Duds anyone???

[victor3ranger]

I loaded up a bunch of 9mm for a pistol class and had one round not fire because the primer was seated upside down. My Dillon will flip a primer every once in a blue moon and I just didn't catch that one. No harm, no foul. However, I have pulled a few batched down before because I wasn't 100% sure that all the rounds had powder as I let the powder hopper get lower than I was comfortable with. Never found one that didn't have powder in it, though.

Like MagnumManiac, I always load bottleneck cartridges in batches...Prime, put in a loading block, drop/weigh powder, double-check weight on a second scale, dump into case. Before moving on to bullet seating, I always perform a visual check with a flashlight to make sure none of the powder charges look different. I find it's easier to get into a rhythm doing that than it is to prime/charge/seat an individual cartridge in sequence.

You just described the way I load

 

[memtb]

Sunday honesty.

How many of you out there can honestly say that, " I've never had a dud that I built myself".

Gun issues/malfunctions aside.

Come on, fess up.

Yes I have…..but it was many (many) years ago!

In fact….in my teens (while learning everything on my on) I made about every screw-up that an ignorant "newbie" could make! All of my equipment (except the press) came from yard sales, ect. and had no instructions…. I was "winging it"!

When I first started hand loading in my early teens (14 ish), I was using a Lee Loader…..even I couldn't mess that up! memtb

 

[Rosebud]

A friend of mine had his 270 blow up.
The stock broke into 3 pieces, blew the bottom metal off and jammed the bolt so bad I had to beat it out with a small 3lb sledgehammer.

Wow! Seen that happen before. Know a guy out west that loaned his muzzle loader to a friend for a two day hunt.Guy returned it saying he never fired it. Dude when outside the next day to just fire it to unload it. It was a inline ML , put a 209 primer in it and pulled the trigger. When the smoke cleared he was missing two fingers from his left hand. He had loaded it for his friend to hunt with, and his friend loaded it again. That's why you put witness marks on the ramrod.

 

[Taylorbok]

I've had one dud 215m primer.
Never fired when pulled trigger. Tried again still nothing, you could see the primer was deformed way more than normal from firing pin. Case had powder in it, when I got home I nocked out the primer, no anvil came out.

 

[Beluebow]

Unfortunately I've made about every mistake you can make reloading.....fortunately I've never been injured or had any catastrophic failures.

The worst mistake was keeping all my powders in the same area as I load........Loading for my 300wm at the time, I was using 75gr of H1000 and haphazardly grabbed a jug of H4350.......75gr of H4350 and a Berger 215 will lock one up.

I've missed putting powder in cases....luckily no stuck bullets from just the primer going off.
I've missed priming cases...that sucks biggly.
I've seated primers backwards....that doesn't work very well.

 

[Taylorbok]

Unfortunately I've made about every mistake you can make reloading.....fortunately I've never been injured or had any catastrophic failures.

The worst mistake was keeping all my powders in the same area as I load........Loading for my 300wm at the time, I was using 75gr of H1000 and haphazardly grabbed a jug of H4350.......75gr of H4350 and a Berger 215 will lock one up.

I've missed putting powder in cases....luckily no stuck bullets from just the primer going off.
I've missed priming cases...that sucks biggly.
I've seated primers backwards....that doesn't work very well.

a guy I know just did varget in place of H1000 in his 7RM action exploded, he's a bit cut up on his face but mostly fine.

 

[IllinoisBurt]

Are you sure it's the primers?

Yes, sir. Had some rounds that went click multiple times. Broke them down, primer looks a little burned but didn't cause ignition and powder completely normal. After looking at the remaining tray new primers noticed some had discoloration. Test loaded a couple and found them dead (click and looks like it fizzled but not audible bang or sparks from the barrel). The remaining flats of primers I'm doing close visual inspection before loading and culling out the suspect looking ones. So the only headache is I had loaded up about 350 of these prior to becoming aware of the issue. Not going to break them all down so relegated to range only. Encountered 7 so far.

 

[mdmiller]

Well, back many years ago I loaded up 4 boxes of trap loads to shoot skeet with that coming weekend. Will setting up the automatic reloader I forgot to turn on the powder. You guessed it! My buddies had a good time ripping me at the club! Barrowed shells and shot. Got home and dismantled 4 boxes!!

 

[danajm]

Learned the importance of, "Trust, but verify" once. Had a friend give me some, "fully processed" .223 brass. Didn't case gage any of them. Loaded up 1k of 69 gr SMK. During range session (with gas gun) had one that wouldn't go into battery. Then wouldn't extract. Mortering stripped the rim off the case. So now live round stuck in the chamber. Wood rod wouldn't dislodge, stepped up to brass rod, still nothing. Started tapping brass rod, just pushed the projectile into the case a bit. Ended up pulling the barrel and taking it to a smith who drilled the primer under oil bath and extracting with a screw. Case failed case gage... then checked the remander of the 1k I'd loaded and found 5 more... case is on my wall of shame..

 

[Muddyboots]

Yes, I've had one where I didn't add powder. There have been a couple of times where I loaded up some ammo and realized that I had forgotten primers..it became clear as a kernel or two of powder would drop out through the flash hole. What a pain that is. Pull, dump, resize, etc, not to mention a bruised ego haha.

Bee scratch with ball powder, so I hear...

 

[Sealesniper]

I have a good buddy that is a great gun smith and sponsor on this page. He told me "never, never, have any powder container on your reloading table unless it is the powder in your scale". Well I did not heed his advice (1 time) and ended up pouring the powder into the wrong container. That will not happen again.

At that same time (wife had called me into the house from my man house while I was reloading) and I left the powder in the electronic scale thinking I would be back in a few minutes. Ended up being a few days and the powder actually bonded to the wall of the charge master. After I had scraped it all out I was flustered and then poured it into the wrong container. Lesson learned the hard way.

 

[memtb]

At that same time (wife had called me into the house from my man house while I was reloading) and I left the powder in the electronic scale thinking I would be back in a few minutes. Ended up being a few days and the powder actually bonded to the wall of the charge master. After I had scraped it all out I was flustered and then poured it into the wrong container. Lesson learned the hard way

There was an article in Shooting Times back in the late '70's or early '80's, written by Skeeter Skelton, where he did something similar with 2400 (I think) in his powder dispenser! memtb

 

[C-130 Dude]

I once loaded a 300WM with a partial load of H4350, about 12 grains by what was left in the measure, and didn't notice it… Following weekend I found that round when I pulled the trigger during a practice match, it went click, no bang, and when I turned the bolt the rifle hissed and the rim of the case was bent. The case mouth was all melted and burnt, the 190g CC bullet was wedged in the barrel about 4" in front of the chamber, no brass rod would budge it, had to ream it out of the barrel in the end. This is the only reloading mistake I didn't catch. Have had several mistakes since, but all were caught and rectified, I also stopped pouring powder and seating bullets straight after because of this incident. I do each stage as a set, pour powder in all cases, check powder heights, if ANY look suss, they get weighed again and adjusted if need be, then all get bullets seated. Have not had a missing or partially missing charge since doing this.
Have never had a misfire, hangfires when developing loads for wildcats, yes, but no scary incidents.

Cheers.

I've caught myself doing the same thing. Nowadays, after charging, I look carefully down each case using a flashlight to ensure I filled the case up. I also installed one of those led light strips above my seater die to fully illuminate the inside of the case. I also put better lighting on my reloading bench. But I still get a bit over careful when I charge.

 

[C-130 Dude]

Very well done!

Tastes like chicken?