4831 in .223 by accident

i'm looking at a copy of the old IMR Handloader's Guide. 26 grains of IMR 4831 in a Remington case and a Hornady 55 grain spire point bullet is a compressed load. That load gives 31,200 cup. The velocity is 2,415 fps from a 24" barrel.
 
Since it's a slower powder, I doubt that there is a chance for an overpressure situation. In general, for such a situation, I would just load another round intentionally using the mistaken powder and test it with a chrono. If it is coming out of the barrel fast enough that there is no chance of it getting stuck in the barrel, I would go ahead and shoot up the batch with the two different powder loads. Now, if you are shooting long range targets, that would make trying to sight in a scope pretty much a futile effort. :)

I stumbled across this thread while searching to see if there was any load data for IMR 4831 for .223. I recently acquired two 7-lb jugs of IMR 7383 from gibrass.com for $60 each and it is supposedly close to IMR 4831 with respect to load data.

I have a pretty good assortment of calibers that I reload for, so I figured that at that price, I could find *something* that it would work for. :)
 
Stupid would be continuing without finding out what the consequences are.

He caught it, that is good, lesson learned.

More than once I have found myself trying to figure out what the powder left in the hopper is, I just throw it out.

I have made mistakes and I will continue to do so. Live and learn, but the live part is the important one.
 
I would pull the bullets and dump the powder.

I would feel really stupid if I touched off one of the odd powder loads to just see what happens and something went really bad.

My fingers and eyes and most of my guns are worth much more than a half pound of powder.
 
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A couple of months ago I had to pull about 100 223 bullets. I used the RCBS collet style puller, and it put a ring dent in every bullet. Much to my surprise, when I reloaded them for pinker rounds, accuracy was still excellent.
 
If it was me I would pull the bullets and dump the powder in the garden. It is always 100% better to be safe than sorry.
 
I ended up with wrong primers in my cases last night. Small pistol magnum vice the intended small pistol. Luckily this is for a work up and I can start low. Mistakes happen. How we deal with it makes us men.
 
snolden said:
I ended up with wrong primers in my cases last night. Small pistol magnum vice the intended small pistol. Luckily this is for a work up and I can start low. Mistakes happen. How we deal with it makes us men.
Click to expand...

Yeah, a woman would ask all her friends what to do and they would talk it to death about what they should do -- pull the bullets & dump the powder, pull the bullets & reuse the powder, toss the entire loaded round in the trash, or whatever...

Men will just say, "Here... Hold my beer..."

:)
 
My opinion; there is no excuse for this kind of "accident". I've been reloading for lot of years and never even came close to any OOPS! like this. Reloading is a very simple task, but one must open their eyes see what's being handled, and pay attention to the task at hand only.:mad:

Pull the bullets, dump the powder and eat the costs. Maybe a pain in the wallet will teach/impress careful reloading practices more than just pulling bullets...
 
This is an old thread (1 May in fact... five years ago). :rolleyes:
That said, there are two type of reloaders:

1. Those who have done such a stupid thing... and
2. Those who WILL do such a stupid thing... at least once

The key is catching it before it's too late, and LEARNING/incorporating failsafe steps thereafter.
FWIW: The OP's 4831-for-3031 mistake (way-back-when) was definitely failsafe. Likely not even cycle the bolt ~25ksi
 
But what is the benefit of shooting them? I hate it when I'm not sure what is going to happen when I pull the trigger.
Even a bad magazine.

I wonder what the gas system will be like when filled with semi-burned powder,especially the gas tube?

Pull them.Dump the powder on the lawn .

Myself,I would pull my decapping pin from the spindle,Carefully hand lube the cases,and size them again for the benefit of the necks.

But all this is minor.

If this thread is 5 yrs old,not much point to rant on.But for those new to reloading,if you reverse this,and load 3031 in your 7mm Rem Mag instead of 4831,It will make your rifle come unglued,and it may kill you.

A process to make this not happen is essential.

Store you powder someplace besides the bench top.

When you select your powder,verify the correct powder from your load data.

Then select your canister of powder.Read the label out loud. Then do it again.

Now that is the ONLY canister of powder on the bench.

And still,when you go to add powder to the hopper,read the label out loud,twice.

FWIW,that was chem lab procedure where I worked once. Its not something I made up.
 
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