Anyone ever cause a mistake?

[No2sc2]

Any stories of new or experience reloaders who came across a problem? I want to hear so I can learn. I hope no one got seriously hurt. One time I bought reloaded ammo from a reloading company during the panic and I had a head separation! It messed up my Mp5 extractor spring and clip. I inspected the rest of the ammo that night and found that 80% of them, cases were on their last leg! Most of them were pregnant! I contacted them and they had me shipped back the rest of the ammo and refunded the whole price plus shipping and even offered new ammo for reloaded price but I declined.

 

[BHJ]

Yup tried to reduce the powder charge in a .300RUM below the published minimums because it was kickin the crap out of me.
Wound up with click 1...2....3......BOOM! very dangerous indeed and lucky that a lodged bullet from the primer didnt cause a pressure spike and blow my dumb experimenting less powder cant hurt know it all butt to kingdom come. or at least my rifle anyways.
The book said don't ever go below published minimums and now I know why. Sure got away with one.

Want to learn? Read the book read it again, Believe what you read, if what you read in a reliable manual doesn't make sense to you do it anyway.

 

[Flip853]

Failed to powder load a 45 ACP round once. I will tell you that just a primer has enough force to push the slug just half way down the barrel....thank God I didn't fire the following round.

 

[No2sc2]

Yup tried to reduce the powder charge in a .300RUM below the published minimums because it was kickin the crap out of me.
Wound up with click 1...2....3......BOOM! very dangerous indeed and lucky that a lodged bullet from the primer didnt cause a pressure spike and blow my dumb experimenting less powder cant hurt know it all butt to kingdom come. or at least my rifle anyways.
The book said don't ever go below published minimums and now I know why. Sure got away with one.

Want to learn? Read the book read it again, Believe what you read, if what you read in a reliable manual doesn't make sense to you do it anyway.

Can you explain to me why it does that? I've heard people say don't go over max and don't go under minimum. Besides gettin bullet stuck in the barrel, why would it cause pressure if it's undercharged?

 

[No2sc2]

Failed to powder load a 45 ACP round once. I will tell you that just a primer has enough force to push the slug just half way down the barrel....thank God I didn't fire the following round.

Really? I didn't know that! I thought primer just make a spark to light the powder...

 

[jcountry]

Can you explain to me why it does that? I've heard people say don't go over max and don't go under minimum. Besides gettin bullet stuck in the barrel, why would it cause pressure if it's undercharged?

From what I understand, a charge below the minimum published will essentially give the powder too long to burn.

Published loads rely on a bullet getting out of the barrel in a reasonable amount of time. If the charge is too low, the pressure builds and builds (and it can keep building to a dangerous level) while the bullet is still in the barrel long past its due time to exit.

I hear this is mainly a problem with high power rifles. Probably not so much for pistols.

 

[97 winchester]

Another thing to believe is bullet makers recommendation not to load past a certain fps rate. You can do it but you won't like it. You can get really bad copper fouling or leading. And you won't have good accuracy or consistent results except bad results.

 

[jcountry]

Really? I didn't know that! I thought primer just make a spark to light the powder...

Nope-

There is a lot of kick to a primer. It is a tiny piece of high explosive. That's the reason it is very important to never store primers improperly. I know there have been incidents where some guy would dump a pile of them in a cup or small bucket and sooner or later, something would set them all off. That guy usually didn't live to tell the tale.

 

[bearpugh]

an undercharged round can produce as much or more pressure than an overcharge. don't cheat. go by the book.

 

[sparked1]

Before I started reloading and knew anything about squibs, I encountered one. I thought is was a light strike, ejected what I thought was the dud round (turned out to be just an empty casing but I did not pay close attention), fired the next round.......kaboom! Felt like a +p++++! Ruined my barrel but surprisingly my pistol was otherwise unphased. That was from some crap reloads I bought at a flea market. I should have known better. NEVER AGAIN. That was a $150 mistake and luckily no digits were lost.