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Had my first double charge mini kaboom today after 10k reloads... Lucky!
- Thread starter AtlEng
- Start date
I am a pretty low use re-loader of pistol ammo so I never had to ponder the question of faster vs being able to see inside each case and how much powder was there (or if there was powder at all).
So, just a standard press and checking the content of each case in a 50 reload block is easy and reliable. I assume there are some errors in ammo mfg loading of cases and the occasional kaboom as well.
I am glad you are ok.
Trying to put it in perspective, I was driving downtown one time and out of an alley to my left a car came screaming out doing 60 mph across my front. If I had been a small fraction of a second fast I would have been hit and no airbags in those days, high chance of being killed and for sure if my door had been anywhere in the hit zone.
How to deal with and assess risk is a wide open subject and I know I have never been one to just stay at home to avoid all the perils of life.
So, just a standard press and checking the content of each case in a 50 reload block is easy and reliable. I assume there are some errors in ammo mfg loading of cases and the occasional kaboom as well.
I am glad you are ok.
Trying to put it in perspective, I was driving downtown one time and out of an alley to my left a car came screaming out doing 60 mph across my front. If I had been a small fraction of a second fast I would have been hit and no airbags in those days, high chance of being killed and for sure if my door had been anywhere in the hit zone.
How to deal with and assess risk is a wide open subject and I know I have never been one to just stay at home to avoid all the perils of life.
akinswi said:We'll see how it handles the routine 38's and go from there.
I think that is a relatively dangerous idea. I have no idea what max pressure was, but typically these events bury the case not the breech face and at higher pressure crack the cylinder. After the event, you likely won’t see the crack. It is still not able to hold std pressure ammo firing…..an even smaller crack would lead you towards early fatigue failure. Probably worth sending to S&W to figure out where you are at.
Probably worth sending to S&W to figure out where you are at.
I don't see any "probably" about it. Send the gun to S&W, and have them do a complete check, and repair if possible. Pay what ever that costs. Don't cheap out, pay what it costs to find out, for certain you gun is still safe (or not).
Maybe its ok (and so the cost could be considered a waste of money) but MAYBE something has happened that sets up a future failure. Maybe something you or your local smith can't see, or check. S&W can.
Maybe the gun will run fine, but turn into a grenade at some future point, and maybe, if it does, you (or someone else) doesn't get off so lucky. Even if S&W charges what seems like a lot of money to fix it, or even if they deadline your gun, the cost of repair or replacement is less than the cost of fingers, or EYES, or other body parts which are not replaceable as easily as mere $.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
Unless I missed something after reviewing this thread twice, the OP didn't tell us what turret press he used. IF it's a Lee, the newer 4-hole turret LEE presses come with auto-indexing, but the old 3-hole models didn't.jetinteriorguy said:I don’t understand how you could double charge on the Lee Turret since it automatically advances to the next step when pumping the handle.
jetinteriorguy
New member
Ah yes, when he stated using the Lee Autodisc I automatically extrapolated it was on a Lee Turret press. One of the things I’ve always liked about the Lee turret is the auto advance feature, less chance of an accidental double charge. I know some people disable this and it’s always baffled me why, but hey, whatever works for people is fine by me.Unless I missed something after reviewing this thread twice, the OP didn't tell us what turret press he used. IF it's a Lee, the newer 4-hole turret LEE presses come with auto-indexing, but the old 3-hole models didn't.
I made my first big uncaught mistake couple months ago . Not a kaboom but rather the opposite. Pulled trigger and nothing . These were loads I had just loaded the night before. At the time I thought bad primer but when I pull the bullet I found there was no powder . I had enough bullet hold to keep bullet in case but the base of the bullet has black soot on it from the primer ignition.
Took me just a short time to realize what I did wrong . I did not batch load that session and may be my only one or two times I’ve ever not batch loaded . I already had fully prepped and primed the cases months before . I weighed every charge , immediately dumped powder in the case, then seated the bullet which seemed like a reasonable and safe way to proceed. WRONG! , I clearly missed something, got distracted…. Still don’t know what specifically happened and it has shaken my confidence a bit . I’ve pledged from that day forward when working on a single stage I will only batch load in 50ct increments so I can inspect each case before seating the bullet . I start with 50 primed cases case mouth down in block to see each primer is seated . Then charge case and place in a separate block for batch inspection which is how I’ve always done my batch loading with out issue.
Be safe and allow your self to be humbled . There is no room for ego in this hobby .
MG
Took me just a short time to realize what I did wrong . I did not batch load that session and may be my only one or two times I’ve ever not batch loaded . I already had fully prepped and primed the cases months before . I weighed every charge , immediately dumped powder in the case, then seated the bullet which seemed like a reasonable and safe way to proceed. WRONG! , I clearly missed something, got distracted…. Still don’t know what specifically happened and it has shaken my confidence a bit . I’ve pledged from that day forward when working on a single stage I will only batch load in 50ct increments so I can inspect each case before seating the bullet . I start with 50 primed cases case mouth down in block to see each primer is seated . Then charge case and place in a separate block for batch inspection which is how I’ve always done my batch loading with out issue.
Be safe and allow your self to be humbled . There is no room for ego in this hobby .
MG
stagpanther
New member
Interesting--I would think even without a powder charge a primer would exert enough force on the bullet to part company with the case.
Nope and I use bushing dies with .003 hold , this was 308 Win . The one thing I wished I’d had done was measure COAL or base to ogive which I had the before data on . I just wasn’t thinking full primer ignition with no powder so I didn’t consider measuring seating depth before pulling the bullet
I have no idea if the bullet moved which would have only been .025 before rifling . I might have moved the bullet enough to engage the lands while still having enough bullet hold left to extract the full cartridge.
I have no idea if the bullet moved which would have only been .025 before rifling . I might have moved the bullet enough to engage the lands while still having enough bullet hold left to extract the full cartridge.
jetinteriorguy
New member
Interesting, I have mine set up so I drop powder then seat and if crimping I have another single stage right next to my seating press to crimp after seating. But I always visually check each case before seating. This way I can always just finish the round I’m loading before dealing with a distraction. Just goes to show whatever your routine is that when you change the routine bad things can happen.I made my first big uncaught mistake couple months ago . Not a kaboom but rather the opposite. Pulled trigger and nothing . These were loads I had just loaded the night before. At the time I thought bad primer but when I pull the bullet I found there was no powder . I had enough bullet hold to keep bullet in case but the base of the bullet has black soot on it from the primer ignition.
Took me just a short time to realize what I did wrong . I did not batch load that session and may be my only one or two times I’ve ever not batch loaded . I already had fully prepped and primed the cases months before . I weighed every charge , immediately dumped powder in the case, then seated the bullet which seemed like a reasonable and safe way to proceed. WRONG! , I clearly missed something, got distracted…. Still don’t know what specifically happened and it has shaken my confidence a bit . I’ve pledged from that day forward when working on a single stage I will only batch load in 50ct increments so I can inspect each case before seating the bullet . I start with 50 primed cases case mouth down in block to see each primer is seated . Then charge case and place in a separate block for batch inspection which is how I’ve always done my batch loading with out issue.
Be safe and allow your self to be humbled . There is no room for ego in this hobby .
MG
Interesting--I would think even without a powder charge a primer would exert enough force on the bullet to part company with the case.
My experience is at least 6.5 x 47 on up, it will not move the bullet enough to put into the lands (or far enough to stick).
A 9mm pistol will but if you think about it, its a volume aspect, more volume less movement.
I don't inspect the rifle rounds, shrug, an occasional dud is no big deal and tells me a lot about my hold (looking for flinch or jerk or ......)
9mm when I was reloading that, yes, easy enough to take the barrel down and get the bullet out but it goes far enough to make it annoying.
Now that is my take and how others do it is of course up to them and nothing wrong with close inspection of rifle case to ensure no duds. I agree I am a bit lazy that way.
. . which seemed like a reasonable and safe way to proceed. WRONG! , I clearly missed something, got distracted…. Still don’t know what specifically happened . . .
My only oops was that I also failed to charge a case. In my situation, I was batch loading, but it was basic range ammo. So as I was adjusting my charge weight on the hopper, when I got "close enough," I'd pour that charge into a case (rather than back into the hopper), make the minor adjustment on the hopper, then weigh the next charge . . . repeat until the hopper was set. This meant that I had 4 already-charged cases (out of a block of 50), and then I went to go charge the remaining cases, and evidently I started with case #6 - so "5" was missed.
But even with that mistake, that still means that I failed to do a final level inspection before placing the bullets. Probably got distracted.
Yes, this was a confidence breaker. And yes, I don't charge any case now until the hopper is properly set.
I would think even without a powder charge a primer would exert enough force on the bullet to part company with the case.
In my situation above, it did not. It was a 357 Mag round, 158gn plated SWC. It pushed the bullet out far enough to lock up the cylinder (made no noise), but did not exit the case mouth. And naturally, it was the first attempted shot of a 7-round cylinder full. So that meant that the gun was locked up with 6 live rounds still in it. The RSO had a wood dowel and with my help stabilizing the gun on the bench, he pounded it back in far enough to free the cylinder. The outcome was about as good as can be, but it still sucked.
P.S. I took the remaining rounds from that batch home with me. When I got home, in a quiet environment, I shook the ammo and could hear the powder in all of the remaining rounds. By then, I figured out what I had done wrong, so I wasn't worried about a double charge. I shot them off the next range trip.
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I should note that my experience was with a Semi Auto Pistol and that gets into the barrel easier.
One reason when I shot my brothers semi auto I used his loads or factory (he was generous to let me shoot all but the Python!) so if anything happened it was not my fault!
And full disclosure, my pure laziness in not inspecting the powder load in a case is a bad example and I do not recommend it.
For bad examples like myself, good news on 9mm loads I did a double charge would be seen or overflow as would rifle rounds.
I have made some mistakes on overcharge in the rifles but the first firing and a hard bolt lift has me backing off and stopping and pulling the bullets.
I have thought about taking a manual to the range with me to cross check my stupidity but then how many manuals do you take and cross check and ................
One reason when I shot my brothers semi auto I used his loads or factory (he was generous to let me shoot all but the Python!) so if anything happened it was not my fault!
And full disclosure, my pure laziness in not inspecting the powder load in a case is a bad example and I do not recommend it.
For bad examples like myself, good news on 9mm loads I did a double charge would be seen or overflow as would rifle rounds.
I have made some mistakes on overcharge in the rifles but the first firing and a hard bolt lift has me backing off and stopping and pulling the bullets.
I have thought about taking a manual to the range with me to cross check my stupidity but then how many manuals do you take and cross check and ................
on 9mm loads I did a double charge would be seen or overflow
I helped a friend get started in Reloading for 9mm . I purposefully started him with Unique powder rather than something like Titegroup for that very reason .