Wellwhatdoyaknow . . . I'm human afterall

Not gamma quit, but damned, when you even wind up with a dud printer in a revolver, it just seems that the world is laughing.

I'm offering up the forty because I don't own one, I collect it for my nephew, and he pisses me off.

Once in a while, the range I go to has training sessions, and whoever swept that last one up picked up many thousand rounds of mixed stuff.
 
There's always archery.
The popular game of 3D archery is a lot of good fun, and provides way more exercise than shooting.
And absolutely no reloading is required.
Shoot it, go get it, shoot it again and so on.
Nice and quiet, too.
Nobody seems to mind if you want to practice in the back yard, either.
Just a thought.
 
Brian:
I bet then the string broke, or you lost your arrow, and then got fed up with it and gave up on the whole affair. :) Could never get my homemade tin arrow tips to withstand more than one shot at a tree. They would always bend no matter how much solder I would use to bind them together.
 
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Actually, I tore my right rotator cuff. Moved to Memphis and stopped hunting, then moved back to Missouri, and ruined my arm. I just handed my bow off to a collector a few months ago.I think that I could shoot a bow a bot better than my pistol work on an average day.
 
I charge all my rounds by hand, using an RCBS Uniflow and 50-round Sinclair loading blocks. After charging, I put the block under strong light and check each and every round for powder level. I consider this the single most critical control point of loading, and would never intentionally skip it. Evidently, I must have missed it this one time.
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You're an experienced reloader so I dont intent on giving you any instruction, but I wanted to pass along a tip I came up with years ago since you and I charge cases in very similar fashion. I'm right handed, so when I charge a case I dump powder from my measure into the pan, and with my left hand I then grab one bullet and my funnel. I hold the funnel with the left hand, pour powder with my rights and as soon as I finish pouring the right hand grabs the funnel and pulls it up and the left hand pushed a bullet into the case. This way, any case with a bullet in it has powder, and you'll never double charge one. I don't depend on light to try to see into the cases as a double check. This has worked well for me for a long time since I started doing it.
 
I do a similar routine I block charge all types with a uni. Rifle, I check w with a marked drill rod and drop a bullet in point down as I test, by block. I then take one last look before seating. With pistol, I just check visually by the block, and insert bullets however they fit.

Chaos rules in my life, anything that possibly can happen might. If I leave those charged cases open, ants ma decide to start caching extra powder in one of the cases.

I use a sifting litter pan to sits cleaned brass. Last week i found my best friend sniffing about in my pan full of media and brass. Fortunately, I caught him before he ruined ten bucks worth of corn cob. This is also the cat who loves to lay around on gunstocks. He's very popular on the internet.

I can't repeat it too often. Chaos rules. A person can make every possible effort, do dozens of tests, and still, at that very last step, somehow, an extreme charge can happen. Until that thing is crimped there are still opportunities to get an extra bit of powder, or just as bad, spill the charge or lose most of it. Chaos is king, Murphy and Darwin are Secretary of state and right hand man.
 
Brian, do you visually check your primers in the tray? I've been finding primers with no compound in them from time to time in both CCI an Winchester. It's pretty rare but does happen. In Winchester out of 5000 I found one, and in the last 2000 CCI's I found two and they were both in the same pack.
 
As well as a person can. Looking over the tray and making sure that they look right. I pulled the charge, no scorching on the powder. I like th a rcbs hand primer or others like it because it prevents used primers out, and it's pretty hard to let one go through upside down.

Boxing your rounds like I do allows you to give one last check before the range.

I honestly can't tell you all of the insane moments we have in our lives, all of the crazy occurrences of synchronicity. I was probably on the the titanic in a previous life, and I will probably die when I'm eaten by a herd of rabid emus, probably because my stupid pistol won't fire.
 
I grossly overcharged about 300 38spl. once. The little slider on the right hand side of scale got bumped and I didn't notice. My son was looking at the scale and asked me about the slider and I realized my error. It's a good thing because I was about 2 grains over max. It was a long pulling session. I once fired a .380 through my SIG 228. It cycled and fired just fine. I noticed a difference with the report and recoil. I must have loaded it into the magazine without being aware of it. I tried to blame it on my son but he wasn't hearing it. These things happen because of complacency. I now make an effort to concentrate on the task at hand and not to slip into "autopilot".
 
Pulled 'em

Well, in case anyone wanted to know, I pulled the 36 remaining rounds of the batch and - not surprisingly - they were all charged properly.

But that was beside the point. I didn't check fill levels before seating the bullets, so they were unworthy of shooting.

The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. And this is likely no different. I skipped filling a case when I was setting the hopper's charge volume (explained in detail in post #8). Moving forward, I will not engage in that practice. I won't start charging until the hopper is set. "Close enough" charges go back in the hopper. And of course, make sure I'm checking the loading blocks after charging. Not sure how to ensure that - other than to make sure I'm not distracted.

Components were saved and will be reloaded, btw.
 
Ah, Murphy is defeated one more time! You feel much better because,

1: You DID load all but one according to plan. That means senility is not an issue for many years yet, and your confidence is back.

2: You HAVE been reminded that the anal steps you do are worthwhile, cuz nobody is perfect.

3: Your alertness is back in full force, and is shown, once again, not to be optional. (Complacency and Reloading never mix)

4: You nor your firearm got hurt......best part!

Welcome back.:cool: woulda hated to lose you to archery.......:)

(now print that out in 1 inch letters and post it above your bench.....I think I will)
 
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Heh. Yeah I feel better. I guess. I do.

Cost a lot of time. But as suspected, they pulled fairly easy. Another advantage of taper crimping. Now to put them back together :p
 
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