Share your hand loading mistakes!

[Richo877]

I recently took some old, large batteries to a major recycle center in Seattle. While there I inquired about the price they were were paying for brass shell cases, it was approximately $1.80 per pound.

It's $1.90 here right now, but it fluctuates.

 

[Richo877]

Have any of you loaded ones like these? Will they burn and ignite a charge? How damaged is too damaged? Possibility of slamfire?

 

[DLS]

You'd load and shoot those ones?

No.

My very next sentance says to resize and deprime the case.

To be clear, rhe OP was considering scrapping the whole case due.to the primers. The case us not necessarily lost because of the improper priming. My recommendation is to save the case (if it will resize properly) and scrap the primers.

I could have been more clear.

 

[DLS]

The four circled should fire without problem. Having said that, why chance a problem for so few primers?

Who knows how they were stored and handled on the way to finding themselves seated in thise cases? The evidence shows someone didn't know.what they were doing.

 

[icarus]

The seating die got unset somehow, causing a couple cases to be excessively crimped and squashed (right two cartridges). This unsurprisingly caused the cases to fail headspace gage. Easy fix to properly reset the seating die. (Left cartridge)

This was less frustrating and components destroying than the excessively swaged .223 cases ruined with oversized primer pockets.

 

[Bobbygun]

Have any of you loaded ones like these? Will they burn and ignite a charge? How damaged is too damaged? Possibility of slamfire?
View attachment 1996975

My guess would be they would have a good chance of going off, but have an occasional failure. The only time I've witnessed primer failure is when my dad got a new RCBS hand priming tool (one of the early models). When using those, it was tempting to close the lever all of the way instead of just seating the primer firmly. I think we crushed a few primers doing that. We had a few primer failures during the early period of using that priming tool and went back to using the press mounted version. Those primers in the photo look somewhat crushed to me.

BTW, I use the newer version of the RCBS handheld priming tool and have had zero issues with it.

 

[Richo877]

why chance a problem for so few primers?

Because there are 26 pounds of this stuff and it's over 1500 primers like that

 

[Richo877]

The evidence shows someone didn't know.what they were doing.

The primers themselves look fresh and new, but whoever did it completely ignored the crimps, and was completely careless. Or... this is just a bucket of rejects from an automated progressive setup that ran a ton of brass that wasn't swaged.

 

[Lilhigbee]

Since there seems to be a lot of questionable primers I would select a dozen or so that will chamber and try them out. If they all fail, no sense loading the others. If they all work,, load 'em up!! If only some of them work you'll have to decide if the primers saved are worth the hassle of the duds. (they aren't!!)

 

[Richo877]

Since there seems to be a lot of questionable primers I would select a dozen or so that will chamber and try them out. If they all fail, no sense loading the others. If they all work,, load 'em up!! If only some of them work you'll have to decide if the primers saved are worth the hassle of the duds. (they aren't!!)

Would you bother loading them or just fire the primer? I was thinking about just firing off a few empties. I figure if the primer goes off it would be enough to ignite a load.

 

[Lilhigbee]

N0, don't load them. Just test the primers.

 

[orygun]

This is one batch that I would deprime and check the primer pockets on some before I got carried away. It looks to me that the primer crimp had not been removed and the primers were just stuffed in place. Of so, do I (you) want to invest the time (money) to remedy that? I mention money because I don't currently have a pocket swager and would have to buy one.
If I have plenty of cases, and/or they are easy to come by, I would give serious thought to either giving them away or scrapping them.
It wouldn't be worth the effort to salvage the cases to me.

 

[Mikej]

Have any of you loaded ones like these? Will they burn and ignite a charge? How damaged is too damaged? Possibility of slamfire?
View attachment 1996975

I wouldn't dick with any of them! Unless I was reeel hard-up. Get ALL your money back and return that mess to the guy. You were supposed to get "RTL" (Ready To Load), brass for a price? 26 lbs of that stuff!? Holy crap! No one has time for that garbage.

 

[Richo877]

I wouldn't dick with any of them! Unless I was reeel hard-up. Get ALL your money back and return that mess to the guy. You were supposed to get "RTL" (Ready To Load), brass for a price? 26 lbs of that stuff!? Holy crap! No one has time for that garbage.

We've already settled the agreement. It's done. In actuality I've got 6+lbs that's completely wasted primers that need to be decapped and reprocessed, 6+lbs that have flattened primers that still pass the plunk, 2+lbs with flattened primers that don't pass plunk, 3+lbs with good primers that I'd be comfortable loading, and the rest have good primers, but don't pass the case gauge and need to be resized without decapping. It's just going to be a project now. I'll load and shoot plenty of other brass before I get through it.

 

[Texmex247]

I managed to get my 20" Howa 308 to shoot as fast as a 30" gun. After blowing two primers, I called it quits. Later discovered I had bumped the scale 5gr over due to the clutter on my reloading bench. Last time I ever do that. Lol. Glad I've still got my eyes and fingers.

 

[icarus]

I failed to chamfer or lubricate the case mouth when trying to seat a bullet squashing the case neck.

The squashed case will chamber in the case gage.
Will this fire-form, or cause an unsafe pressure spike if fired?

Probably should just pull it down and reject the case.

 

[Bobbygun]

Probably should just pull it down and reject the case.

I really have no idea but wouldn't take the chance. I always take this route and have never had a problem (of course).

 

[Richo877]

I failed to chamfer or lubricate the case mouth when trying to seat a bullet squashing the case neck.

The squashed case will chamber in the case gage.
Will this fire-form, or cause an unsafe pressure spike if fired?

Probably should just pull it down and reject the case.

View attachment 2000208 View attachment 2000209

I did the same thing with some .223 brass a few pages ago. Mine squished after I tried to resize it when the shoulders were pushed out from premature crimp contact during seating. I would imagine the pressure spike from the shoulders would not be friendly to your gun, and the jump would be too far to be safe even if the case could be safely fire-formed. I'm not going to pull the trigger on mine just to be sure. If I had a rifle that I was wiling to destroy, I'd tie a string around the trigger and distance myself from it.
Be safe

 

[icarus]

Better safe than sorry!

Guess I'll have to buy a $15 collet to pull down and save the $0.60 bullet

 

[Xaevian]

I did the same thing with some .223 brass a few pages ago. Mine squished after I tried to resize it when the shoulders were pushed out from premature crimp contact during seating. I would imagine the pressure spike from the shoulders would not be friendly to your gun, and the jump would be too far to be safe even if the case could be safely fire-formed. I'm not going to pull the trigger on mine just to be sure. If I had a rifle that I was wiling to destroy, I'd tie a string around the trigger and distance myself from it.
Be safe

Ehh, pull the bullet, reclaim the powder but leave the primer, fill em with cream of wheat or other soft filler and cap with something like a clump of candle wax, and fire it (in a safe direction, like into a bucket and rags) to fire form the neck back. Clean the resulting mess up. If you are OCD about being down a case I guess. Never had to do this myself...yet.

Save you on a few pennies worth of brass too. Winning!