The dumbest reloading thing I'd ever done survey.

This was an OLD mistake. (1987) My dad had a S&W 624 44 special. It's a great gun. We shot I a lot especially at pins.
one day my dad asked me to fire a few test rounds. I fired 3 and handed it back to him saying "Plenty"

Zoom ahead to 2014. Dad is getting old and I keep finding all his guns loaded in the house.

Mom and I decided to remove all ammo and powder from the house.

Later that year, I bought a new Bulldog. I was burning up my dad's reloads and found one of the 3.

The blow up was recorded and I was spoken to at the club.

I pulled the rest of the bullets and found one more of the super charged rounds. I think the third one was in the cylinder when it blew apart.

I sent the 44 to charter explaining exactly what happened. They sent me a new 44 shipping included.

I now have the Smith 44 special and the Bulldog. Thinking about getting a Charter 45 acp revolver.

No one was hurt.

David




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Almost buying commercial reloads from a guy at our shooting club.
Until his own revolver blew up as he was shooting it, right next to me.
It looked much like the above picture.
 
The DUMBEST thing I've done is either inserting a primer backwards (upside down?) or inadvertently seating a 158gr. SWC upside down when reloading .38 Spl. I caught it immediately, and set it aside. After I got through reloading all but a few if the .38s, I got a wild hair and loaded 4 more with upside down SWCs, and set them aside to shoot.

They actually shot pretty well, kinda like not-very-accurate 148gr. HBWCs. A friend noticed the reloads before I fired them, so I explained what happened. He just chuckled.
"w'HELL, boy!" he said. "Y'just invented the world's first BOATTAIL WADCUTTER!" It was funnier, when HE said it

Another shooting acquaintance who was regaled by my friend decided to try the same thing. He fast reported, and with considerable frustration, that results aren't NEARLY as good, if using SWC HOLLOW POINTS.

I never got a straight answer as to why, but he was less than approachable on the subject when I inquired. Since he's a gun owner, I left it alone.
 
results aren't NEARLY as good, if using SWC HOLLOW POINTS.
Click to expand...
Maybe some of the powder got into the hollow point cavity and then acted like a booster rocket, causing yawing and tumbling.
He shoulda' checked with NASA for details, first.
They already figured out what not to do a long time ago. :)
 
Had old Lyman auto primer feed that got "stuck"..knew enough to remove primers before getting stuck one out..pried the stuck primer too aggressively with small screwdriver..it went off sending the primer cup directly into end my my right little finger just under the nail...that hurt a tad...luckily not in face. Threw that junk away.
 
I was looking at a Remington 700 VL in 22-250 used for $599.00. When inspecting the bore, there was no rifling in the beginning. I asked the salesman how much a new one was. He looked it up and said "$599.00" . I ordered it.

Shooting my one box of factory showed it to be what I expected. I started reloading for it getting great results using Win 748 and 52 gr HPBT.

Next I tried cast bullets. I bought a new lyman mold of their latest and greatest 22 cal gas checked bullet. It was a winner. My best target is on the wall in my living room. 5" 14 shot group at 300 yards.

One day at the range I was chrono my handloads.

I put what I thought was a factory 40 grain and fired the gun. I was sprayed in the face with powder, Chrony said just over 4,000 fps. The bolt would not open, so I took it home and tried with a piece of wood on the bolt handle tapping it whit a soft hammer. The bolt handle broke off.

I called winchester telling them my gun blew with their ammo. They said send the rifle and ammo. Next I called remington. They said send the rifle, so I did with a letter attached stating what I thought happened.

AFTER they had the rifle, I did a lot of snooping and checking. What had really happened was the round was a 55 gr jacketed bulled loaded with a 748 size charge of WW 296. Both containers look the same, I screwed up. I had been loading both jacketed and cast.

I wrote another letter to Remington telling them what I had figured out. I came clean and told all. I said you can use my letter as an example of what not to do.

The rifle was shipped back with the usual invoice. They replaced the bolt and barrel.

The last line said the rifle was repaired free of charge to show good will.
This was about 14 years ago. Just this week I shot a 5/8" group @ 100 with that same rifle.

I quit casting about 6 years ago when lead poisening got too high. Now I only shoot jacketed out of that rifle. I still shoot those new powder coated cast bullets out of my bolt action 308 around 1600 fps. I just quit making my own.

David
 
Early in my reloading days i double charged a 38 Special case. I didn't have the same double check processes in place I do now and so one case was completed that shouldn't have been. Fired it out of a Charter Arms Undercover and luckily it cause no damage to me or the firearm. I split the case and flattened the primer and immediately revamped my processes.
 
So far (knock on wood) the dumbest thing I have done with my loading gear is wash my die in the ultrasonic with well used turbo case cleaner. I was having fun with my shiny new ultrasonic, cleaned every case I had in the house with it. thinking to my self "it did so well on the brass it surely would clean my die to sparkle goodness." turns out I managed to, for lack of a better term plate my die some what. It came out of the tub black, so in a state of panic I started rubbing it with a cloth. That only made my black steel die look like brass. I then tumbled it for a day in walnut, the thing came out like a shiny tie die brass and steel swirl. Wont do that again!
 
Two more...

While loading up some 135gr 9mm RN, I loaded two rounds using 380ACP cases. They fired just fine, but I wondered why the handgun didn't cycle properly. Now when I sort my range brass, I shake them in a tray so that they sit base down and I can see both the diameter of the shells and their relative heights.

I was priming some 308 brass using a Lyman hand priming tool and was having a bit of trouble with seating on some of the (ZQI from Walmarts) cases. But I just kept squeezing the tool harder to get them to seat. One finally went BANG! Scared the cr*@)p out of myself, :eek: but no damage done. I didn't realize that I needed to ream the primer pockets. Won't make that mistake again.
 
Ok, I'll play.

Short story and long story.
Short story s spilling a near full bag of #8 slot on a large terrazzo living room floor. I continued to find lead shot for years.
Long story was my best friend's first reloading attempt. He used Lee dippers to reload some .38s. The one scoop of Bullseye didn't look like it filled the case enough, so he loaded some "two scoopers". He shot the two scooper out of his model 15 and it was HOT, as in double-charged HOT. He also had a "three-scooper". Since my Colt Diamondback had a much thicker frame and barrel, I said I would shoot it. Braced myself for a lot of recoil and pulled the trigger. The blast was huge, especially since we were shooting at an indoor range which didn't even allow magnum loads. Made me take a step back from the recoil. Muzzle blast was at least 10 feet, side blast out of the barrel-cylinder gap hit both side walls and I saw a little powder burning against the right wall. Packed up immediately and left before examining my gun. Turned a Diamondback into a Diamondba. Yes, it is missing 2 off the end. Luckily, no injuries. Still have it next to my reloading bench as a reminder to TRY not to do stupid or dumb things.
 
Found a pound of powder that had drawn moisture, and was old enough I couldn't find load data for it anymore...
So without thinking, I threw it in the trash and forgot about it.

I live in the country, we still burn trash out here.
Created quite a report when it went off! Scared the crap out of the cat!
 
Knock on wood...

So far, the worst I've done is forget to load primers before throwing the powder. Got about 10 done and was wondering why I was feeling a few granules of powder on my hand every time I seated a bullet

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I STARTED RELOADING.

Good lord, must I really go through all of the goofs made in my history before I find the absolute worst one? I don't recall doing anything stupid. Plenty of things I shouldn't have.
 
Since I use cheap simple equipment--a lee single stage--and tediously prep each case and weigh each charge on a balance beam--I've managed to limit my reloading mishaps to some crushed cases and a few primers that got loaded upside down.

Worst things with ammo at a range?--now that widens the category up a bit--and one day I may recount how I chambered a 308 cartridge into a 270 rifle and fired it....:o
 
Amazingly the bullet impacted the target where I was aiming--however--the case got hopelessly wedged in the chamber and locked the bolt. I could get the components apart--but I retired the barrel and receiver anyway.
 
Very first round I ever pressed of 9mm gave a resounding CRUNCH.....":confused:hmm...." lowered the ram, I hadn't backed the bullet seater stem out and had crushed the bullet ALL the way down into the case against the powder. :rolleyes:

I also got far to excited and miss measured the charge on 223 cases, I had to pull down 300 rounds. Never again!
 
Dumb

......wailing away on a progressive loader, proud of how many I can do per hour, ...noticed the powder measure empty. For how long? Had to weigh around 300 rounds just to be sure.... 100 found their way to the bullet puller:confused:
 
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