Bonehead reloading mistake

[piie]

I'm so lazy, I would just drill a little hole into my receiver so I could fire those rounds the way you do with a flint-lock

 

[LaMan]

Wait till you realize that all of you rounds at a BR match are unprimed! Hustle back to the loading bench, carefully insert primers, hustle back to bench, got one minute left to shoot, you can imagine how bad that group was. That happened early in my career, now all rounds are triple checked.

 

[garandman]

When I started shooting F Class, my first two matches, I shot factory ammo while I was waiting and learning about reloading. First match I used my reloads, I intended to shoot 10 sighter's to warm up, the first 5 went off ok, the next one was a pop and no fire, bullet left the case and went in a short way, pulled the bolt got the rod out and pushed the bullet out, reentered the bolt, fired the next one, same thing. HM I was shooting with picked the next 8 rounds and shook them and said, No Powder. The rest fired, had 10 that weren't charged.

My greatest fear !

Only happened once so far with 9 mm on a progressive press. Once I knocked the bullet back out the breach of the barrel I noticed an imperfection in the barrel. Sent it back to Springfield and they gave me a brand new barrel.

Technically I may have made that divot in the barrel somehow but I don't think so.

 

[divingin]

Failed to prime it, put a powder charge into the case that was sitting in the loading block, tapped it a couple of times to settle the powder ... and, when I lifted it from the loading block the powder was trickling out the flash hole into the block. Oops. So, dumped the powder, brushed it out, primed, re-charged, then seated. No harm, no foul.

I batch load 50 at a time. my case charging involves throwing a charge, putting it on a scale, adjusting charge to within .05gn, and funnel it into the case. Funnel moves one case, and repeat 49 times. So I only find out I forgot to prime after an hour of adjusting and dumping powder charges.

 

[Webster]

I was testing 3 virgin brass cases with A neck collet to see how much they stretched in the chamber, To know how much to bump back the shoulder.... so I measured the unfired brass.

Loaded them up, seated the bullets, got to the range, put them in the mag, chambered the round, sighted in on target, squeezed off the trigger and… click.

Waited 3 seconds then unchambered the unfired round.

I forgot to prime the $#@&% things !!!! Doh !!!!

I need to be fully wrapped in bubble wrap so I don't hurt myself.

Why would you measure unfired brass to determine how much to bump the shoulder?

 

[garandman]

Why would you measure unfired brass to determine how much to bump the shoulder?

I answered that in the first sentence (above) For my own information as to how much stretch happens in the chamber upon firing. I like to learn new things and understand the process the best possible. And to see how much the brass is getting worked.

 

[204 AR]

I missed the powder charge in one of my sister-in-laws deer loads, and of course that's the one she had in the chamber when trying to shoot her deer a couple years ago. Luckily the bullet didn't dislodge. We checked the rest and that was the only one.

Now I let her and her husband charge their rounds and seat bullets lol.

A while back I was testing rounds, had a block full of primed cases and was charging 3 at a time. I proceeded to seat bullets on 3 empty cases and actually tried 2 of them before I figured it out.

 

[JimSC]

try getting up at 4am to drive 3 hours for a match, register, set the rifle up and as you load and make ready you realize you brought the 6 Creedmoor rifle and the .260 Remington ammo

 

[Spike A]

Had this happen once also… but between chambering and extracting dropped a ton of powder into bolt area/ lugs.. took forever to clean out..

 

[madmixerman]

I guess I'm lucky never done that. But, I look at the primer in every case before putting it in the loading block and powdering up.

 

[No.343]

Maybe we can do a group buy on bubble wrap and save a few bucks.

 

[garandman]

I guess I'm lucky never done that. But, I look at the primer in every case before putting it in the loading block and powdering up.

I usually have a very repetitive process, which minimizes the change for screw ups. But i was just loading 3 rounds here, and the added process of measuring the case length got me outta sequence and whammo.

 

[McHaggis]

Did this one a couple weeks ago. Had some brass prepped that I didn't load for a seating depth test still in my loading block which I put my fired cases in next too. Well, grabbed the bunch, loaded up the tumbler and saw this a couple hours later, lol!

Now that’s funny!

 

[INTJ]

Based on various loading mistakes I have made, most all involving loading for competitions, I now have a series of double checks and validation steps. One of them is to look into every case to make sure powder is properly charged before seating the bullet.

 

[JEFFPPC]

I wrote a book 2 years ago about mistakes I have made reloading and made in various ways that put me out of the money at matches . The idea was some humor but also to be helpful to others. 3 publishers sent basically the same reply. "No one will read or buy a book these days with over 900 pages."

 

[Joe Salt]

Really easy way not to forget primers and powder I believe I've put on the Forum before!
when you put the primers in the cases put it back in the loading block primer up. Then when your done inspect them all to see there are none in backwards. I then put the molly in the necks turn them over to add powder.
Then when your done with powder use a light to inspect you have powder in each case know add bullets.

Joe Salt

 

[INTJ]

Really easy way not to forget primers and powder I believe I've put on the Forum before!
when you put the primers in the cases put it back in the loading block primer up. Then when your done inspect them all to see there are none in backwards. I then put the molly in the necks turn them over to add powder.
Then when your done with powder use a light to inspect you have powder in each case know add bullets.

Joe Salt

Another way is to count out the exact number of primers that you need. If you miss a case you will have a left over primer

 

[MikeWhy]

Last night, I finished priming and powdering, picked up a charged case, turned and looked upon the mess about the press, and thought "That will never do." As I started to push stuff out of the way with my free hand, I thought "Do it right," and pinched the charged case like a cigarette between fingers in the left hand to better help heap the mess into neater piles. For the next two minutes, I sprinkled powder like holy water all about the bench in exorcism of the good omens that found me earlier in the evening. It could have been worse. I stopped carrying a lighter some months after I had stopped smoking.

 

[SSL]

I used to suffer from the occasional missed powder charge or cleaning media in cases when I loaded cartridges using a case tray and dropped powder to a whole tray full at a time. Easy to have a momentary lapse and skip one. I now clean, size, trim, hand-wipe, clean primer pockets and prime by hand in bulk (almost never over 50 at a time), but load powder one case at a time. Since competition isn't my thing, I use my Chargemaster and seat the bullet for each case as the charge for the next is trickling. I do check every fifth load against scales (easy to keep track of by watching the counter and weighing on 'the fives') but I'm in no real hurry. I have hanging tags that I put on the hopper when I fill it with powder (along with a sticker on the drain spout saying CLOSE ME!) to clearly identify what it is. have also learned to stay away from the loading bench if I'm hurried or distracted by other things.
And I still pull the occasional stupid stunt!

 

[Joe Salt]

Another way is to count out the exact number of primers that you need. If you miss a case you will have a left over primer

INTJ your missing the point, I'm talking about a visual inspection! I take them out one at a time from weighed out drawers and after I seat the primer it goes primer primer up. The count doesn't matter I've been known to count wrong before. visual is the only way.

Joe Salt