Share your hand loading mistakes!

[whiskeybill]

In the mid 80's while in the Navy, I went home to Montana for hunting season. Didn't have any loaded ammo for the -06, but no problem, just bring brass, bullets, primers and powder, and load up at my buddy's place. I used what I figured to be a "Mid range load" from a 1949 Lyman manual, and didn't bother to sight it or shoot it. Four days into an elk hunt, came across a nice cow at maybe 100 yards. Shouldered the rifle (A custom FN Mauser) sighted on the chest, and squeezed one off. After recovering from significant recoil, I saw the elk had dropped like a wedge, shot through the spine instead of the chest. The bolt wouldn't open none too easy, so I had to finish up with a sidearm. Finally hammered the bolt open, the case came out ok but the primer pocket was jugged out and the primer fell onto the follower. I had read somewhere in the distant past to only use current manuals for load data, and that actually crossed my mind as I was loading that batch. I have a bunch of old manuals I use for reference, but I never again use that for what I'm loading these days.

 

[Red98422]

Forgot this recent gem.

I spent 10-15 minutes trying to zero out a beam scale on a boat...It would've been longer than that if my lady hadn't said anything

 

[nammac]

Insufficient lube resulting in stuck case (if I recall correctly, it was the first time I tried One Shot and clearly didn't apply it correctly). I did get the case out though I ended up breaking the decapping pin in the process.

Been there and done that too

 

[Head Shot]

Erased

 

[Eveskcige28]

I think anybody who reloads has a couple oopsy learning moments. When I saw the title for this thread I could only think of 2 or 3 mistakes I've made. Then while scrolling through... oh yeah I remember that time! Whoops forgot about that one! Oh yeah, that sucked.

 

[Capn Jack]

I'm sure everyone has stuck a case,or two from lack of lube. That hurts, with some at .85 a piece, but what really makes me cry ?

It's losing that piece of skin off of my finger tip when it goes into a fully chamfered 9mm case while I'm seating a bullet.

 

[Xrperry]

I hand measured the powder for 100 44 mag shells for standing big bore only to find out I didn't prime the brass. That was the first and last time I did it. Lol

 

[Xrperry]

Forgot this recent gem.

I spent 10-15 minutes trying to zero out a beam scale on a boat...It would've been longer than that if my lady hadn't said anything

I set the scale to charge weight before balancing , could not figure out why it wouldn't balance.

 

[awshoot]

I hand measured the powder for 100 44 mag shells for standing big bore only to find out I didn't prime the brass. That was the first and last time I did it. Lol

Holy moly -- when I filled unprimed case as I mentioned above, I was merely dropping powder from a powder measure. Hand measuring though -- I'd be swearing for two days straight I think.

 

[gmerkt]

Luckily none that caused harm to me or any of the guns.

This. But I have done a number of the errors listed here by others.

Loading a stack of 13 dimes in a 2 3/4" shot shell.

Loading a Mike and Ike into a primed but charge-less 9x19 case

These two I've never done.

Most stoopid mistakes I've made I've caught before firing. I'm pretty careful about powder charges.

Some stoopid stuff I did as a kid was intentional, not mistaken. One time a friend and I wondered if bullets with a boat tail worked as well backwards as pointed forwards. We took apart an Austrian 8x56R cartridge, reloaded it with about 20% powder charge and seated the bullet backwards. We didn't learn much out of it except that it would indeed shoot a hole in a closet door in the house.

One of my friends wanted to see what .410 muzzle blast looked like from the business end. So he removed the shot from a shell, then put it in his shotgun and aimed it at his mother's full-length manifold mirror (four mirrors folded up behind each other. Yep, the muzzle blast from just the powder and wad punched a hole in the first one and busted the three mirrors behind it. Same guy blew a hole in a plaster wall fooling around with a 12 gauge shotgun.

Okay, same guy calls me on the phone one day. I was 16, he was 14. We were living in town. He lived about a mile and a half away. He says, "I wonder if you fire a .22 in the air, can I hear it over at my place?" So I go and get a .22 rifle and while he's on the phone, I fire it out the back door. I go back to the phone, and ask him, "Didja hear that?" He said no. Then I say, "See if you can hear this." Then I fire a .410 out the back door, go to the phone and he says he can't hear that either. So then I say, "Now listen for this one." I go to my closet and get out an 8mm German Mauser rifle Which I go out to the door with, stand on the porch and let one go into the air. He's still on the phone, I ask him, "How about that one?" He says, "Got that one loud and clear." Neighbors never said anything for some reason. About this and many other similar transgressions. Years later one of my other pals posited that likely my neighbors were afraid of me. And here's a funny thing. About a year after I went into the army, the neighbor lady next door to where we were living was murdered. No suspect was ever arrested. If I'd still been living there, I guess I might've been a suspect just because.

Back to reloading. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine in NM was reloading .223 for an AR. He went to test fire some of his rounds and blew his rifle up. Never did find all the pieces but luckily he only got some flecks of whatever in his face, no real injury. Naturally he wanted to know why this happened. So he went back to his reloading bench. There he found he had two bottles of powder on it. Instead of grabbing the one marked H322, he'd used the one marked 800X. He gave a charge of 20-something grains of 800X into a .223 case. Somehow; I don't know how, he got those big old 800X flakes to go through the size small powder drop tube. Anyway, here is one classic case for having only one bottle of powder on deck at a time.

 

[awshoot]

...
Okay, same guy calls me on the phone one day. I was 16, he was 14. We were living in town. He lived about a mile and a half away. He says, "I wonder if you fire a .22 in the air, can I here it over at my place?" ...

Good thing you didn't have cell phones (I'm guessing) -- can you hear me now? Nope. Walk 100'. BANG. Can you hear me now? Nope. ....

 

[Xrperry]

Holy moly -- when I filled unprimed case as I mentioned above, I was merely dropping powder from a powder measure. Hand measuring though -- I'd be swearing for two days straight I think.

I chalked it up as a learning experience, cussed a little and moved on lol

 

[gmerkt]

Good thing you didn't have cell phones (I'm guessing) -- can you hear me now? Nope. Walk 100'. BANG. Can you hear me now? Nope.

Nah, no cell phones circa 1966,

 

[Silver Hand]

Picture two -- definitely done that.

Picture one, I'm not exactly clear on what is going on -- are you punching primers to pop them next to your open jar of powder?

Heck what's wrong with them? Shoot um they will straighten right out!

 

[Silver Hand]

View attachment 647961View attachment 647962
Share the dumb things you have seen or done so that others may learn and laugh.

Heck what's wrong with them? Shoot um they will straighten right out!

 

[Capn Jack]

I used to cut off 30-06 cases and load them with 2400 and #6 shot. I used part of a .410 wad and a nitro card to hold everything in.
Put them in a half moon clip and fired them out of an old Colt .45 ACP revolver someone gave me. Worked great for rats, but it finally
went into the bay as someone had ground the #'s off of it.

 

[Head Shot]

Erased

 

[CuddlyBear]

I loaded a batch of 9mm with small rifle primers instead of small pistol.

I took them all back apart and put them in a small empty cardboard box. Soaked them in oil thinking that would deactivate them - it didn't work. So, the next best thing obviously would be to put them all in my firepit and torch them (alcohol may have been involved).

As it turns out, the first primer that goes off will set off the remaining 99 which makes an EXTREMELY LOUD explosion.

 

[Capn Jack]

Holly Smokes

Wished I hadn't read that cuz hey I thinks that's right down useful and now might even give that a whirl
Head Shot

Cut the cases off about 1/8th" shorter than the cylinder. After loading, lightly run them up into a .44 crimping die.
About a 12" pattern the length of my garage and the pellets would go through 1/4" plywood.

 

[zenbreath]

First three months into handloading, mid 90s.

I wanted to make some soft training loads for 38.

I put ONE grain of bullseye with a 158 round nosed lead bullet.

Took it to the range and fired a cylinder, at a target 10 yards away.

The recoil was VERY soft, as expected.

I pulled the target.....no holes.

I looked at my pistol. It had a lead slug half way out of the muzzle.

I knew I'd done something stupid, so I cleared the weapon and put it in my bag.

When I got home, I had to remove SIX lead slugs from the barrel.

I discovered by reading that the revolver should have behaved like a pipe bomb on the second shot.

Lesson....follow the recipe!