Scary Learning Experiences - And What Changes They Caused?

[NoirFan]

I was loading up about 300 max charge 38 special +P for steel shooting at the range. Bagged and labeled them, and packed my range bag ready to head out the door.

Happened to look over at my RCBS beam scale. Hmm, the powder pan is wobbling around, but I haven’t touched it in a while. Wonder why that is?

Turns out the scale was right under the downdraft from the AC vent in the ceiling. The irregular breeze from the vent would cause charge weights to read as much as +/- 3 whole grains.

A fun afternoon at the range turned into a less fun afternoon getting to know my collet puller really well.

 

[Dudedog]

Not scary exactly, but
Had a squib when I first got my progressive, user error.....caught it so no problem other than I messed up creating it.
ordered a Hornady powder cop that afternoon, then a RCBS lockout die later.
Like the lockout die better for pistol.

 

[someguy2800]

I have a few from my personal idiot hall of fame.

I have on several occasions loaded up a gammet of test loads thinking I would shoot the next day only to come back to it two weeks later and can’t remember what the heck is in them. I have also worked up several great loads only to forget 6 months later what it was. I now keep a journal and have a system to label boxes for test loads.

I have thrown away hoppers of powder left in the measure because I can’t remember what they are. Same for primers. I now store powder on a shelf and primers in a drawer and leave the bottle of powder and primer sleeve next to the dispenser.

I have on several occasions loaded rounds with no primers. I inspect for that on the progressive as it can be hard to tell if you actually fed a primer or not.

I once loaded up a 3 grain overcharge in 223 because I was using the wrong scale pan on a beam scale. Only one scale pan allowed on the bench now.

I have ran the powder measure out a couple times and had to sort loaded rounds on the scale to find the squibs.

After getting an ABLP press to do 9mm I’ve had two squibs that I can’t explain. I decided that I personally need to have a powder lock out die on a progressive and to minimize manual operations as it’s apparently too many things going on for me to keep focus on, so I upgraded to a Hornady LNL recently so I can add the lockout die and keep the die setup I like.

 

[WestKentucky]

Nothing really scary for me, but very frustrating. I have a rem700 .270 that used to be an absolute tack driver. I have done pretty much all of the no-no’s in reloading with .270 with one totally wrecking the gun. I saved brass as a teenager and started using it up in my early 20s. I just reloaded, no cleaning, no trimming, just bang, primer, powder, bullet, bang over and over. The cases got long, and I had one stick in the chamber. Rifle hasn’t been the same since. I now trim rifle brass.

 

[plodder]

Other than the occasional .380 or Makarov that gets mixed in with my bulk 9mm reloading sessions the worst I have done (so far) is to get a .38 Special case mixed in with .357 brass with a batch I ran through my Dillon 650. It crimped and seated the bullet (but just barely). At the range my Colt Trooper cylinder went into hard lockup mode. The recoil from shooting a .357 had slid the bullet in the .38SPL case out and put an end to operations.

My process change is to use higher powered glasses to read the headstamps that seem to be getting smaller and dimmer every year.