What Mistakes Have You Made While Reloading??

[Cemetery-man]

Double charge for me. I documented it here. Hope no one ever makes the same mistake.

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...i-got-come-home-today-tale-double-charge.html

Probably why I will never go to a progressive press.

It may be slower but I enjoy the hands-on-every-step of the process which means at one point all my charged cases will be laid out in front of me in a block so I can physically inspect them for double charges before seating.

 

[VinceU1]

Don't know if this is really applicable, but...
Put a 6 inch barrel and slide on my 5 inch Para, had my 15 year old daughter take a USPSA class with the gun, she complained about the recoil. Shot the perfectly safe 5 inch gun loads over a chrono and found that instead of the normal PF of 170, it was now a PF of well over 200! So much for a heavier slide taming recoil!!!
Now she shoots a 9mm.
Sigh!

 

[looney2ns]

As of Monday.

For reloading practice I load a regular round but just with no primer or powder.

Wanted some more 45's. Figured I'd try and see if superglue would make the dummy rounds hold up a little better. Did not want to mess with the 45 shell plate, figured I'd just hold the shell in place for a few dummy rounds & then go back to the 40 cal setup.

1st digit of forefinger on left hand is not ideally suited to stop the travel of the press.

All is well, but finger is still somewhat colorful, and I did the chicken dance for a while when it happened.

I blame this on looney2nes

Wait, what? You have to practice reloading ammo? At this stage in the game?

 

[CountryBoy19]

Not sure what 4.2 grains of H335 would do in a .40.

More than likely nothing catastrophic, typically fast powders in a load intended for slow powder is bad. Slow powder in a load intended for fast powder is often not catastrophic.

That being said, were they weighed or volumetrically measured? For the most part powder contain roughly the same amount of energy by weight across the board. It's the additives that control burn rate and other burn characteristics that make powders different from one another. They can also have different densities, but for the same weight of powder you have roughly the same total energy, the critical factor is how quickly it is released (which is what determines pressure if all other variables are the same).

Yes, I realize there is more to it than what I've outlined, but that is a basic summary that covers "most of it".

Also made the "mistake" of loading wolf primers...never again...5:1 failure rate.

Interesting, I've loaded over 10,000 wolf primers in my life and I've only ever had 2 bad wolf primers. The first one was very early on and I learned what to look for; I caught a 2nd primer with the same issue about a week later (in the same box of 1,000) and was able to prevent the problem before loading it and I have since never encountered another problem. Maybe you should contact wolf customer service or the retailer you bought them from?

 

[longbeard]

Mistakes... A few squibs, which I caught. These were caused by the press getting boogered up somewhere, and me correcting the issue, and auto-indexing past the powder fill. I put a powder check die on the 650 after this. I always visually look, but as was stated, a distraction, particularly on an auto-indexing press can be a real problem.

I've had a case head separation that put a little XDS 9 out of commission. Hard to tell if I would have noticed this if I inspected harder? I do look at my rounds...

Primer spills galore.

Buying a vibraprime. That was a mistake! Doesn't work at all!

 

[Maximinus Thrax]

No mistakes yet. I use a lock out die and certain protocol to stay safe. If I lose my rhythm or have to pause then all rounds on the progressive press come off.

A mental and physical reset. Nice

 

[Cemetery-man]

Once I was chugging along on the Lee Classic Turret, checking each powder load visually as I always do. I pulled up short when one case appeared much fuller than the others. I dumped the powder and found a dead ladybug (actually a beetle, not a bug) at the bottom. Living in a old house, we get lots of ladybugs and box elder bugs crawling around the house in the winter. Almost got a compressed load there. Not sure if the dead bug would have obstructed the primer flash. Glad I didn't get a chance to find out.

Don't most gun owners always carry a "bug"?

 

[Okimeister]

Worst booboo, working on a progressive loader and had to turn the turret back because one of the primers didn't get seated correctly. In doing so I forgot the one casing got charged and continued reloading. A few weeks later while at the range and shooting a Browning Hi-Power 9mm, I quickly realized when rather than going "bang" I got a big "BOOM"...about pissed my pants!!! The grips blew off and the case locked the slide. Fortunately no other damage to the BHP. Funny part was that I was waiting to see a hand specialist and was a little early so I went to the range (about 2 blocks away). I went to the specialist he took a look at my hand(s) and saw the powder burns. That was embarrassing, plus the fact he wasn't too happy since I was supposed to be resting my wrist...I figured it was good therapy...LOL I still have that blown case as a reminder!!!

 

[88E30M50]

I've made a bunch of minor mistakes, like forgetting to prime a piece of brass as it goes through the progressive or getting a .357 mag case in with my .38 specials. That .357 case looked like a fog horn after it got through the bell mouth die. One of the worst mistakes was starting a bunch of 8mm Mauser rounds one day and finishing them days later. I sized and primed 50 cases intending to come back the next day to charge and seat them. I got busy and did not get them done for about a week. When I went to shoot them, I got a squib round after a few normal rounds. I took the rifle home and shot it again the following week and had the same thing happen. In both cases, the primer ignited, but not enough to ignite the powder. What I think happened is that when I sat the primed cases in the rack, I then let the rack sit on my bench under the AC condenser lines. I think those sweated heavily on a hot summer day and dripped into a couple of the cases and I probably came back and loaded right over top of the water.

I've learned my lesson now and do not prime brass without either finishing the rounds or at least putting them into an air tight tupperware type container until I can finish.

I think the worst mistake I've made was not in keeping a detailed log of what I loaded, how I loaded it and when it was loaded. I used to just keep slips of paper in the boxes describing what it was and those would get tossed when I finished that box. I now keep a reloading log next to the press and each time I do any loading, I enter in the log what I loaded and how many were done. I wish I had those records back to when I first started reloading.

 

[Adrian8]

My one BIG mistake in over 40 years of reloading... I was loading .45 ACP and noticed that "some" of the jacketed bullets went into some of the resized and charged cases exceptionally easy but I did not give it any thought. so...Without the proper neck tension on the bullet, when shooting, the bullet got rammed deeper into the case on the ramp-up to the chamber. This caused a very high pressure spike, ruined the pistol, was an ugly scene.. ALL the loose neck, resized cases were once fired Remington brass, they just would not resize. I will not buy or pickup and Remington .45 Brass. So..if you feel light pressure of the bullet going in the case BEEEWARE..I could actually push the loaded bullets deep into the case after loading them, with my thumb. I was loading singlely on a Rockchucker.. Not so much because of this, but one last tip...Never Load ammo for anyone.

 

[Michigan Slim]

I had just filled the shot hopper on my Sizemaster and realized that I put in #6 shot rather than 7 1/2. So I tilted back the hopper to swap it out. I hadn't put the plastic plug back in and dumped about 5 ounces of shot all over the table, and the floor. My wife heard her Kirby vacuum getting a shot peening from the other side of the house. But it did clean the inside of the vacuum.....

 

[jstory]

Does not buying more powder when it was plentiful count? Other than a few sideway primers and primers going in upside down...been pretty lucky.

 

[Maximinus Thrax]

Does not buying more powder when it was plentiful count? Other than a few sideway primers and primers going in upside down...been pretty lucky.

I assure you that that's one mistake I will never make. I got started reloading during the panic and thus haven't had the fortune of being able to choose whatever I wanted. I'll be rather spendy when powder and other supplies are readily back on the shelves. I won't be caught with nothing EVER again.

 

[Bfish]

subbed to learn!

 

[chemteach]

Been hand loading for several years and have doubled-charged a few cases and missed charging a few cases. Have always caught it before seating the bullet. If possible, always take 10 seconds to inspect your cases after charging. I typically load in batches of 50 or 100 one operation at a time. Slow is smooth and smooth is good. Plus, I enjoy my time with the press. Just started loading rifle last summer. it's a whole different animal from pistol.

 

[craigkim]

Worst was... One 45 squib, which I caught..... In my barrel.

Loaded several 115/124 grain bullets into a 380 case, which is easily identifiable as they look ridiculous.

The big one for me is loading up a few rounds after letting the primer tube run out and you dont realize it until you notice powder all over the shell plate.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Nothing serious, yet. I've seated bullets WAAAY too deep setting my my dies and had to pull them and toss the brass that I bulged.

I also round out recently my crimp on my 125gr .357 magnums is not tight enough for my LCR. It works fine in my larger revolvers, but the recoil from the LCR acted like a bullet puller and tied up the gun. Luckily I was able to shove the bullet back down in the brass from the side and open the cylinder, so no harm other than ruining a drill.

 

[Mgderf]

I haven't been loading long, but I've put a couple of primers in upside-down, and I've crushed a couple of cases trying to set dies.
So far that's it. Hopefully it will stay that way...

 

[Cynical]

I've done the same as a lot have already mentioned. Primers sideways,upside down, no primer at all. A squib every now and then but fortunately no double charge. Smashed a .357 case cause I forgot to re-adjust my dies from .38s lost a decapping pin in some 9mm junk cases that had extra small flash holes, didn't notice for a few pulls of the handle and had to sort through a coffee can full to find them all. Probably the dumbest thing I did was to tumble 9mm and .40 together. The 9s wiggled their way into the .40 on a good portion so not all got polished and spent some time separating them....lesson learned.

 

[Leadeye]

While I've not made any destructive mistakes, I've had my share of failed experiments in 40+ years.