"Safe" 44 magnum loads........

[Freddie the Swede]

i must tell you a story about a guy at mu local club who thought he was doing a safe thing with his 44 mag handloads.

Standing beside him at the range I heard him complain about the lousy accurcy of his new gun.

-Shit, this gun aint hitting anything, not even in the white!!!! (25 meters and 10 ring precision target).

Well, he comes over and ask me if I could spot for him and maybe see where the shots are going.

Ok I said, standing behind him I notice while he's shooting that he has a VERY weak load in that big 44 mag revolver.

-What load are you haveing I ask?

-His reply, It's a reduces target load as I'm new to the 44 mag and don't want to flinch while I learn to shoot it.

-Ok, I say. But it has to be very low as there is unburnt powder dripping from the muzzle everytime you lower the muzzle!!!

-yea, but it's nice and comfortable to shoot he replies.

We check the targets and he has not one shot in the target...

Five more shots and he walkes up to me saying. -Strange, the cylinder won't come out any more, not even rotate when I try to cock the hammer????

What had happend? The guy has 10 shots stuck in his barrel!!!! AMAZING that the gun did not go KABOOM.

Lesson learned, don't be too careful loading your ammo, you might get stuck.

The guy later told me that he had to have his gunsmith drill the bullets out as they where sitting so tight that it was impossible to knock them out.

Cheers

Fredrik Lundbeck

IPSC Tyresö

SWEDEN

PS. Please tell your funny handloading story as well.

Edited January 1, 2009 by Freddie the Swede

[Doug H.]

He may have had the right idea, just the wrong load. I watched a guy shoot a brand new S&W Mod 29 with .44 magnum loads at an indoor range in NJ back in the '70s. There was a low concrete beam over the shooting positions because the range was in the basement. First shot that gun swung up in an arc and bashed up against the beam. It was very funny but we didn't laugh because he was kind of upset (and still had 5 rounds left)!

Doug

[RogerT]

I didn't witness this myself, but I trust the source, the RO in this case.

New guy at IPSC match, first station for the day.

RO starts the shooter and his first shot is LOUD and the mag from his Glock falls out and the slide locks back.. the newbie quickly replaces with new mag and continues before the startled RO gets a chance to stop him. Second shot sends the mag out again and the slide flies off...... but no harm to anyone, all are safe but scared...

When the RO later inquires the shooter what ammo he is using, the reply is "my own reloads".

What powder and how much does the charge weigh? is the next question.

And the shooters answer is "weight? I don't know, but not more than half the case so the bullet also fit's"

[38supPat]

I've seen a few similar stories. Years ago when I was doing courses at the S&W Academy we did a tour of the warrantee center. There was a .38 S&W model 10 that had 6 158 gr SWC bullets stuck in the barrel. The last one didn't leave the cylinder. They cut the barrel in half to show it off.

We also had a guy shooting a match once, whose .45 seemed excessively loud and snappy, we asked what he was loading and it was just shy of a double charge of Bullseye, I think around 6.5 gr. His front site decided it had enough and left after only a few rounds on the first stage...unfortunately there is more to the story, but thats for another day.