The dumbest reloading thing I'd ever done survey.

To this day, I still can't figure out how I ended up with Claydot and Universal power mixed together while loading some 12ga shot shells. How I ended up with a 26 grain powder charge is another mystery. Boy did those suckers recoil.
At the time, I'd only been loading shotgun shells for 30+ years. :o Definitely one of those ''read the label stupid''.

Ended up cutting open 4 boxes of shells. On a positive note, nobody at the club ever ask to borrow any of my ammo....lol.
 
Well, I been reloading 26 years. I had never done anything dumb until recently. Within the last year.

First foul up: I stuffed pistol primers in a few '06 cases. Yeah, it ain't pretty when those primers fracture.

Second foul up: I did it tonight!!!!!!!! I was attempting to slug a 336 Marlin, 35 Remington barrel and never thought to check the end of the barrel, to see if the dowel i was using to drive the chunk of lead through the barrel, would fit through the barrel. Well, it slid right through the action and chamber and rested on the lead slug at the end of the chamber. I thought, "No problem.". I took my rubber mallet and started tapping on the dowel and it started just fine and then got tough. I kept tapping on it rationalizing that it might be harder than I had thought. As, i have never slugged a barrel and didn't know what to expect. Well, I started getting a bit more aggressive with my taps and, after about 10 of those I was starting to ponder whether I should stop and reevaluate things when the dowel broke off at the end of the action where the bolt comes out.

As I type this, it is still stuck in the barrel at it has broken and mushroomed the tip on 4 different carbon arrows I tried to knock it back out with. I'm not sure how to get it out really. I was/am so flipping -CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED- at myself. So, i stopped before my anger gets the best of me and, I end up sticking something metal down the barrel and use it to drive it out. I have got to clear my head and regroup.

I have this problem. I'm my own worst enemy in a lot of ways. I'm one tracked sometimes. I get in a hurry all the time. I get my mind of 75 different things I need to be doing instead of what I am doing and stuff like these two things happen. I tend to rush through things that I do for myself and it always ends up like this. I'm at fault but, I'm so aggravated right now at everything.

It'd be nice to see some help here. It'd be nice to be able to look at my beautiful wife and realize she was actually getting better instead of getting worse. It'd be nice to wake up one day without having to be the answer for every one I know. It'd be nice to just be able to do a few things without the phone ringing and/or someone needing something that requires my time. I been trying to get this done for 3 weeks. This has become the ordinary for 5 years though. So, I should be getting used to it and, be better prepared for the ME element that takes something simple and pleasurable and, ends up turning it into a disaster. It'd be nice to awake with a clear mind and get that dang dowel out of my prized 336 without making a bigger mess.

I could use some prayers. God Bless
 
@ WVMountaineer

You can push the bullet out hydraulically...using an aluminum rod and small
hydraulic jack mounted horizontal, be sure that the valve for the jack is on the
down side...as in toward the floor. Keep the rod as short as possible. Of course you have to fabricate a way to how things up, but that will be no problem.
 
Ok, Ok, Uncle!

Been reloading for about 45 years now. I learned not to "pour" loaded rounds into containers (when one goes off, the bullet stays right where it is, but the brass sure does some damage!) or drop them onto concrete floors (yes they CAN go off), not to mix powders (you have to throw it ALL away), not to use substandard components (in the bottom of the box at an auction, for example). But I'll tell you about my first self-imposed problem back in the early 70s.
I reloaded about 100 .357 magnums so my brother, father and I could go out plinking. They were medium loads, fairly weak, more of a stronger 38 special. When it was my brother's turn to shoot, he loaded five into one of our two Dan Wessons and proceeded to miss the target altogether for the first three shots. We busted on him a bit (ok, quite a bit), until he walked up to 10' away and shot the target...no hole! The last one was in the dirt at his feet....nothing came out. I think we all turned white at this point.
We rolled the cylinder out and started looking at the barrel...you could see a bullet in the muzzle, you could see another just past the forcing cone, and after we took the shroud off and placed the barrel in my father's x-ray machine, 3 in between those two. Man, were we lucky. My father is gone now, but my brother still remembers to bust my chops about it once in a while.
I have three Dan Wessons, and I'll testify to their strength...and unfortunately, also to my young stupidity. I probably have not shot a factory round in 20 years, except occasional surplus...thanks God for reloading...and lessons learned.
 
Well lets see...

I set off an empty primed .243 case in a bench vise with a hammer and punch back when I thought decapping live primers was a big no-no. Shrapnel flying as the primer disintegrated and left my ears ringing. Scared the heck out of me though! Not expecting that much force from "just a primer." I think I was at least wearing safety glasses...

I've charged a few primer-less casses. Really notice it when it's a .30-06 with H335 pouring out of the flash hole.

Forgot to change out the crimp die from the Co-Ax after the last batch and tried using it to seat a bullet. That didn't work.

These seem to be little as far as danger levels go, but all good reminders to keep my head on straight.
 
Reading the hammer and punch story, reminded me of one of my foolish exploits of youth. This may not qualify as a legitimate reloading incident, but it's a true story, and involves powder in a cartridge. I was probably 8 years old when my older brother, then 14, engaged me to assist in what I think now was a .45 ACP experiment. He scratched open dozens of cap pistol caps, gathering the black powder, which he put in a cap-primed .45ACP case. we loaded it with a wad of aluminum foil, fashioning a bullet of sorts. I held the cartridge with a pair of vise grips on a large rock while he used a hammer and a punch to detonate the round. A loud explosion ensued, we never found the aluminum foil, and neither one of us was hurt. We thought it was pretty cool. But never repeated the experiment.
 
This was almost bad

First time reloading. Have my press all set up. I ran a dummy round through and got the bullet setting depth pretty close to where I want it. Same with the crimp die.
All I need to do now is adjust the powder measure. Oh wait I need to use this new scale I bought to measure the powder. I read the scale instructions, follow the calibrate procedure. No problems. I back the out powder measure adjustment and measure a charge. It's really light, ok I need to adjust the charge. do another, still light. adjust, repeat. After about the fourth or fifth check it seems like that's a lot of powder but still way below the listed starting charge. That's when I realize the scale mode is set to grams, not grains.

So my 4.5 grams of powder would have been a 15 times overcharge!

Now I make sure to check the scale mode every time I turn it on!
 
Spilled a tray of primers, did a half @$$ attempt at picking them up, forgot about them. Remembered them abruptly a few weeks later when my vacuum ate them. I may have tinkled a little.
 
Not really dangerous but I felt dumb. It also taught me not to allow distractions. I load single stage and was charging some .45 acp cases one after noon when my son in law walked into my den. He seemed interested and asked me about the different steps. I explained everything as best I could and got to the part on weighing powder and charging cases. I then weighed a charge of Titeroup and dumped it into the funnel in my Lee powder through expanding die. Whoops, I forgot to run the ram up and the powder went all over the place. I calmly said, "and always pay attention to what you are doing, some mistakes are not as forgiving as this one".
 
HOT HOT HOT

I once dropped a charge for a 125 grain bullet under a 158 grainer for .357 magnum. did 50 rounds and went to the range. Needless to say, they were way overpowered. Thank goodness for the robust older K-frame S&W revolvers. No damage done, but I am much more careful now with my double checking of things. That happened well over 20 years ago, and I have not forgotten. A J-frame may not have fared so well.
 
I got a 7.62x54R case stuck in a 7.5x55 Swiss Die.

Thankfully never done that again. My K-31 ammunition supply was cut short until I got it functioning again Thanks To YouTube and my Grandfather's machine shop.

I've double charged some cases too, but it's pretty easy to notice when you do that, though.
 
Only been reloading a few months, couple thousand pistol rounds. Had some old .45 rounds from my great-grandfathers house after he passed, probably been in his non climate controlled shed for 50 yrs. I decided to try some. I was smart enough to check for signs of pressure. Fired 3 rounds out of my kimber. First one minor crack, second split neck, last one split 2/3 way down! No damage to my gun thank goodness.

Fun didn't stop there. I decided to pull the bullets. Got the bullets all pulled and wanted to recycle the brass. Wasn't sure if I could leave unspent primers in and take to a recycler so I took a hammer and nail to them. Each one went "poof" with little noise, black spot on the garage floor. Unfortunately, this left me with little respect for primers. Tried the same thing a week later with a round I found at the range. Pulled the bullet, hammer and nail to the primer, Bang!!!! Brass case disappeared, wife came running thought I was dead. Eventually found the case, split open like a banana. Never again....
 
Post this one under "Bill Ruger saved my dumb a--"
Ran off about 500 .357 loads for a bowling pin shoot. Paying more attention to wanting to "get r done" than to what I was doing. At the shoot, the first shot had lots of recoil and the action jammed. Inspection found that the primer was pushed completely out of the case, jaming the action and you could read the head stamp on the recoil shield. Gun was a 6" GP-100. Stopped using that ammo. At home I pulled a few bullets and determined I had improperly adjusted the power scale to 15.0 gn instead of 10.5 gn (Blue Dot w/ 158 gn jacketed bullet). Had to pull all 500 bullets and reload using correct amount of powder. The Ruger carried on without a hitch. Wonder what the pressure was? Probably only a Ruger could survive that without any damage.
 
@ Jimbo-Indy

Sir, that was one heck of a proof load there. Hey, while pulling 500 bullets, were you singing...(500 Bottle Of Beer On The Wall) ?
 
Just got distracted and tried to de-prime my trigger finder.. I succeeded in re-sizing it a little. Screamed out in languages I don't even know.
 
Just got distracted and tried to de-prime my trigger finder.. I succeeded in re-sizing it a little. Screamed out in languages I don't even know.
Click to expand...

Pinching your finger in the press will get your attention, no doubt about that!
 
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