DukeConnor
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- Joined
- Oct 30, 2016
- Messages
- 1,126
I routinely forget to close the drain on my chargemaster
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I forgot about that one. I did that with my Auto charge more than once. Very irritating.
I've done most over the years but have not spilled bottles or mix powders. The latest being to forget to close the drain on the CM1500, soon after I got it.
Yup, done that one too. Did it outside once when a stray wasp took an interest in my being there. Portable reloading has its ups and downs - I got up and my trays went down.I once was charging cases and carefully placing them in the reloading tray. Just about had a full tray and somehow my hand caught the lip on the edge of the tray flipping over the whole lot.
Called myself every name in the book.
I've done that once, I can only imagine it just as terrible every timeI routinely forget to close the drain on my chargemaster
I put a label on the front and lid of my CM1500 that said:
I've done most over the years but have not spilled bottles or mix powders. The latest being to forget to close the drain on the CM1500, soon after I got it.
All the above lolWhat did you learn from your powder handling mistakes? Have you thrown powder with no primers in the case? Have you fumbled your funnel and dumped powder all over? Have you dropped your canister of powder? Have you forgotten which primers you loaded into the tube?
Having fumbled my funnel last night, I wonder what others have learned from their mishaps. Care to share?
I cringe inside when I read someone spilling their hopper. I have never done it, but I could see myself doing it.I have done it all more than once, I am a slow leaner.
Also had the tube pop off my Hornady drop with about a 1/4# of W296 in it. That was a huge mess requiring a full cleaning on my LnL and lots of sweeping while muttering many 4 letter words. Needless to say I added a piece of packing tape around the tube to stop that from ever happening again!
I had mine get loose a couple of times. I've been lucky enough to catch it before I spilled any powder. Hornady use a type of plastic that is soft and can/does deform. The first thing I did was to flip it over. The second time it got loose I called Hornady and they sent me a new hopper. I don't know if the newer is of a different plastic but it has not suffered the failure. May be because it's in a climate controlled room now.
Never is a long time. Never say never. say, have not done that YET. Like us bikers say, it's not if you go down but when it happens.I've never done that (as best as I can remember), but I feel your pain because I've sure done similar things.
I have another rule—never let two teenagers reload by themselves.Over the years, I have helped lots of people find and fix problems because I have had to do so myself. My Brother and I started loading when he was 17 and I was 13 and had no one to teach us anything about it, no Internet, forums, or youtube videos, just two kids reading a couple of books and getting after it. If it could go wrong, it did. Learned all sorts of things. For example, if your the bullet feeder and the press operator crushes your fingers for the second time, a request for a position swap, will slow them down, long enough for you to get your fingers out of the way, for the remainder of the session.
We never hurt ourselves badly though and learned a lot. I know many ways to fail but did eventually learn to avoid most of the problems.
If I had one rule for reloading, I would make it, ‘only one set of components on the bench at a time’. I keep a lot of my powder containers on the wall next to my bench, only the one currently in use is allowed on the bench.
Our local gun store had a number of examples of customer kabooms and squibs, Frank, the owner, was a gunsmith and kept destroyed parts on display. Made us cautious enough, there were a number of years we loaded for 4 different calibers using 4.5 grains of W231, just different calibers and projectiles. It makes it much easier to keep things straight, when it’s the same for everything. Even if it’s a jack of all trades, master of none solution.
All of my powder handling mishaps have been in the handling stages. I've turned the trickeler over, fumble fingered the powder funnel, had powder bridge in the funnel and spill all over everything when I picked it up, ect. The main thing that I learned is to slow down. The other thing I learned is to place the trickeler where I won't be reaching around or over it. As to the powder bridging in the funnel I learned to either tap the rim of the funnel with something or to thump it with my fingers. And to be more deliberate in my motions. Did I mention slow down?What did you learn from your powder handling mistakes?