About mistakes, I've made a few.

M

Mike38

New member
Well, it was bound to happen. I've been reloading since 1997, and can honestly say I've never made a major screw up, until last night. Sure, I've made some pretty sad looking reloads when I first started. Also some pretty pathetic rounds in the accuracy department, but noting like this.

I use a single stage reloader. I prepped and primed 200 pieces of .38Spcl brass on Sunday. Sat down Monday to charge and seat bullets. I charged 50 pieces putting them in a reloading tray. Seated the bullets, putting them in another tray. About half way through I caught myself grabbing a case from the 150 pcs sitting in staging that had not been charged with powder. Opps! When finished reality hit me hard. I had 51 pieces with bullets seated. But I only charged 50 with powder. One of these 51 has no powder in it.

So I weighed all 51 pcs and set aside the lightest 10, figuring the empty had to be there. Started pulling bullets. Nope, all 10 had powder. So I just started randomly grabbing to pull the bullet. I pulled 42 before I found the empty. :mad:

Lesson learned.

But I have a question please. I used a bullet puller that looks like a plastic hammer. You clamp the cartridge in one end, and smack the thing on a piece of wood like you're driving a nail into it. Bullets pops off after 3 or 4 hits. Does this type of bullet pulling cause problems with the primers? Does the compound in the primer break apart, or am I over thinking this?
 
I believe you are giving it the proper amount of thinking! ;)

Doing the work of 42 pulls is exhausting and obnoxious and will help you learn from the experience and fantastic work in finding your failure while STILL at the load bench and not on the gun range!

Kinetic (hammer) puller will not affect primers whatsoever but...
You will need to re-size at least the case mouth... and your size die will want to knock out that live primer.
 
Pull primer pin out of your sizing die and you're good to go. Resize reload

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 
Yep, lesson learned for sure. :o Glad to see that the primers will be fine. Now back upstairs to do some reloading, and hopefully no mistakes this time. Thanks.
 
As others have said, primers will be fine.

You may want to invest in the RCBS collet bullet puller for future use. Easier to use and less stressful. I hated the hammer thing.
 
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face... Couldn't you shake each cartridge and narrow it down that way? Its subtle.
 
I made a similar "mistake" a week or two ago. Thought my scale was off which was weird cause I never move it. Pulled 100 bullets, weighing them and realized that the little weight was just not sitting correctly on the zero mark. I still decided to pull the rest of the bullets, Just to make sure
 
Couldn't you shake each cartridge and narrow it down that way?
Click to expand...

I tried that, couldn't hear anything. 3.2 grains of Titegroup doesn't make much noise. That, and I'm a bit hard of hearing.
 
"...smack the thing on a piece of wood..." Wood is too soft. Oddly so is concrete. Get a rock.
"...found the empty..." This is why you need to do a visual check with a Mk I Eyeball. Did the same thing with a box of .45's years ago. Manure occureth.
 
I'm late to the party again.

Kinetic (hammer) puller will not affect primers whatsoever but...
You will need to re-size at least the case mouth... and your size die will want to knock out that live primer.
Click to expand...

. . . ^^ This. ^^

I've pulled and then reloaded more brass (with the same primer in it) than I care to admit. They all went bang. I've never resized them - just re-flaired.

It's time to review your critical control points. Think of where/how you went wrong. Then think of how you're going to change your method of operation so the process doesn't lend itself to the same mistake. This is important. I started loading in 14 years before you; and this year, I failed to charge a single round (my first boo boo in 32 years). Only, I discovered my error at the range; but with no harm done at least (and had to pull the remaining 32 rounds of that batch). At any rate, I needed to do then what you need to do now. It's humbling. I discovered my process error and made the change.
 
It's probably just using loose terminology, but don't use the inertia bullet puller like you were pounding a nail. Instead, after striking against a hard surface, let the puller rebound naturally on its own (while still hanging on loosely of course). That will add to the inertia effect. Perhaps you were actually doing that.
 
A soluition for pulling a lot of bullets?

I'm just getting into reloading and have a fear that I will do what you just did. The hammer type bullet extractors just don't appeal to me for several reasons.

Check out the Grip-n-Pull Bullet puller. You simply put the loaded round into the reloaders shell holder and raise it up until the bullet clears the hole in the top of the press. Grip the bullet w/ the Grip-n-pull and lower the ram. That simple.

The only down side is they are about $50 each. A separate one is needed for pistol and rifle however after seeing how easy and fast it is I would gladly pay the money for pulling almost 50 rounds. Video links below.

http://grip-n-pull.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sYamOQ0lHQ
 
So I weighed all 51 pcs and set aside the lightest 10, figuring the empty had to be there. Started pulling bullets. Nope, all 10 had powder. So I just started randomly grabbing to pull the bullet. I pulled 42 before I found the empty.
Click to expand...

And that was another mistake, I suggest you sort cases by weight, I believe it is a good ideal the reloader know the weight of the bullet etc. When finished all of his reloaded ammo should weight the same.

F. Guffey
 
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