Share your hand loading mistakes!

[ageingstudent]

Progressive press?

Haha yes

 

[Mikej]

Haha yes

That's one of the things I like about loading single stage, it's more personal, less machine like. Ooo, does that sound creepy?

I'll likely never shoot enough to need that much ammo at a time. I do admire the hell out of the machinery though.

 

[ageingstudent]

That's one of the things I like about loading single stage, it's more personal, less machine like. Ooo, does that sound creepy?

I'll likely never shoot enough to need that much ammo at a time. I do admire the hell out of the machinery though.

I had to get a progressive a couple years ago. I just couldn't keep up on my turret press or my single stage. I still have them both though and I use them off and on quite often. My youngest daughter got interested in shooting as well as my girlfriend. Too many trigger fingers. It's amazing how fast the pistol and carbine ammo disappears when everybody wants to go shooting for the weekend

 

[Capn Jack]

Aw, just file it off and shoot it....

" It's amazing how fast the pistol and carbine ammo disappears when everybody wants to go shooting for the weekend."

Let them shoot a muzzle loader.

It slows them way down.

 

[ageingstudent]

Aw, just file it off and shoot it....

" It's amazing how fast the pistol and carbine ammo disappears when everybody wants to go shooting for the weekend."

Let them shoot a muzzle loader.

It slows them way down.

Then I'd have to clean them because they sure as heck aren't going to do it . Thank God for non corrosive smokeless.

 

[orygun]

Son of a b. No matter how careful I am it always seems like there is one problem child.

Over 2,000 rounds with no problem on my current setting and there it is. Where is that damn bullet puller?


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@Capn Jack pretty much beat me to it.
I was gonna say, "Hammer it home and pull the trigger. It'll be fine..." (please don't!)


It always seems like one round out of a batch is a PIA.

 

[ageingstudent]

@Capn Jack pretty much beat me to it.
I was gonna say, "Hammer it home and pull the trigger. It'll be fine..." (please don't!)


It always seems like one round out of a batch is a PIA.

I'm pretty sure it will fit and Fire it went through a Lee Factory crimp dye. I marked it with a sharpie. I won't use it for anything important I'll just make it go bang in my Ruger

 

[CLT65]

I loaded up a couple hundred .45 Colt rounds last week.

I ended up with 100+ lead .45 bullets a while back, look like factory swaged 255gr bullets, with some kind of carbon/waxy coating. I thought about just tossing them in the melting pot because I have a specific mold that I like, and my revolver always had leading issues until I went to powder coating. I figured they looked good so I'd just use them up.

Also, in this time of primers being hard to get, I figured I'd use up some odds-and-ends old primers while I was at it. I had a partial box of 30 or 40 year old large-pistol primers. I've had good results with old primers in the past, even much older, but this box had some stains like it had been wet at one time.

Mistake one- using these bullets instead of melting them down. Yeah they lead the forcing cone on my revolver.

Mistake two- using these highly questionable primers instead of throwing them away. It's just a moderate charge of Unique, but I've had hangfires and borderline squibs; nothing stuck in the bore yet, but I sure check close when it goes "pffft...POP!" instead of "BANG!"

Mistake three- I mixed up the brass after priming them, so the rounds with the bad primers are mixed in randomly with perfectly good ammo. I think I've visually picked most of them out, but I labeled this batch so they don't get mistaken for good ammo, and I'll carefully shoot them up.

 

[oremike]

I'd say the first two weren't really mistakes, more like learning experiences. The third defiantly was a mistake, you don't want to mix sketchy ammo with the good until you verify that it's good as well. Don't feel too bad though. I tried to make some 45 Colt on my progressive press using Vita-Vouri(sp) Tin Star powder and couldn't get it to meter with in a grain of the load I was trying to make. I'd monkey with the powder measure and get 5 in a row that were right on, run off 10 or 20 only find to them way off. Wash rinse and repeat. I probably made 200 rounds before I gave up. Those became my ammo to shoot in my Ruger and they actually shoot pretty good. Of interest on a tangent, Vita-Vouri(sp) now says that the Tin Star Powder is not suitable for the 45 Colt and 357 Mag. Odd that they say that when it was marketed as powder for low pressure cowboy action loads.

 

[CLT65]

Fortunately the box only had maybe 60 primers in it, and I think I was able to pick most of them out visually, finish seemed ever-so-slightly different. Hopefully I've already shot most of the bad ones.

The primers I used in the other rounds were also some old partial-box leftovers. It's a fairly mild load that I've used for years so I wasn't worried about using different brands of primers (yes I know it's bad practice in general).

I'll burn them up carefully, then reload them with good primers and bullets more to my liking, and have my old, trusted standby load back again, that I can trust to not lodge a bullet in the bore and damage the gun if I don't catch it.

 

[pinne65]

The other day I was about to load some 45-70s and got the last primer jammed in the primer pickup tube when I was about to drop them in the feeder tube on the press.

None of the primers had dropped yet so I emptied the pickup tube on the primer tray, cursing over having to pick them a second time, while getting the last one unstuck.

Cursing even more I started picking them up again.

Once done I turned the pickup tube upside down in order to get it to the press. That's when my cursing hit a new level - I had forgotten to put the stopper back into the pickup tube.

I spent the next 45 minutes on the floor and was able to recover 49 out of 50. Back in the old days I would have put my safety glasses and hearing protection on and played whacka-primer for a while and picked the dead ones up w the shop-vac.

Of course I should have dropped the ones that weren't stuck nto the feeder tube first and then gone after the last one - live and learn.

 

[ageingstudent]

The other day I was about to load some 45-70s and got the last primer jammed in the primer pickup tube when I was about to drop them in the feeder tube on the press.

None of the primers had dropped yet so I emptied the pickup tube on the primer tray, cursing over having to pick them a second time, while getting the last one unstuck.

Cursing even more I started picking them up again.

Once done I turned the pickup tube upside down in order to get it to the press. That's when my cursing hit a new level - I had forgotten to put the stopper back into the pickup tube.

I spent the next 45 minutes on the floor and was able to recover 49 out of 50. Back in the old days I would have put my safety glasses and hearing protection on and played whacka-primer for a while and picked the dead ones up w the shop-vac.

Of course I should have dropped the ones that weren't stuck nto the feeder tube first and then gone after the last one - live and learn.

You never seem to be able to find them all. It's an axiom of life

 

[Capn Jack]

Seems like anything I drop rolls under the bench and I have to fight the spiders for it.

 

[pinne65]

Seems like anything I drop rolls under the bench and I have to fight the spiders for it.

Very true, there could be a treasure trove under there.

 

[NobullSKS]

At the bench finally. Got bullets pulled from my idea to crimp .308 and friggin strong armed it. Shoulder area was 5 thou over saami
Primed brass back in sizer with de-primer and inside rod thing pulled. To get shoulder top case area smaller.
Boat tails still slide in nice.

 

[Newberg]

Dillon 650XL. Sideways projectile and primers. Going too fast.

 

[Capn Jack]

I'm with MikeJ .

So far the only time my RCBS jr. has failed me was when it loaded the tip of one of my fingers, along with the bullet, into a fully champhered 9mm case..

 

[Newberg]

Forgot to tighten down the retention screws on the Dillon Powder Measure.... first round pressed up and launched the completely full powder hopper onto the workbench. I was able to salvage about half a hopper full.

 

[Local Loader]

Forgot to tighten down the retention screws on the Dillon Powder Measure.... first round pressed up and launched the completely full powder hopper onto the workbench. I was able to salvage about half a hopper full.

View attachment 1371661

All I've got to say for that is, ouch. I hate when a few cases spill, a whole hopper, I'd probably cry, that stuffs not cheap anymore.

 

[Newberg]

Dumping 100 primers immediately after cleaning up all the powder... now that nearly broke me. Found 96 of them.