Worst mistake you've made reloading?

I've loaded close to 10k pistol rounds in my dillon 550. Only mistake I've found was one time a shot sounded like a squib. I ejected the round and the bullet was still fully seated in the brass. Scratched my head for a bit and then noticed the primer looked funny. Took a closer look and found that it was seated backwards. I guess that's better than having an actual squib with the bullet stuck in the barrel

Bought an ice cream bucket of lead

I bought an ice cream container of lead bullets (about 1200 rounds) from a shop when they were out of boxed stuff and loaded the whole lot on my well tuned XL650.

Turns out the lead must have been swept up off the floor. The bucket contained odd lots of lead. After some major problems at the range, I discovered the OAL length varied as much as 0.025". Needless say, I had to re-seat the whole lot on a single stage and ended up with a lot more rounds 0.027" under than 0.002" under. Wife and I shot up the lot over the next couple of weeks to get them out of the safe.

Cheap price doesn't necessarily mean good value.

Scott

I had a squib load in the first month. Learned why and eliminated that problem.
Rusty

My worst mistake was shooting reloads bought at a gunshow. I got a squib within my first 400 rounds.

I've fired just over 2,000 of my own reloads without any problems. Someday, I'll get around to buying a kinetic hammer to pull the four rounds I assembled with flipped or missing primers.

This was a mistake made by my uncle. He bought a bunch of reloading supplies from a guy he worked with. He had loaded some .257 Roberts ammunition with some of the .25 caliber bullets he bought. He fired a couple of rounds and then when he went to load the 3rd round he had trouble chambering it, but when he forced the bolt handle down it went. When he fired the round he said the recoil was like a .300 Win Mag. and it locked up the bolt. He finally got the bolt open and the primer was blown and the case ruptured.

Went back inside and began trying to figure out what was up. Looked through the bullets remaining in the box and noticed a couple of bullets that looked different. He miked em and they were .264

BTW - the rifle was a M-70 and it checked out just fine afterwards.

Can I go to heaven if I confess? probably not. Before Dillon and the other progressive reloaders there was only Star. I was a very expensive and magnifcent reloader. One that I could never afford.

CH came out with one that "looked" good. I found a used one in a gun shop. And traded for it. It only loaded 38 spec, 2.8 grs of bullseye and a wc bullet, but thats what I needed lots of target 38's.

I was continually adjusting it. I would pump the handel , check the adjustment, then dump the powder out of the case under the powder drop tube.

The reloads shot fine untill one day when the top of the cylinder of my department issued S&W mod.27's buldged and bent the top strap. (they didn't even ask me what happened, they just gave another brand new 27, that was as big a shock as the over load)

I had no idea what had happened until, while reloading and adjusting I noticed that no powder came out of the case as I dumped it. When I looked into the case I saw that the dump tube had compressed the powded. It took more than a double charge to bent the big 27.

It just NOW dawned on me that the department probably thought that I was shooting dept. ammo. I had thought they "REALLY" liked me. The CH went in the junk pile where it belonged.

I expect never to find out . . .

Reloading is safer than driving a car by far. Primers are SAFE. I've never witnessed a primer detonating a load on its own., and I've reloaded many thousands of handloads. Recently my wife was involved in a horrendous traffic accident, not of her making. Whilst I sat home reloading, she encountered a near death experience on a local road she travelled regularily. Cars kill more people than bullets ever can. Starvation kills more people worldwide than bullets do. Shooting game to feed America's hungry is the most noble act on earth. Percentagewise, guns SAVE lives, or at least preserve them. cliffy

Gawd Cliffy, is your wife OK?

1 squib load in about 20 years of reloading.... just the other day.... it kinda shakes your confidence...

In all that time I have never had an accident that caused any damage or injury...

My wife is recovering slowly, RonDog

It happened in October 2008, a day before our daughter's wedding. Therapy and great doctors seem to help. She may never be up to "pare" but she can walk unaided, if in extreme agony. She rarely complains, but that's just her positive demeaner. I bought her a newer, solid car (a 2006 Mercury Milan V-6), and she seems happy with it, but she now believes she will die in a traffic accident. I can't shake her from her feeling. cliffy

The worst mistake i've made had to be on my single stage shotgun press, a couple times i forgot to advance the shell forward.. and dumped powder all over my table, then another time i forgot to pull the lever down before i moved the charge bar, resulting in the same thing.

but i've only reloaded about 600 rounds and maybe done that 4 times.

Hello
In my first year of reloading,twice,I failed to put powder in the round. Must have been too worried about over filling.
Worst since then is filling cases with powder before inserting the primer.I did about 30 cases before I investigated the mess on the bench.
Frank

I have had a hot round in my 9mm once but it didn't hurt me or the HI-Point I was shooting.

The WORST was a Squib in my AutoMag 9mm Magnum (9x29). I heard it and new what it was right away. Examined the gun and there it was, sticking out the end of the barrel!

Not running 100 pieces of brand new brass through the sizing die before loading it. Not life threatening but a stupid mistake that jammed my gun several times before if figured out what the deal was. Duh.

Historian

NOT READING THE RELOADING DATA CORRECTLY! it did get ugly, and certainly could have been much worse. i was looking for a reduced load for my 300 win mag. in one of the books, there were 3 consecutive pages with reduced loads, the first 2 were using the same powder, but the third (of course, the one i picked) used a different powder. and i did not catch it until after i touched off one seriously overloaded round! (there were actually 3, but i was working up the load, thankfully) long story short, no one got hurt, the rifle is fine, but i learned a very valuable lesson!

The worse mistake I ever made in reloading was thinking that my shooting days were over so I sold (more like gave away) all my stuff to a young lad who wanted to get into the hobby. Biiiiiiig mistake. I started reloading in '67. Now buying new and discovering how much prices have gone up. Oh well, too soon olt, too late schmardt!!!! It still feels good to be back making ammo and smelling burnt powder.

Biggest reloading error was using some gun show reloads. Supposed to be low flash, turned out to be low power.

Pitiful.

One my son made. Loaded slightly over length. When he ejected unfired round he left bullet in barrel. Luckily, he got it out and didn't ruin his hunt. I suggested if it ever happened again, clean out spilled powder, pull bullet from unfired rounmd. Keep rifle pointed up, insert case without bullet into dhamber and fire bullet out of barrel.

Worst mistake I have made so far was not stocking up on Primers!
:banghead:

One my son made. Loaded slightly over length. When he ejected unfired round he left bullet in barrel. Luckily, he got it out and didn't ruin his hunt. I suggested if it ever happened again, clean out spilled powder, pull bullet from unfired rounmd. Keep rifle pointed up, insert case without bullet into dhamber and fire bullet out of barrel.

Click to expand...

BAD idea, IMO!!! I can't believe you'd suggest such a thing to your own son! His personal safety is far more important than "saving" a stupid hunt, for chrissake! Bagging a deer is NOT so important to justify taking stupid risks with firearms.

I was filling my Lymann powder dispenser and the powder just kept going in.

I forgot to close the trap door that empties the powder tube when done.

I had a whole lotta AA2230 on the floor.

One my son made. Loaded slightly over length. When he ejected unfired round he left bullet in barrel. Luckily, he got it out and didn't ruin his hunt. I suggested if it ever happened again, clean out spilled powder, pull bullet from unfired rounmd. Keep rifle pointed up, insert case without bullet into dhamber and fire bullet out of barrel.

Click to expand...

WHOA!!!! The biggest mistake here is not loading over length, but your advice.

So far my worst has been having a primer seat sideways, and not catching it during inspection. I found it the hard way while doing speed drills.

BANGBANGBANGPfffftttt...


"Wait a sec, "Pfffft?"" That's not a good gun sound...

let the shot run low in a progressive press, loaded about 5 shells with no shot.

I've seated a .40 cal bullet on a 9mm case when I forgot to switch out the brass in the bin (RL550).

When I first got the RL550 (previously loaded with LCT) I forgot to load the primers in the tube. Powder everywhere in station 2.