The dumbest reloading thing I'd ever done survey.

I once made the mistake of letting go of the handle to use both hands and wound up with my right thumb caught between die and shell holder when it dropped. I grabbed at the handle to lift it and pushed it down a bit more. That left a mark.
 
It was my delving into reloading that got my father to rekindle his interest from his younger days in firearms. That was when I was in my late teens and still under his roof.
He dove in head first for a time, going as far as to obtain an FFL license. Sadly his rekindled interest waned after a handful of years.

The first rifle that he purchased was a Weatherby Mark V in .300 Wthby.
His first trip to the range with it and his own reloads, resulted in flowed brass to the point that the head stamp was only half discernable at best. :eek:

I wasn't with him, and the only explanation that I ever got out of him was that he had seriously overcharged them.
Based on the bruise he sported, all I could say was ... uh yeah!

He immediately sent the rifle out to have what I believe was called an Accu-break installed, and never shot the rifle again without having a shoulder pad strapped on.

I've yet to pull one like that knock on wood.... but some day it's bound to happen. ;)
 
I once developed a load for my 308 that shot great. Being the novice I was at the time I had no idea that different brass would shoot differently. So after my range trip and testing my different lots, I decided I was going to load up enough ammo to not have to worry about having hunting ammunition for a few years. The problem was that I did not have enough brass to do so. I promptly drove to a sporting goods store, bought 200 once fired brass, and loaded every single one of them without testing it again. Drove to the range a couple weeks before that hunting season to confirm zero only coming to realize that my 3/4" groups were opened up to about 3" groups. Confirmed it multiple times on different range trips to make sure it wasn't just me. So now I have about 165 rounds of a load that doesn't shoot for crap stuffed away in the back of my ammo cabinet that I've been putting off tearing apart for about 6 years.
 
One day Bruce Hodgden came to our house, one of my older brothers was shooting into the river bank, his shots were hitting 10' high. He called the bullet company he called the case company, he called the rifle builder and then he called Bruce Hodgden, he was sitting in front of the house the next morning.

F. Guffey
 
I remembered a really dumb thing I did several years ago . I purchased a Lee collet neck sizing die for 308 . First time I used it I got this

kqbv.jpg


After a few more tries I was getting better

n1b5.jpg


But wait that's not the dumb thing I did . Once I actually figured it out and sized a few necks . I found my neck tension / bullet hold was very light . I could push the bullet in with my fingers . I was thinking I need more bullet hold so I adjusted the die in the press and sized another case . This time I put a lot of force on the press handle and BAM CHING PING and the press arm went limp . It took a few seconds to realize what just happened . At first I thought I broke the press but that turned out not to be the case . What happened was the force I was putting on the die caused the top screw/cap to strip out and blast off the top of the die .

It was not long after that I realized my brain fart . The die uses a mandrel the neck gets compressed around to size the neck . I WAS NEVER GOING TO GET MORE BULLET HOLD simply by putting more pressure on the press handle . Reducing the diameter of the mandrel is the only way to get more bullet hold using this type of die .

Oh man when that cap stripped out I thought I broke everything based on the sound it made . Turns out those caps are made off aluminum . Hmm I wonder why that is :D Maybe so people like me don't break there press haha
 
Metal god-I don't remember which magazine or reloading manual it was in but I do remember a guy with several cases like the ones you pictured above who wrote a satirical article about all the 'advantages' that cartridge shape gave him once he had found a gunsmith to rechamber his rifle to fit them.

He had several examples using different cartridges and opined while the new shape was universally better across the board it worked particularly well with the larger caliber, higher pressure loads. There was stuff about better sealing, reduced shoulder set back and a ton of other stuff. It was hilarious.
 
Loaded 200 nice 38 cases with 6.2 grains of hs6 under a nice powder coated 158 grain flat point bullet, all over a CCI primer...........in wet cases.:( At least Im getting go at removing squibs. I've almost burned through all the ammo.
 
Continuance...yes, revival ?, no, the thread never died. As time pass', new members join
and learn and can benefit from reading OUR mistakes and might even post their
misfortunes as well, we might learn a thing or two from new reloaders as well.
 
Loaded about a thousand rounds of .223 for my brother. Took a very long time.

Found him at a gun show selling it a few weeks later.

There were many ways that I could have spent that time that didn't involve being jerked around.
 
Gee's, that wasn't brotherly like. You might want to consider a 50 piece
limit for the next person. We all learn as we go, I learned my lesson helping
a coworker reroof his house only to find out it was part of a realtor agreement.
 
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