I recently struck up a conversation at the range with someone I didn't know. He told me he'd recently had a gun blow up. He said he hadn't been seriously hurt.....but there was a good amount of blood. He told me the details of what happened, but I don't want to share them here in case anyone can triangulate and figure out who it was. (I have no reason to believe he is or is not a High Road member.) The bottom line is it was operator (reloading) error - and he knows it.
This caused me to recall an older friend of mine who used to have his private pilot's license. When he turned 70 he took himself out of the hobby. "I don't want someone else telling me I can't do it any more. I want to end on my terms." I have another friend who is (was?) a reloader. But he has suffered some eyesight issues and, although he hasn't said it to me directly, he hasn't loaded any ammo in a number of years I think because he knows his eyesight isn't very good.
So all of this got me thinking: Are there objective events around which anyone has "pre-decided" that, if they happen, by definition they will close the reloading bench? I'm not asking this in the context of a universal set of events. I'm just wondering if anyone here has said to themselves "If <x> ever happens I'm going to decide that's an indicator I shouldn't be doing this any more."
I have not made any decisions like that. But the severity of the opening story, along with people I know in my life who have been on the proactive side of things, have gotten me wondering about what things might be early indicators of me maybe not being as much on my game as I might need to to handle propellants that burn REALLY fast under pressure in a confined space.
OR
This caused me to recall an older friend of mine who used to have his private pilot's license. When he turned 70 he took himself out of the hobby. "I don't want someone else telling me I can't do it any more. I want to end on my terms." I have another friend who is (was?) a reloader. But he has suffered some eyesight issues and, although he hasn't said it to me directly, he hasn't loaded any ammo in a number of years I think because he knows his eyesight isn't very good.
So all of this got me thinking: Are there objective events around which anyone has "pre-decided" that, if they happen, by definition they will close the reloading bench? I'm not asking this in the context of a universal set of events. I'm just wondering if anyone here has said to themselves "If <x> ever happens I'm going to decide that's an indicator I shouldn't be doing this any more."
I have not made any decisions like that. But the severity of the opening story, along with people I know in my life who have been on the proactive side of things, have gotten me wondering about what things might be early indicators of me maybe not being as much on my game as I might need to to handle propellants that burn REALLY fast under pressure in a confined space.
OR