WayneConrad
Member
This is the bullet from the last round I fired on Saturday. Then I came home to pound it out of the barrel.
A squib is humbling. And scary, when you find one in a string of rapid fire. I managed to get through the tap-rack before I realized what had happened and got my finger off the trigger. I don't like having come that close to going "boom" instead of "bang." I don't like having made a squib. It knocked me down a bunch of notches.
I think I know what error in my process that allowed it to happen. I do a careful inspection of the loading block for under and over charged cases before I start seating bullets. But with all these danged rejects I've been getting, I've been having five or ten do-overs per 50. The squib was in the 2nd to last round in the box: It was one of the do-overs. I think I was frustrated and in a bit of a hurry to get the do-overs done, and didn't keep to the regular routine.
I've learned that doing anything at the loading bench when frustrated makes me careless. And maybe no more "tap-rack" when shooting hand loads. Factory loads for practicing that stuff, I think.
There is a silver lining to this embarassing episode. I have been wanting to slug my barrel, and now I have. 0.350" land to land, and 0.355" groove to groove.
A squib is humbling. And scary, when you find one in a string of rapid fire. I managed to get through the tap-rack before I realized what had happened and got my finger off the trigger. I don't like having come that close to going "boom" instead of "bang." I don't like having made a squib. It knocked me down a bunch of notches.
I think I know what error in my process that allowed it to happen. I do a careful inspection of the loading block for under and over charged cases before I start seating bullets. But with all these danged rejects I've been getting, I've been having five or ten do-overs per 50. The squib was in the 2nd to last round in the box: It was one of the do-overs. I think I was frustrated and in a bit of a hurry to get the do-overs done, and didn't keep to the regular routine.
I've learned that doing anything at the loading bench when frustrated makes me careless. And maybe no more "tap-rack" when shooting hand loads. Factory loads for practicing that stuff, I think.
There is a silver lining to this embarassing episode. I have been wanting to slug my barrel, and now I have. 0.350" land to land, and 0.355" groove to groove.