Lesson Learned

[standles]

Well....

There I was in the wilds of my living room frantically loading ammo for the next wave of cardboard bad guys. I had ~800 rounds of loaded ammo in the bin of the 550 next to me and 200 more to go. Then it happened, There was an unusual feel to the press and I pulled the case from the flare/powder drop staton. Nothing seemed unusual so I set it aside and moved on. My plans were to run it through at the end of the primer tube. Why I didn't just put it back in.... Only the fates know for sure.

So fast forward to the end of the primer tube. I set the round back into the last set of 4 on the press. And cycle them all through. Then it hit me.. I set it in the primer station not the seating station. I now had for sure one cartridge that was double loaded with TG to 9.4 grains under a 200 gr lead swc in .45.

ARGHHHH!

Of course it was somewhere on top of the 800 but I had no way of telling which one. My only help was I knew it was not nickle plated but brass. That helped immensely as my brass supply was ~90% brass and 10% nickel. *$%$#*&%$^ can't catch a break.

So I pulled out the old electronic scale and weighed each on. The truth number was derived from loading another 20 and taking an average of them (299.5 gr). Anything under that would have been ok anything over is suspicious. Very consistent considering mixed brass and lead SWC. IN the end I did find one that was 307.8, 2 that were 306ish, 20 in the 304, and ~100 in the 300 to 302 range.

I pulled the 307 but the kinetic puller spilled some of the powder on the floor. what was left weighed in at 4.9gr. Anything above the 302 got tossed into a can of wd40. They 300-302 range was set aside for special consideration. (most likely will dump them in the wd40 as well.

So.. Lesson learned. Load 100 then move those to a larger container. At least next time I will only have to sort through 100 or so not 800. On the plus side those 800 rounds are the best inspected I have ever done.

Later, Steven

[al503]

yup. whenever I notice a different pull, I immediately dump whatever is in the bin out. I had a similar issue when my g/f was trying to carry on a conversation with me while I was loading. I ended up having to weigh about 300 cases. Thank goodness I have an electronic scale. Otherwise, I would have chucked them all. I threw out several F bombs and she said that that was the angriest that she's ever seen me.

Edited January 24, 2006 by al503

[spook]

Reminds me of the guy who didn't use a powder check and let his powder measure run dry.

It sucks and you'll only do it once.

[A33435]

Reminds me of the guy who didn't use a powder check and let his powder measure run dry.

It sucks and you'll only do it once.

HEHEHE Spook, i hope these things only happens once.

Few weeks ago i had a dry powdermeasure

My routine is:

-toshing 500 shells in the casefeed

-putting powder for 500+ rounds in the measure

-filling the primefeed and having 4 filled primertubes ready at hand.

Every time i have to refill the primers i put aside the produced rounds.

That saved my day because it happened i forgot to fill the powdermeasure.

What was left after the former session was enough for the first 100 rounds.

During the second batch i suddenly noticed i had run dry

There were about 60 rounds in the bin and 1 or more of them contained no powder....

Dont know yet what to do with them........

Greetings

Adrie

[spook]

Reminds me of the guy who didn't use a powder check and let his powder measure run dry.

It sucks and you'll only do it once.

HEHEHE Spook, i hope these things only happens once.

Few weeks ago i had a dry powdermeasure

My routine is:

-toshing 500 shells in the casefeed

-putting powder for 500+ rounds in the measure

-filling the primefeed and having 4 filled primertubes ready at hand.

Every time i have to refill the primers i put aside the produced rounds.

That saved my day because it happened i forgot to fill the powdermeasure.

What was left after the former session was enough for the first 100 rounds.

During the second batch i suddenly noticed i had run dry

There were about 60 rounds in the bin and 1 or more of them contained no powder....

Dont know yet what to do with them........

Greetings

Adrie

I would take them to the range and use them. Just shoot groups with them very very slowly and if you have a squib, get it out of the barrel. Or Practice draws. Those 60 rounds will be gone in no time.

[Keith]

Reminds me of the guy who didn't use a powder check and let his powder measure run dry.

It sucks and you'll only do it once.

Thanks Spook!

I did it twice in 2005. Once while I was loading for Area 3 and once while loading for nationals. It won't happen a third time as I now have the Dillon early warning system installed.

[shred]

I would take them to the range and use them. Just shoot groups with them very very slowly and if you have a squib, get it out of the barrel. Or Practice draws. Those 60 rounds will be gone in no time.

Just don't do it with a revolver.. Long ago I inherited a big bag of weak .40 ammo with 'some squibs' written on it. Took 'em to the range with my 610, figuring I wouldn't have to fight with weak-ammo-related jams. That part worked. The bad part was the "squibs", and there were a few, would go 5.5 inches down a 6" barrel, at which point I had to pound the jacketed bullet 5.5" back down the barrel to get it out.

[Dan Sierpina]

Just don't do it with a revolver.. Long ago I inherited a big bag of weak .40 ammo with 'some squibs' written on it. Took 'em to the range with my 610, figuring I wouldn't have to fight with weak-ammo-related jams. That part worked. The bad part was the "squibs", and there were a few, would go 5.5 inches down a 6" barrel, at which point I had to pound the jacketed bullet 5.5" back down the barrel to get it out.

Two folks I know, one that no longer shoots, were loading for a local steel match, revolver division. Both had light loads with lead bullets, then decided to stick jacketed on the same charge for reduction of smoke. Welll....one at least tried the loads to check his sights. Pulled the trigger at a cardboard target...no hole! Noticed the nose of the bullet barely sticking out of the 4" barrel. Knocked it out, thinking it must have been a real light charge. Repeated the drill....same result, only the second bullet alllmost cleared the muzzle. He went home and loaded more ammo with more powder, then kicked everyone's butt at the match. The second guy, didn't test the ammo. First stage he rips off 6 shots, not one single ding of the steel. Goes to reload it, cylinder won't open! The 6 slugs just backed up in the barrel, the final one part in the barrel, part in the cylinder. He sent it back to Smith for repair. He later hung the barrel with all the slugs still inside near his press as a reminder.

[dpeters]

My quality control consists of weighing the powder and checking the OAL every time I fill the primer magizines which equates to checking 1 out of every 100 rounds. If everything checks out, I dump the loading ammo bin into a bigger container. We can load a bunch of garbage real quick, so I feel it is time well spent checking 1 out of every hundred rounds.

Doug

[standles]

My quality control consists of weighing the powder and checking the OAL every time I fill the primer magizines which equates to checking 1 out of every 100 rounds. If everything checks out, I dump the loading ammo bin into a bigger container. We can load a bunch of garbage real quick, so I feel it is time well spent checking 1 out of every hundred rounds.

Doug

Yeah that is what I do as well with the small detail of I didn't empty into another container. Glad I hadn't reached my goals of 3K rounds yet I thought I was cool engineering a large akrobin on the output side of the press. Guess I will go back to the smaller one and free up some bench space.

[iweiny]

Wow I just engineered the same thing... But have not used it...

Thanks for the lesson learned,

Ira