Worst reloading horror story.

[Kirk James]

My worst reloading accident occurred in a series of mistakes.  First of all I was going to load 500 44 magnum rounds of ammo and left two similar cans of two different powders on the loading table.  I was only checking the weight of my powder throw after every 75 to 100 rounds.  Around the 400^th round I noticed two different powders in my pan while checking the weight.  It was around 3 am in the morning and I was exhausted.  I wasn’t sure which boxes of ammo had the mix of two different powders.  I went to a friend’s loading shop, and he sold me an inertia hammer bullet puller.  After approximately 150 rounds there was an explosion in my hand.  Only the handle and an inch of the stem of the thrower was left and there was damage to his walls.  We could not find any evidence to the rest of the bullet puller.  He sold me another bullet puller and I continued on, with one heck of a flinch.  About an hour later my buddy comes in the room with the end of the bullet puller which he found.  It had gone through a door opposite me and bounced around his inventory.  The end where the bullet and powder comes out was blown off with part of a fired case still present.  Locked in the collet of the puller was a second round with the bullet seated much further  in the case.  Evidently, I had placed a round inside without locking it into the collet, and one on top of it locked into the collet. The inertia of the bullet locked into the collet must have hit the primer of the contained round in the front chamber and built enough pressure to explode.  I know you are all counting the no. of procedural's I have.   Add, I was not wearing safety glasses.  This is the first time a miss was on my side as I was not injured.  Do you have a story you would like to share?

[Cheyenne Culpepper 32827]

had a 22 round go off inside a 44-40 case as I was depriming the 44-40...

[Ocoee Red #31751]

1 hour ago, Kirk James said:

My worst reloading accident occurred in a series of mistakes.  First of all I was going to load 500 44 magnum rounds of ammo and left two similar cans of two different powders on the loading table.  I was only checking the weight of my powder throw after every 75 to 100 rounds.  Around the 400^th round I noticed two different powders in my pan while checking the weight.  It was around 3 am in the morning and I was exhausted.  I wasn’t sure which boxes of ammo had the mix of two different powders.  I went to a friend’s loading shop, and he sold me an inertia hammer bullet puller.  After approximately 150 rounds there was an explosion in my hand.  Only the handle and an inch of the stem of the thrower was left and there was damage to his walls.  We could not find any evidence to the rest of the bullet puller.  He sold me another bullet puller and I continued on, with one heck of a flinch.  About an hour later my buddy comes in the room with the end of the bullet puller which he found.  It had gone through a door opposite me and bounced around his inventory.  The end where the bullet and powder comes out was blown off with part of a fired case still present.  Locked in the collet of the puller was a second round with the bullet seated much further  in the case.  Evidently, I had placed a round inside without locking it into the collet, and one on top of it locked into the collet. The inertia of the bullet locked into the collet must have hit the primer of the contained round in the front chamber and built enough pressure to explode.  I know you are all counting the no. of procedural's I have.   Add, I was not wearing safety glasses.  This is the first time a miss was on my side as I was not injured.  Do you have a story you would like to share?

 

No story but you are one lucky young man!

[Yusta B.]

When I used to collect lead from a range, I acquired a bucket of already scrounged lead. Next day I was melting it into ingots when I added a ladle of recovered bullets to the melt pot. About 2 minutes later there was an explosion in the pot. Later I found an empty .22 case with no firing pin mark in the dross. I was wearing glasses & only got some minor burns from the flying molten lead. Scary indeed !

[Nasty Newt # 7365]

I'm into bolt action battle rifles, but the milsurp ammo you can get for them is too stout for me to enjoy shooting it.  I normally just load mild cast bullet loads for all of them, but I had a bunch of surplus 8mm Mauser I wanted to get rid of.  I knocked them apart and put them back together with about half the powder removed, which makes a nice soft-kicking plinking round.  At some point a bunch of family and friends went shooting.  My k98k was one of many guns we shot that day, and the only ammo I took out for it was those reduced load plinkers.

 

Of course those milsurp primers were corrosive, so I cleaned the Mauser not too long after returning home, or tried to, because the cleaning rod wouldn't go through the barrel.  I shined a light in there and saw a bullet stuck in the barrel.  And yes, it was far enough in that another round would chamber normally.  My knees got a little weak as I realized I had put one back together with no powder, and somebody had fired it.

 

Some of that plinker ammo made it back to the house, so someone could have easily loaded up and fired again, which would have been a disaster.  Grace of God, shithouse luck, whatever you want to call it, I had it that day.  I stared at the bedroom ceiling a long time that night.

 

[Chuckaroo #13080 Regulator]

Personally, I hate to reload. I do it so I can afford to shoot as much as I do.  So, when I reload it is a marathon that lasts for several days of rain or snow and there is nothing else to do.

 

I was loading shotgun shells and had finished about 600 or so when I noticed that my powder bottle was empty and I did not know for how long.  So I weighed a known good shell and began checking all 600. I had some I was positive they were OK, I had some that were definitely not OK and I had about 75 that were questionable. Taking apart a shotshell, in a manner that does not destroy the hull, is time consuming and at times messy.  

 

All told, none of the questionable ones were missing powder, but it was several hours down the drain along with a few expletive deleted's.  

 

 

[Ace_of_Hearts]

19 minutes ago, Chuckaroo #13080 Regulator said:

Personally, I hate to reload. I do it so I can afford to shoot as much as I do.  So, when I reload it is a marathon that lasts for several days of rain or snow and there is nothing else to do.

 

I was loading shotgun shells and had finished about 600 or so when I noticed that my powder bottle was empty and I did not know for how long.  So I weighed a known good shell and began checking all 600. I had some I was positive they were OK, I had some that were definitely not OK and I had about 75 that were questionable. Taking apart a shotshell, in a manner that does not destroy the hull, is time consuming and at times messy.  

 

All told, none of the questionable ones were missing powder, but it was several hours down the drain along with a few expletive deleted's.  

 

 

With Shotgun shells...... To check for powder...

Cut a slot about 1 1/2" long and a 1/2" wide in a piece of cardboard.....

Sit in a dark place and shine a bright light through the slot.

Place the shotgun shell in front of the slot....

If there is powder in it the light will be blocked by the powder. A case with no powder will be obvious.

 

 

[John Boy]

 

45-70 reload chambering into a '85 HiWall.  Round would not fully chamber.  So, tapped the case rim with a brass punch & hammer.  Punch slipped off rim and hit primer ... hammer landed about 35 feet over my shoulder.

 

Stupidity on my part - now have a cartridge seater for the HiWall.

If I had looked, the box of reloads with the accident were COL for my Sharps & the HiWall box of rounds was sitting behind  the Sharps box . BOTH ammo boxes were clearly marked specific to which rifle

End of story:  spent the night in the hospital after surgery - finger is bent & broken at 1st knuckle and about 85% feeling from the 1st knuckle to the tip and have black powder tattoos on the finger and hand

 

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

JB-Just glad none of that 'frag' hit your eyes.

OLG

[Widder, SASS #59054]

Since the mid 70's  (40+ years) when I reloaded, I had allowed the finished bullet to fall into a basket with a towel used for a cushion.  The loaded piece fell about 2 1/2  feet.

 

While loading some Cowboy 45 Special rounds, a round fell down into the basket and its primer PERFECTLY hit the rim of another round lying there.   The round went off going slightly angled upwards into my ceiling.

YES, the bullet only actually shot straight up into the ceiling and left the empty case in the basket.   The primer had a perfect mark in it showing an exact curvature of the C45S rim.

The bullet went thru the ceiling and bedded itself in the insulation in the attic.

 

That bullet missed my head about 1 foot going upwards.

 

My reloaded rounds now drop about 3-4".

 

..........Widder

 

[Three Foot Johnson]

Split a .38-40 revolver cylinder last year - probable double charge.

[Lead Friend, SASS #53635]

At work we have a weekly sales meeting where the habit has been forever for everyone to talk about their "win for the week." For years I've been saying that what we should really talk about is the one thing that went horribly wrong during the week because that's where the true lessons are.

 

This is a really great thread. Thanks to all for sharing your experiences.

[Jefro, SASS#69420]

Once I ran out of real BP.........once

[John Henry Quick]

1 hour ago, Jefro, SASS#69420 said:

Once I ran out of real BP.........once

 

Now THAT is truly a horror story! 

 

[dal sackett]

No damage fortunately, but many, many laughs.  Last year at a "mild bunch" match, my wife shot her '97 perfectly, picked up her '73 (45 colt) and fired a really soft mouse squeak.  No squib (she hit the target) but a REALL soft poof.  Subsequent rounds were equally weak.  Those rounds threw her timing and concentration way off (and my candidacy for Husband-of-the-year)!  The culprit?  I normally load BP and when I changed to smokeless, needed to look up my formula.  Page flipped and I used 38 recipe rather than the 45 on the next page.  Fortunately, only damage was to my ego. 

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

12 hours ago, Lead Friend, SASS #53635 said:

At work we have a weekly sales meeting where the habit has been forever for everyone to talk about their "win for the week." For years I've been saying that what we should really talk about is the one thing that went horribly wrong during the week because that's where the true lessons are.

 

This is a really great thread. Thanks to all for sharing your experiences.

 

That is where the real learning takes place. 

The other is just bragging.

[Pat Riot]

21 hours ago, Kirk James said:

My worst reloading accident occurred in a series of mistakes.

You are certainly very lucky as is your friend. Glad no one was hurt.

 

I have been lucky and not had any incidents like that or like John Boy's. But I have made the mistake of loading while very tired and found that somehow my Lee powder measure had been dumping larger and larger loads as I went. I had loaded about 250 rounds, all paced in ammo boxes as I went. I load single on a stage so I pulled bullet samples from the loaded boxes and found that this had started occurring in the last 50 rounds that I had loaded and in the 50 cartridge cases that I had just charged with powder so I only ended up pulling 50 bullets but it taught me a lesson for sure.

 

EDIT:

I forgot to mention that I got on this kick of using Lee Loaders for small batches of cartridges. These old timey like hand loading sets where every step is done by hand with a small hammer and the various little dies, powder scoops and a primer punch. I had loaded some .38 Spl and some 9mm iike this and one day I was bored so I got my .45 Colt Lee Loader kit out (I got a few of these sets for Christmas one year). I was going along and found that loading .45 Colt took lots of lubricant to size the case and for some stupid reason I primed the cases before sizing them.

Anyway, I was having a bit of trouble with this one case, it was case number 8. I remember this because that was the last case I tried loading and it is still stuck in the die. I did complete 7 rounds and they fired just fine at a later time. I apparently didn't use enough lube and the case was sticking so I gave it a good "WHACK" with my little 8 ounce ball peen hammer against a flat wooden block and "BLAM"! The doggone primer went off. Scared the bejesus out of me. My wife came running in to check on me. My face stung a little from being hit by debris (yes, I had glasses on). The only thing I cab figure was there must have been some cleaning media in the shell that I didn't see or something else that set off the primer. The wooden block was flat. Or maybe it was just to much impact with the hammer that set it off but something splattered me in the face after ricocheting off the back wall and upper shelf of my work bench.

 

I put the Lee Loaders away. The .45 Colt set has a shell stuck in it...It'll probably stay that way.

 

 

[Turquoise Bill, SASS #39118]

Kirk,

 

The next time you have any quantity of ammo to disassemble I would suggest you invest in a Hornady Cam Lock pullet puller. I never liked the hammer type devices for ammo disassembly.

 

This one works great with the right size collets, it's easy to use and a lot quicker and safer than the one you blew up!

 

https://www.hornady.com/reloading/presses/lock-n-load-accessories/bullet-pullers-bullet-collets#!/

 

TB

[John Boy]

Bill, I never had any success with the Hornaday Cam Lock trying to pull 44LC's - unless I used it wrong all the puller did -  it just mangled the bullets and if they were hard crimp - never removed the bullet.  I've got the kinetic puller steps down pat and find it easy and fast to even remove bullets that are had crimped

[Gold Canyon Kid #43974]

My son loaded 2 cases of shotgun ammo, that he used some powder that turned out to be bad.  Rounds varied from primer only, to weak powder iginition, to full powder ignition.  He decided to shoot all 2 cases (20 boxes) at mostly monthly matches the last 2 years.  What a hoot watching him shoot his shotgun.  It was interesting to see his wads still mostly full of shot with a primer only ignition, hit and about 50 to 75 % of the time take down the fallers if he hit them.  Wads going so slow you coukd see them all the way to the targets.  His shot load duplicated Win Featherlights.  He did verify the powder was bad and big jug of it he bought cheap was the culprit. 

[Silver Sam, SASS #34718L]

Several years ago my first press was a Dillon 550B and I had just spent the weekend assembling & mounting it to my new workbench in the garage.

 

Coming home from work on monday as I was pulling into the garage,

a Spider came out of nowhere and dangled right in front of my eyes for just a second.

Then it dropped straight down between my legs... I Dont Like Spiders, especially down There !!!!!!

Unfortunately, When I reacted, my foot slipped off the Brake & Hit the Gas.... Hard !!!!!

 

Well, My Brand New Dillon and my new work bench both when through the garage wall

and wedged into the side of the Wifey's clothes dryer in the laundry room.

It was Not a Pretty sight!!!!!!

 

I did find out that Dillon really does have one heck of a Great Warranty.... Whirlpool not so much !!!!

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

Now we know why SASS does not allow loading data in posts. 

[Turquoise Bill, SASS #39118]

3 hours ago, John Boy said:

Bill, I never had any success with the Hornaday Cam Lock trying to pull 44LC's - unless I used it wrong all the puller did -  it just mangled the bullets and if they were hard crimp - never removed the bullet.  I've got the kinetic puller steps down pat and find it easy and fast to even remove bullets that are had crimped

I have had great luck with it, you have to use the right sized collets, I've unloaded .44-40, 45 Colt, .357, .38 special, .40-65, 45 ACP, guess I never unloaded jacketed stuff, Oh yea, that's because I don't load jacked bullet very often.

 

TB

[Chuckaroo #13080 Regulator]

22 hours ago, Ace_of_Hearts said:

With Shotgun shells...... To check for powder...

Cut a slot about 1 1/2" long and a 1/2" wide in a piece of cardboard.....

Sit in a dark place and shine a bright light through the slot.

Place the shotgun shell in front of the slot....

If there is powder in it the light will be blocked by the powder. A case with no powder will be obvious.

 

 

Ace,

Thanks, next time I fall asleep while I'm reloading shotshells I'll give it a try!

 

Roo

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

I have a real simple rule.  When in doubt, chuck it out.

[Rye Miles #13621]

I double charged a .45 Colt in a COLT!!! The barrel bulged, it didn't crack or split it just bulged the chamber of the cylinder enough that it wouldn't turn! 

I was using 5.5 grs of Clays so it must have been 11.00 grs????? YIKES!!

[Sedalia Dave]

When I was about 11 or 12, My uncle reloaded ammo for dad to hunt with but he was sick and couldn't reload any rounds for Dad to use deer hunting. A guy that coyote hunted with us occasionally said he would load a couple of boxes for dad if he provided the components. Dad reminded him that he shot a semi auto 243 and the guy replied no problem.

 

Dad picked then up and on the way home he saw a couple of coyotes chasing mice in a field. We stopped behind a small rise out of sight and dad proceeded to load the magazine with the newly acquired bullets and closed the bolt. Stepped out of the truck and went up the hill. Pulled the trigger and nothing happened. Closer inspection showed the bolt wasn't fully closed. We tried for over 15 minuted to either get the bolt to open or close with no luck. Finally removed the trigger group and set the butt of the rifle on the ground leaning against a tree. I steadied the rifle and dad stood on the operating handle with the heel of his boot. No joy so he bounced slightly and the bolt finally opened. Close inspection of the round showed that the shoulder area was wrinkled. Inspection of the other rounds showed that they all were deformed. 

On the way home we had to cross a creek. Dad stopped in the middle of the bridge and threw both boxes of ammo into the creek.

 

Next week my Uncle was feeling better and Dad had me there every evening after school learning the fine art of reloading. Been loading ever since.

 

 

[Keystone, SASS # 47578]

Well,

 

I followed the link to the cam lock bullet puller and read the description. I noticed the specified use is for "rifle cartridges only".

 

"The fastest, easiest way to pull bullets with your press. Just clamp on the bullet, pull down on the handle and the bullet is removed. Intended for rifle cartridges only. Uses standard collets (sold separately, see chart below)."

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

Yeah, many pistol bullets don't have much of a flat (cylindrical) spot sticking out of case for a collet to grab.   Collets won't pull a round nose or a truncated cone very easily, unless there's teeth filed into the collet arms.

 

Use a hammer type.  Never had a round go off in one.  Just need a solid spot to strike (I use a bench mounted anvil, that is well away from loading benches).  clean up the powder that will fly around, especially the fine ball powders like 231, WST, Competition, etc.

 

Good luck, GJ

[Turquoise Bill, SASS #39118]

.44-40, .40-65, .45-70, all rifle calibers, never had a problem pulling lead bullets with the right size collet.

I pull truncated cone bullets and RNFP bullets all the time.

 

TB

[Sedalia Dave]

Tip for inertia pullers is to throw that universal collet in the trash and use the shell holder from your press, Much faster and more secure than that three piece rubber band contraption.

[Painted Mohawk SASS 77785]

A few years back I was practising with dummy shotgun shells, decided to load some 12 guage while I was at it.

Short story is  I eventually  by mistake grabbed a live one off the bench  ..proceeded to load & blew my fishing rods in half that were stacked in the corner of the shed !!!!

Oh well must not fish often as I still haven't replaced them ! 

[Cheyenne Culpepper 32827]

I once had the bright idea of using awesome in my media,,,, loaded 500 rounds,,,, it killed the powder in about 10% of them,, ended up tearing them all apart.. ugh!!

 

[Hollifer A. Dollar]

This was 25 years ago, not long after I started reloading.  I loaded some 30-06 on the Dillon 550.  Was out shooting them in my BAR.  BOOM - BOOM - CLICK...pulled back on the bolt & an empty case came out but the next round wouldn't chamber all the way.  Dumba$$ me, I said WTH, pulled the bolt back, tried another round, it wouldn't chamber either so I looked at the round.  The lead tip of the bullet was squashed.  That was when I realized the empty case that didn't go BOOM was a squib.  Seems that, when checking the powder charge weight, I pulled the case out at the bullet seating station, dumped the powder into the scale, then forgot to put the powder back in the case before seating a bullet.  DOH.  I still cringe thinking about what would have happened if that next round had chambered completely.  After that, I load all "big" rifle rounds 1 at a time & look at every small case in the Dillon to be sure it has powder.

 

Another time, I was loading 45 Colt on the 550.  The powder slide didn't have the positive return (bought the press in 89, they sent me the upgrade kit but I never installed it) & after a loading about 200 rounds, I noticed the powder slide stuck halfway in the measure.  The spring hadn't returned it to zero.  Took it apart, cleaned everything, started again & about 30 rounds in, it stuck again.  Crap.  Didn't really think about it til I went to practice with that ammo & had a squib...then another...then another.  You get the picture.  I pulled all the bullets on the rest of that batch of ammo & found about 9 more without powder.  Next day I installed the return lever on the powder measure.  DOH.

 

The worst dumba$$ move of all...I had some shotgun shells that the crimps got crushed & weren't shootable.  I recovered the shot & powder from all of them, then thought "hey, they have good primers" so I decided to try pushing the primers out.  The dumba$$ part came when I picked up the spring-loaded center punch to punch them out.  3rd one went POW.  DOH.

[Eyesa Horg]

1 hour ago, Cheyenne Culpepper 32827 said:

I once had the bright idea of using awesome in my media,,,, loaded 500 rounds,,,, it killed the powder in about 10% of them,, ended up tearing them all apart.. ugh!!

 

What is awesome that you can add to media?