Newbies out of control!

[boltman13]

My youngest grandson has decided to take up hunting, and reloading. He used to watch me reload, and we shot 22's at my Club. I am having my Ruger M77 in 30-06 re-barreled and bedded for him. I told him to come over for a week and I would teach him how to reload and coach him thru his early loading. He ask me why I needed a week and I told him I could never live with myself and his Grandmother if he blew himself up. He then said I made it look so easy, and I told him I started reloading when his Mother was 2 years old, and I still learn new things all the time.

 

[Oso]

Reloading isn't for everyone. It isn't a huge cost savings unless you are shooting a lot of ammo and only then economically it makes sense IF you are buying supplies in a normal market with rationale prices.

The problem is a large number of people jump into reloading in response to market shortages, which is usually the worst time and also means a lot of wrong personalities. Everyone should start out on a basic single-stage press so that they become intimately familiar with every step of the process. Moreover, it is moving so slow that they are less likely to make a mistake or if they do they can catch it.

When I started I put together a summary identifier sheet that included a checklist of case prep steps that gets dropped into each tub of brass. All guess work is gone and also allows me to keep track of work flow. It is a useful tool for new reloaders.

 

[Riesel]

I'm a reloader and have been for nigh on 50 years. No major mishaps but came close.
used .357 Maximum load data in my Ruger .357. It was extremely loud and fire flaming everywhere. Was extremely accurate. Thankful to Ruger for making a tough Security Single Six.
Have good friend that reloads. When he is reloading he starts at the top and comes down on the powder. When he shoots new loads he's testing, I stand way back. I also keep a trauma kit in the truck.

 

[dellet]

It's not just new reloaders, but also gun buyers.

Some of the conversations overheard at the weekend gunshow were more frightening than ever.

But if it fits, I can shoot it, right?
Talking about a 6.5 something is 260 whatnot.

The guy at the end of the row isn't gouging for ammo, I got 100 rounds for my 30-06 for $50, bought 2 boxes.
Still trying to figure out how he got 100 rounds in those little 2" square boxes.

Should make for some interesting shaped range brass is all I can say.

 

[Intheshop]

I keep telling Gson.... to stop neck sizing,just won't listen...

 

[ballisticxlr]

Youtube didn't exist when I started. Heck the internet as we know it was just being born at the time. I got handed by my dad a Lee Loader kit for .444 Marlin along with the rifle. He didn't give me any instructions or even tell me what it was in that little red box. After I ran out of .444 ammo I opened the box, grabbed a hammer, read the instructions and learned. The first thing I learned about was how case mouth belling and case mouth splits are related. Everything after that has been learned pretty much the hard way, just as pop intended.

 

[divingin]

Why are you giving Darwin such a hard time about doing his job.

Darwin's not doing his job if Bozo Reloader survives but takes out the guy on the next bench.

 

[divingin]

If all newbies would do the same, then the internet can be a wonderful thing!

In all the years I've been shooting I have never had anyone ask me to help them learn to reload.

The primary problem with the Internet as to info like reloading, is that there is no liability involved in putting something out there. It's posted as informational, and is (probably) genuinely what the poster believes is true, but there is a) no oversight, b) no recourse if it happens to be wrong, and c) a good likelihood that people who view it take it as gospel.

I can post a video that seems to show me taking a 308 case, scooping powder from a Bullseye canister to fill to the neck, seating a bullet, and firing a nice accurate shot. Did I do it? Nope. Do I expect anyone else would think I did? Nope. But someone will think this is normal.

Books and manuals, however, may start out the same (the author/s expounding on what they believe is "fact"), but they go through layers of double-checking, including running past lawyers. People there are making sure the info there is, if not "correct" at least probably safe (unfortunately, lately, the last word should be read as being "extremely safe".)

As to the last, I find that surprising. I've had several people ask about it, and volunteered to do so quite a bit (and not necessarily with the same kind of people - there are some I will avoid because I suspect or they have proven that they would get in trouble even with help. But that's not limited to reloading, either.

 

[ballisticxlr]

Darwin's not doing his job if Bozo Reloader survives but takes out the guy on the next bench.

Point to even one time when that's actually happened. I'll wait. Hyperbole doesn't do us any good.

 

[ballisticxlr]

I can post a video that seems to show me taking a 308 case, scooping powder from a Bullseye canister to fill to the neck, seating a bullet, and firing a nice accurate shot. Did I do it? Nope. Do I expect anyone else would think I did? Nope. But someone will think this is normal.

Dunno why but this gives me an idea for a YT gun channel that's kind of in the same vein as ElectroBoom. I'd just need a steady supply of guns to completely destroy.

 

[ebb]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ooting-boyfriend-failed-youtube-stunt-n831151 When people do stuff like this, and think it will all be OK, some thing has gone wrong. Terribly wrong

 

[divingin]

Point to even one time when that's actually happened. I'll wait. Hyperbole doesn't do us any good.

This is close:
A friend of mine destroyed his AR-15 (about a month after bulging his 9mm pistol barrel from a follow-up after a squib.) I suspect he loaded a 223 round with pistol powder. Luckily for everyone else involved, he was on the far right bench, about 6 feet from a rock-filled wooden-wall across a walkway to the targets. We found pieces of his bolt carrier up to 15 feet along the walkway, and one piece embedded in the wall directly adjacent to his bench. I'll let you decide if that's warning enough. It is for me.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ooting-boyfriend-failed-youtube-stunt-n831151 When people do stuff like this, and think it will all be OK, some thing has gone wrong. Terribly wrong

Could that really have been an accident! Is anybody that dumb!

 

[ebb]

Yes

 

[joshb]

Yes

ABSOLUTELY yes!

 

[AccelR8]

The primary problem with the Internet as to info like reloading, is that there is no liability involved in putting something out there. It's posted as informational, and is (probably) genuinely what the poster believes is true, but there is a) no oversight, b) no recourse if it happens to be wrong, and c) a good likelihood that people who view it take it as gospel.

I suppose when I wrote what I did I was thinking of reloading data published by powder companies and bullet makers. You do have a point, any bozo can post "advice" on a forum or social media and there's no requirement that it be good, safe, etc.

I guess my line of reasoning was influenced by the fact that I learned a long time ago, way before the internet, that people will tell you things and convince you they know what they're talking about, and when you take their advice you find out they're full of baloney. Maybe not everyone has a highly functioning BS detector.

 

[ballisticxlr]

This is close:
A friend of mine destroyed his AR-15 (about a month after bulging his 9mm pistol barrel from a follow-up after a squib.) I suspect he loaded a 223 round with pistol powder. Luckily for everyone else involved, he was on the far right bench, about 6 feet from a rock-filled wooden-wall across a walkway to the targets. We found pieces of his bolt carrier up to 15 feet along the walkway, and one piece embedded in the wall directly adjacent to his bench. I'll let you decide if that's warning enough. It is for me.

So no. Nobody can point to even 1 instance where anyone else was killed or even significantly injured and the energy of flying pieces even in this extreme case was insufficient to penetrate a single wall and so it's unlikely that penetration in living tissues wouldn't have been impressive if frags even penetrated at all.

 

[Adam in WI]

Do I hear a volunteer?

 

[Mad_Charlie]

So no. Nobody can point to even 1 instance where anyone else was killed or even significantly injured and the energy of flying pieces even in this extreme case was insufficient to penetrate a single wall and so it's unlikely that penetration in living tissues wouldn't have been impressive if frags even penetrated at all.

I guess the logic here is that because no one has produced "proof" that such an instance has occurred. it can't, and never will, happen to anyone.

As far as I am concerned, I don't even want to be even stung by any flying fragments from a firearm failure close to me, I have enough old wounds already.

 

[David Milisock]

So no. Nobody can point to even 1 instance where anyone else was killed or even significantly injured and the energy of flying pieces even in this extreme case was insufficient to penetrate a single wall and so it's unlikely that penetration in living tissues wouldn't have been impressive if frags even penetrated at all.