Reloading hall of shame

[rockable]

Got distracted or zoned out and dumped Varget into my H 4895. Had to throw away almost a pound of powder. Ouch!


Of course, I've done all the other aforementioned bloopers, as well.

Also, I like to stay ahead with my brass prep. I have learned to write a note and drop it in the container saying what I have done. ( i.e. neck sized and primed, full length sized, tc.) I have CRS disease.

[doctnj]

My first instinct would have been to turn it into a big firework. But then someone would call it a pipe bomb and haul you off to prison and ruin all the fun!

[bearcatrp]

One pound would have woke up the neighborhood. No doubt your face would have been plastered all over the news linking you to ISIS. Dam news organizations consider your guilty until you prove your innocent.

[doctnj]

off topic a bit but on line with the one pound powder. You know I LOVE shooting tanerite. When you set it a long distance there is no doubt when you hit it. I am shocked and pleased at the same time that academy sells pretty big containers of it. They have multiple pound containers, at least they did. I thought I would start making my own and ordered some AL powder from an online supply. But I cant bring myself to try and source the ammonia nitrate because of fear of starting an investigation. Im sure the neighbors wonder what is going on when the canisters explode. But the giggle factor is just way to big.

[adammiddagh]

I inherited several pownds of powder that were 20 plus years old. Some in paper bags. Some in relabelled containers.

I disposed of them by making lines on the ground and lighting with a torch.

It was very entertaining seeing the difference in burn rates.

[doctnj]

I have a shelf full of tracers and my dubious plan was to attach glow sticks to tanerite targets and shoot them at night with tracers. One of my shooting/ hunting buddies is ex marine sniper turned state trooper. He supplied the glow sticks. Thank you uncle sam. But is reminded me that he started a 1600 acre fire shooting tracers during training. So we are waiting for a nice wet night.

[yobuck]

I inherited several pownds of powder that were 20 plus years old. Some in paper bags. Some in relabelled containers.

I disposed of them by making lines on the ground and lighting with a torch.

It was very entertaining seeing the difference in burn rates.

I'm still using powder that is over 50 years old, WW2 surplus.
You will know when it goes bad, but till it does use it.
We also have some weve dubbed slo stick. No idea what it is but weve figured out
how much to use in certain guns.
What are you using in that George? 80 grains of slo stick lol.

[yobuck]

I have a shelf full of tracers and my dubious plan was to attach glow sticks to tanerite targets and shoot them at night with tracers. One of my shooting/ hunting buddies is ex marine sniper turned state trooper. He supplied the glow sticks. Thank you uncle sam. But is reminded me that he started a 1600 acre fire shooting tracers during training. So we are waiting for a nice wet night.

Be carefull with that. My brother in law has a place next to ours and can shoot at the same sidehill we can across from our camp.
He still gets all giddy also when he shoots things that blow up. About 5 years ago in march there was snow on the ground but most had melted.
He figured he was safe to burn up some old tracers on the sidehill. That evening they noticed some smoldering of leaves and brush but didn't think much about it.
Next day it required 3 fire companies from as far away as 30 miles to put it out.
He owned up to it and made some donations but I was never told how much he donated.
It was an all day affair and even included an on site lunch vehicle for the firemen.
I advised him to drop the rest of his tracers off a bridge over a river nearby.

[psharon97]

Happened to me today. Helping my dad develop some loads for his 30-06. Neither of us could get the thing to group. At the end of the day, I went to see how tight everything was on the rifle. Noticed the scope was loose. Tightened up everything and will continue that battle another day lol

[Fotheringill]

Putting the collet in upside down in a new Lee Collet neck sizing die after taking it apart to clean and wondering why it wouldn't work in decapping or resizing.
You Tube is a wonderful thing.

[squirrel_slayer]

my first 100 rounds of .223 I was super careful, uniformed the primer pockets and flash holes, full case prep, hand weighed charges and they didn't chamber. didn't know about camover in the press to bump the shoulder back. awesome! still have to break them down. that was over 8 years ago.

[geezerhood]

my first 100 rounds of .223 I was super careful, uniformed the primer pockets and flash holes, full case prep, hand weighed charges and they didn't chamber. didn't know about camover in the press to bump the shoulder back. awesome! still have to break them down. that was over 8 years ago.

You can resize those without needing to pull the bullets. Use a Redding S type FL die or similar with the removable neck sizer insert - take the insert and the decapping stem out and size them until they fit just right into your gauge or chamber. Be sure to lube them of course or you will have a stuck case. You can tumble them to remove the lube without any concerns as long as you don't leave them in the tumbler for days, or just wipe them clean if that would worry you. (Virtually all factory ammo is tumbled after loading to clean it up.)

[squirrel_slayer]

You can resize those without needing to pull the bullets. Use a Redding S type FL die or similar with the removable neck sizer insert - take the insert and the decapping stem out and size them until they fit just right into your gauge or chamber. Be sure to lube them of course or you will have a stuck case. You can tumble them to remove the lube without any concerns as long as you don't leave them in the tumbler for days, or just wipe them clean if that would worry you. (Virtually all factory ammo is tumbled after loading to clean it up.)

Don't own that die and have no real use for it for that cartridge. have considered getting a 20 practical barrel which would be good reason to buy that die, but my priorities are set on securing some NFA goodies before the elections. I always tumble my loaded ammo for 30min or so before putting it away (except cast).

[bodywerks]

My real f ups started with loading pistol rounds using the Lee load master. I've had no charges, no primers, inverted primers kinked brass, the works! Lesson learned - accept that when you're loading at a rate of 600-750 rounds an hour you better be inspecting your rounds!
I've not been dumb enough to actually have one make it to my magazine, but I wouldn't be surprised if one gets past me eventually.

[Streetwalker]

A common thing I've noticed in this thread is people trying to watch TV while reloading.

I can screw up stuff all by myself. No reason to add the extra distraction.

Many years ago I used to use my Lee Auto-Prime to prime brass while I watched the idiot box. That's about as far as I would take it. I'm super anal about safety when reloading. I still have problems at times. Primers not feeding on my LnL progressive and causing powder to go everywhere is the most common.

[Greg8403]

Rocking out on my progressive press, everything set , my dies are perfect and the .224 bullets are ready to go in !!!
after about 400 done realize oh **** when did I run out of powder!!!!
So now there were 50+ rounds with no powder in the box... check all of them !!!!

[Wy_Longrange]

A little late to the party here. A buddy of mine had a Remington model 710, I believe, chambered for 300win. He had an old Corps buddy load him some ammo. Long story short, he missed some work when the lugs sheared off his bolt sending the bolt back to meet his acquaintance. He asked me to deconstruct the ammo, and I found each round had what looked liked us869 or w780 ball, some sort of extruded powder, and blue dot on the bottom. They are no longer friends.

[adammiddagh]

...I found each round had what looked liked us869 or w780 ball, some sort of extruded powder, and blue dot on the bottom. They are no longer friends.

Doesn't need magnum primers this way!

[doctnj]

I watched a youtube video of a guy taking a 50 cal bolt to the neck and shoulder. One guy is screaming cease fire and get a bunch of towels. He lived.

[doctnj]

Unfortunately or otherwise I have yet another addition to this thread. I have no problem publishing my mistakes as I hope it helps someone down the road.

I was pulling bullets last night and 2 out of 50 had several particles of tumbling medium in them. I normally visually inspect each piece prior to priming to prevent this. I either missed those two or the particles were stuck to the sides out of view when I looked inside. I use a spray lube and normally stand all cases up and give one quick squirt across all of them to get the inside neck. After resizing they usually go into ultrasonic and one more pass through the medium for a re shine. I admit I was in a hurry, bad thing, on this load up and may have skipped the ultrasonic. This may have lead to lube remaining in the case allowing medium to stick to the walls. The powder dislodged it and it was loose inside the case.
Im glad we didnt shoot these although I dont think it would have been catastrophic. But certainly the potential.

Lesson learned, either switch to dry neck lube or never skip ultrasonic cleaning to remove case lube inside cases. I have a container of dry case lube just havent used it yet since I bought the ultrasonic.

Oh and one more thing. I was dumping the powder directly back into the powder jug so all the medium was falling into the jug. Luckily it was all but empty at the time so trashing was easy to do. Now I dump back into the powder tray off my scale to inspect it before dumping into the jug.
Hope this helps someone.