Reloading... Pay Attention!

[Ranch Dog]

Decided to take a stroll in the pasture yesterday late afternoon with the R762. The weather was so nice, I thought I would just patrol a couple of senderos to see if any hogs were out. I'd been walking about 10 minutes and stopped. Durn if a big old boar hog stepped out about 50-yards from me. I shot him. After I got him things settled, I walked another 100 yards up the sendero and another large boar hog stepped out in front of me.

I settled in for the shot and just heard the hammer click. This is the Single Shot that I thought I had cured of the light primer strikes. To say I was upset would have been an understatement! I thought about planting the rifle muzzle first in the sand and leaving it! At the hammer drop the big hog looked at me, he was about 80 yards down the two track but went back to eating. I pulled another cartridge out of the "wallet" but I never had another good shot.

no_powder.jpg

This afternoon, I pulled the cartridge with the intent of knocking out the primer and reloading it. I have to say that I was surprised when I found no powder in the case!

The good news is that I didn't stick that barrel in the sand! The primer ignited.

Don't know how I missed the charging step on this cartridge but there is a couple hazards here that I will bear in mind. The most obvious is that the bullet could have been lodged in the barrel and another cartridge loaded on top of it. I'm really surprised that the bullet did not unseat from the case but I do have the ogive resting on the groove and apply a tight factory crimp. With all the reloading I do, I've never have had this happen.

[Steve]

Did that before, glad to say a long time ago when I was using a Lee Loader and a plastic mallet to put em together. Mine was 30-06 happened a couple times. I didn't crimp mine so the primer launched the bullet and lodged it just starting into the rifling.

I can imagine that was pretty irritating missing out on the second hog because of that.

[Ranch Dog]

I can imagine that was pretty irritating missing out on the second hog because of that.

I'll catch back up with him!

[Fyodor]

When I asked a friend of mine to make Ammo for a match, he gave me five boxes when I only needed four. I was very lucky, because in the spare box (!) not a single round had powder in it. He loads on a LoadMaster with a pro autodisk measure and usually doesn't have problems with powder.

Now he put a light on his press and visually checks for powder every couple of rounds.

It is rare, but even when careful things like this happen.

When you use a strong crimp, the primer won't start the bullet, and at least it's not dangerous. But it still can ruin an otherwise fine match.

[Steve]

When I asked a friend of mine to make Ammo for a match, he gave me five boxes when I only needed four. I was very lucky, because in the spare box (!) not a single round had powder in it. He loads on a LoadMaster with a pro autodisk measure and usually doesn't have problems with powder.

Now he put a light on his press and visually checks for powder every couple of rounds.

It is rare, but even when careful things like this happen.

When you use a strong crimp, the primer won't start the bullet, and at least it's not dangerous. But it still can ruin an otherwise fine match.

It would be interesting to know what happened to cause your friend to miss so many rounds. Once I was talking with a friend while loading 223 rounds on the Loadmaster and I ran out of powder, didn't noticed, and loaded a handful without powder. Was able to run those rounds over the scale to find the empties.

To avoid the possibility of no powder on my pistol rounds I use a bulky powder that gives good fill on the case. This makes it easy to see the powder on each round when placing the bullet on the case.

To make sure I check each one I adjusted the stool legs to be the correct height for me to see in the cases, and positioned a light to show in the case. Works great for pistol.

For 223 I keep a close eye on the powder hopper and periodically check the powder charge.

When I used the turret press to load everything before getting a loadmaster, I had trouble with the spring return on the powder measure. What happened was powder jammed between the disk and other surfaces which lodged the disk in the forward position. This didn't allow it to reset to fill with powder. So missed cases.
The loadmasters return chain should prevent that from happening.

[daboone]

As an aside note I attached an small inspection mirror to one of the upper ends of a support columns on the turret angled to view inside the case. The one I found just unscrew from the handle pictured and so I just drilled and tapped the column and screw it in. Now I get a visual with every powder drop.



I'd post a picture of mine but Photobucket seems to be down at the moment.

[Steve]

Good idea daboone. With that set properly on the Loadmaster I could see into the 223 cases.

[Ranch Dog]

I too like the idea!

[akuser47]

Thats clever

[Fyodor]

In my club we all use trailboss powder. He had a powder jam in the hopper above the actual measure. Since he uses a powder "roof" in the hopper it didn't happen again.