I accidentally came up with an ingenious way to save on primers tonight. Don’t put them in lol. Fortunately I realized my error within 6 rounds. Would have been a real p!ss off if I had of loaded the whole block and got to the range with them.
Save primers
- Thread starter fwm
- Start date
Not a lot of risk of that with primer-less loads.
I’m not sure what exactly happened but I had one round years ago that when fired lodged the bullet in the barrel. Seemed odd when it went off. In a timed competition of course. Fortunately the next round wouldn’t chamber so no damage done. At the time I assumed I had forgotten powder but upon further investigation the powder was a yellowish clump left inside the cartridge. Still not sure if the powder was contaminated, a weak primer or not enough neck tension somehow to build pressure but I pulled the remaining rounds and disposed of the powder. All reloaded rounds fired normally with the original primers.
freddyfour
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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- Brant County, Ontario
Left the powder out on a 30-06 load yesterday. It did what they usually do, which is to say nothing at all.
Had a primer pop in a kinetic puller the other day; dang I thought I’d suppressed that memory.
I didn't know that was a thing...have me nervous now
I was trying to set my Dillon to throw 5.7 gr of power Pistol. The samples were wildly erratic. I was thinking something was wrong with the powder measure. Then I noticed the empty case i was using had no primer - and leaked powder.
I had this happen in 7.62X54R. Lee dies with a .310 expander intended for .311-312 bullets, and Speer .311 bullets that measured .3095. 2 rounds didn't ignite the H4895 and did exactly as you describe. Bullet lodged in throat, powder clumped up and unburnt. Was an interesting learning experience.
I’ve had that happen too. In my case it was 91 grain charges of H1000, cold weather (-40) CCI primers and a savage. Heck; I did three things wrong there. It’s got to the point where if someone is having misfire problems I ask them if they’re using a savage or CCI primers.
I remember meeting a guy at the range who was trying smokeless loads in a 45/110. Same thing; yellow powder. His left the cartridge; but that could have been mechanical. On the big singleshots you can get by without sizing your cases at all, at least with black powder. I don’t know if that was the case with him though. Since it was obvious that the big Sharps wasn’t a savage, that only left CCI primers which were standard, not magnum. The 45/110 is a special situation, where smokeless powder just isn’t recommended at all, because charges of smokeless are either too high in pressure or slopping around like a teaspoon of sand in an empty boot. Some people have luck with super slow powders that fill the case but are so slow burning that there isn’t any pressure or velocity to speak off. Trouble is, ignition is a tough thing, and you have to hit them with a real primer like a 215 and maybe a crimp to have a chance. He didn’t want to hear that for some reason. I wished him well; and was going to say at least you’re having fun; but he didn’t look like he was having fun at all. You can only help people that want to be helped.
If not throwing bulk loads through a powder dispenser I simply load a block with cases upside down ( primer up) so I can visually see a primer in each case. I flip each one as and I go, charge it with powder and continue along. I just got in the habit of using this technique so as not to double charge a bottleneck case when loading mouse fart loads but found it all but eliminated the problem the OP describes.
Interestingly the one box I had of Hornady .312 150 gr interlocks all measured .3105. Sierras are the only .311-312 bullets I've found to actually measure what the box says. Perhaps it was the exact same problem in both cases.
