What do you do now?

[horseman]

I have made reloading mistakes more than once in the years I've been at this hobby. Not afraid nor embarrassed to admit such. So, here's the scenario, you load up 50 or so 223 rounds with prepped brass on a manual turret press using three stations. Powder, (manual throw) bullet seating, crimp. You take a few out to shoot for "function testing". One doesn't fire. Nothing. You wait a few seconds, you eject the round and see a good primer strike and looks normal bullet in place. All other rounds fire and results are as expected. Now, you take the brass back into the reloading room, pull the bullet from "dud" round and find no powder in the case. Now what do you do. Start pulling bullets, weigh each round you've just reloaded (never liked that but would probably work) , figure you only screwed up just the one. Thank the reloading gods that at least the primer didn't fire and leave a bullet in the bore (would have noted that I'm sure) go fire the rest of these rounds paying verrrry close attention to function.... give these rounds to someone you don't like...kidding .......

[horseman]

Well Gents, I worried myself enough about it to go in and weigh somewhere around 200 rounds from the batch I did on the "new" to me turret press and setup I was using. I'm not using this as an excuse because there really isn't a good reason for this to happen, but it was a "different" sequence for me and it took me awhile to get a "rhythm" to this press and setup and I was doing a lot of measuring of rounds in between sequences. Well I found two more rounds without powder. Yikes...I now realize I had to much other "stuff" going on throughout the process while getting used to a different system and equipment. Been doing this for over 50 years and just got to complacent in what I was doing. Stupid. Short version, pay attention dummy.

[Fyodor]

I would use then for practice only. No powder is no big deal if the crimp is strong enough to hold the bullet in place, and all of my loads are at least 60% fill rate, so double loads are physically prevented. I am a big fan of pokajoke. Severe errors are physically impossible, and low risk errors are either easy to detect or will cause no harm (e.g. strong crimp, so a nil load will not push the bullet into the forcing cone).

[Fyodor]

and weigh somewhere around 200 rounds

Is the weight of the powder load significantly higher than the deviation in weight on case and bullet combined? If not, weighing will not give definitive results. This depends on caliber, case and bullet preparation and powder charge, of course. In my .38spl loads this would not work. I have no experience with large bore rifle cartridges, it might be working there.

[GasGuzzler]

He's not looking for undercharged cases, just ones with no powder at all. I would have done the same thing. My turret has an AutoDrum so it's a little harder to no-charge one but still possible.

[RBHarter]

20-25gr in a 223 will show up on a scale .

[horseman]

20-25gr in a 223 will show up on a scale .

25gr of H335, and yes it did show up on the scale. Quite obvious.

I will also add that probably 80% weighed BETWEEN 176 and 178 grains. I would have bet real money against being that close. Several between 174 and 178 and 8 that were over, as much as 180+. Anything over 178 I tore down to check for overcharge but they were fine as far as powder charge was concerned. Rather interesting little project.

[RBHarter]

I've weighed 06' empty with spent primers from 172-208+ gr . That from both 2005:1x RP and LC43.

I don't remember now what the 257 Roberts and 7×57 weighed but I ended with 3 lots in 100 of each . 145-168 gr I'm thinking . The sad thing about that is that both were new old stock 1968 RP and Norma 257 and 7×57 Super X 1972 .

The FC 308 I converted to 358 must have been an exceptional lot ,180 of the 217 pieces were within 5 gr .

[GasGuzzler]

I used to weigh all the finished ones when I started because I was paranoid of a double. When I realized the brass varies a lot, I quit. Still didn't vary enough to allow one through. I can see maybe with range pick up brass, blem bullets, foreign primers, and a light load of pistol powder in .38 Special the variance being great enough but I don't download anything myself.

[horseman]

I've weighed 06' empty with spent primers from 172-208+ gr . That from both 2005:1x RP and LC43.

I don't remember now what the 257 Roberts and 7×57 weighed but I ended with 3 lots in 100 of each . 145-168 gr I'm thinking . The sad thing about that is that both were new old stock 1968 RP and Norma 257 and 7×57 Super X 1972 .

The FC 308 I converted to 358 must have been an exceptional lot ,180 of the 217 pieces were within 5 gr .

That has been my experience also as to weighing rifle brass. Something I don't do as a rule, perhaps a few to start for and idea of what's what. All of this brass was FC and this may have just been an anomaly as far as consistency I don't know. But like I said I would have bet money there would have been a lot larger variance in weights than what I got. And my numbers as to percentage may be off some just going by MY memory but I can say as I was going along I was amazed at how many kept coming up at 176ish to 177.