is VERY easy to lose where you are on a progressive press. I know ...I have a Dillon 550 B and am sorry I didn't bump up to the 650. Station 3 is a powder check fail safe that senses both low or high charges and emits an audible sound when something is amiss.
One thing for sure is that if you pull the handle on the press you must cycle the brass as well ( if the press requires manual cycle ) otherwise you WILL end up with more than want you want.
Long brass like .44 , .38/.357 are bad ones because you gotta look into them.
Pistol brass is not so bad cause it's stubby.
Another safety to employ is using the same make of brass. it tends to weigh the same or close to it, so if a guy thinks that he might have a hot one he can weigh the completed bullet against another of the same batch. Brass weight varies a lot so that will help in keeping ones fingers on ones hands.. lol
 
It is VERY easy to lose where you are on a progressive press. I know ...I have a Dillon 550 B and am sorry I didn't bump up to the 650. Station 3 is a powder check fail safe that senses both low or high charges and emits an audible sound when something is amiss.
One thing for sure is that if you pull the handle on the press you must cycle the brass as well ( if the press requires manual cycle ) otherwise you WILL end up with more than want you want.
Long brass like .44 , .38/.357 are bad ones because you gotta look into them.
Pistol brass is not so bad cause it's stubby.
Another safety to employ is using the same make of brass. it tends to weigh the same or close to it, so if a guy thinks that he might have a hot one he can weigh the completed bullet against another of the same batch. Brass weight varies a lot so that will help in keeping ones fingers on ones hands.. lol
 
A while ago I was loading trail boss 45-70 loads on my Lee Casic Cast turret press, I weighed multiple charges on my RCBS 505 scale and after a little fine tuning everything was spot on with my auto drum power dispenser. I weighed around every 5-10th powder charge and spot on. When I was almost done the batch of 100 I charged a case, went to weigh the powder and there was only a few grains of trail boss when there was supposed to be 13. FULL STOP!

Needless to say production stopped and I investigated; powder hopper 1/2 full and dispensing properly.... after a bit of experimenting I discovered that trail boss being the large flakey powder it is can bridge the charging dies hole in to the case. Needless to say I pulled each and every one of the almost 100 finished cases and discovered two that had no powder and one more that had a partial charge of approximately 5 grains.....

I’m glad I caught it but it was a fluke. I no longer use trail boss in the auto drum, it’s a lee dipper special for me now. I’m glad I didn’t find out what could have happened with a light load of trailboss in my SBL.

Stay safe guys and gals.
 
I weigh each charge using Trail Boss.
I found the best way to load TB, for my .45-70's, is to dump a slightly lower charge into the weigh scale pan, then trickle it up to what I want for each of the four single shot "Buffalo Rifles" I shoot.
I too found TB to be tricky to use from the dispenser.
I can adjust it to throw a few charges at the correct weight, then it starts throwing ever lighter charges, as the weight of the powder in the dispenser is reduced.
If I keep the hopper filled at it's sweet spot, things are pretty consistent.
Slow production though, when you're loading .45 Colt in volume, for CAS.
Good thing I'm retired.
 
Brassman66 said:
For Reloaders, the Statistics are not in our Favour.

If one reload's long enough sooner or later a wakeup call will happen, so pay attention Reloading is not a Group Sport.

My advise --- If your Gun does not make the usual BANG stop immediately and check if your Barrel is free of obstructions.
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I can't agree more. I have what was a perfectly good Python that I was shooting some very light .38 spl loads out of and managed to put a bulge in the barrel near the muzzle.
I had the barrel counter bored past the bulge as I didn't like the bullet leaving the rifling and then picking it up again. I have been shooting it that way for years and have found another barrel but I just haven't had it installed yet.
An expensive lesson learned without injury.
 
maybe I am wrong in my thinking but from my experience a squib load in a bottle neck casing is not because of no powder charge as the primers do not have enough force to push the projectile from the neck. That has been my experience in anything from 223 Rem and larger.
 
Years ago I witnessed a brand new Browning BAR blow apart the range I was a member at. It was in .300 WIN MAG. I took s couple of shots with it at 100 yards due toit being an older gentlemen sighting it in and recoil was starting to affect him.
I returned to my bench only to hear the most godawful blast I ever heard from a bench. I turned around to see the man startled but uninjured. All the internals of the rifle exited where the mag used to be with the body of the casing still stuck in the chamber.
Looking at the carnage the first guess for everyone present is that he grabbed the wrong powder. Since that incident the only handloads I fire are my own. I was 1 away from a big suprise.
 
buckbrush said:
Redwawks are hugely over enginered, some people convert the .45 colt ones to .454 Casull with no problems. If he did that with a 629, it would have peeled like a banana.
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If he did that with a 629, it would have peeled like a banana.
Are you just assuming this or can you point me to anything published by a recognized authority confirming this ?

I am asking because I am shooting heavy .44 Rem .Mag. loads (Bullet Jackets made from .40S&W Casings filled with Lead 240-245 Grain) in my Ruger Super Blackhawk Hunter without any issues and want to try the same heavy loads soon out of my DA 629 S&W.


Cheers

Cheers
 
The oops I just about had was reloading for my 8X57. I wanted to try the Barnes 200g TSX, I didn't have a Barnes reloading book, so I looked in the Nosler book at the load data for the 200g Partition. After all, two bullets that are the same calibre and same weight should have the same load data right? When I was seating the bullets I noticed that the case walls were flexing out, I knew that the load I was using was a compression load or close to it, but I didn't expect the sides of the case to bulge out like that. Hmm, seems odd. So I put the shell box into my ammo cabinet for it to await my next trip to the range. But this voice kept screaming at me from the back of my mind "somethings not right" "don't shoot those". After a few days of listening to that voice I thought about what I had done. I use the same C.O.L. for the 200g Partition, however, because the Barnes is an alloy bullet and not lead the bullet itself is about .2" longer than the partition. Meaning that I had pushed another .2" of bullet into the case and turned a compression load into a super compression load. Luckily I came to my senses I pulled them apart before something bad happened.

Ever since then I haven't had the urge to test out Barnes bullets again.

BDD
 
Just reread the post and notice this an old thread, no matter, better be safe than sorry.

Me and my wife are target shooters and started reloading a month ago. When at the step of measuring powder and loading the brass, it's always done by the two of us. One enters the weight on the scale the other pours into the brass. If one or the others doubts anything, we visually check the brass, and if one feels not certain, I empty the brass and redo it. We also number our brass and keep a log. We're then able to check between ourselves what case is next. Measure twice, cut once!
 
PrairieMedic said:
#### happens, but doesn't have to.

Check, Check, Recheck, there's no room for error in this hobby. Then ####
won't happen. I wonder what the 44's metal structure is now, I would assume
it wouldn't be able to take another hit like that one.

--PM
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I wondered about that too.
Firing a Handgun Bullet on top of a stuck Bulled in the Barrel usually results in bulging the Barrell, at least that's what happens in Automatics. Guess why do I know !

Cheers
 
A shooter I know has been experiencing squibs with his .38 Spl. and .357 loads in his Blackhawk and his .357 lever action.
Fortunately, he has stopped each time it has happened.
Both CFE Pistol and Titegroup have been used, with above minimum/below Maximum charges, all checked visually, in the loading block before a 158 grain lead bullet is seated.
The apparent common factor is the *primer used. My guess is the primer isn't hot enough, since each time it has happened, he has found unburned powder in the actions.


*Ginex
 
The Cold Lake Kid said:
A shooter I know has been experiencing squibs with his .38 Spl. and .357 loads in his Blackhawk and his .357 lever action.
Fortunately, he has stopped each time it has happened.
Both CFE Pistol and Titegroup have been used, with above minimum/below Maximum charges, all checked visually, in the loading block before a 158 grain lead bullet is seated.
The apparent common factor is the *primer used. My guess is the primer isn't hot enough, since each time it has happened, he has found unburned powder in the actions.


*Ginex
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Or his primers are bad, or flash holes got media stuck in it. Those powders are hardly powders requiring magnum primers.
 
The flash holes were all clear at the time of charging. He de-primed/resized after tumbling and looked.
I worked with him last time and could see no visible issues in his process or the components used.
He still had three squibs from ~40+ rounds with one brand of primers, but not another primer brand, even though he fired nearly twice as many rounds.
He reported more unburned Titegroup when he emptied the revolver, to clear the squibs.
Warm day, temperature 75+
I had a look at the cases that had the squibs. Good hits on all primers.
He doesn't want to use the rest of the first mentioned primers.
 
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