Stupidest thing you've done reloading

Well, the stupidest thing I ever did reloading happened a week ago. This past summer I built a sweet little lightweight 284 Win on a stainless Savage 110 ultralight receiver and a 23" carbon fiber wrapped barrel from X-Caliber Barrels. Needless to say, very enthusiastic to use it this fall.

First load combo was 140gn Sierra Gamekings and Varget. I must have lucked into the last box of SGK's on the planet, but I digress. Turned out the rifle really likes that combo and I spent several weeks testing different things, tweaking this and that, seating depth, etc, and after 70 of the 100 bullets were down range, I had a great little load zipping out there at 2910fps and consistently grouping about .6 MOA. So... Time to load some hunting ammo.

I meticulously prepped 30 casings, double checked every charge weight, and loaded my last 30 SGK's with 46.7gns of Varget. The problem is, when I was wrapping up the last of my notes on this load, I apparently had a dyslexic moment and transposed the 6 and the 7. The actual load I had been working on was almost a full grain higher - 47.6. I didn't realize what I had done until it was all finished. I cannot even begin to express how mad I was at myself. I stewed for hours, just avoided family for a while because I was afraid that if I opened my mouth nothing but obscenities would come out.

I was inclined to take out my frustrations with an impact bullet puller, but decided to sleep on it first. So the next morning Id calmed down a little and decided to just go to the range and see how they shoot, on the off chance they'd be OK. I guess the minimally silver lining is they did shoot OK. I shot several 3 shot groups letting the barrel cool in between. They all measured slightly less than an inch. I shot another group at 200yds and that one was about .7", so I'm going to go ahead and use them. I've certainly used factory ammo that was worse and had success, but man, still pretty upset at myself about it. Fortunately, as said, the gun really seems to like the bullet. They'll work, but that's so irritating.
 
Loading and priming and then dropping the case and spilling gun powder all over my already loaded rounds, I had to dump out all 20 rounds and remeasure them.
I've also forgotten to mark my ammo and didn't know how much each one was loaded to. I did this once with 40 rounds and had to just fire them all off. Imagine how your shoulder feels after 40 rounds with a 45/70 🤦‍♀️😂
 
I was doing load development for a 270 win and a 30-06. I just got done loading imr 4350 and was loading up some H4831sc. When I went to dump the powder I emptied about 1 cup of the h4831sc into the 8lb jug of imr 4350. For the last hour I've been picking H4831out of imr4350.
And I think I've picked out enough for half a 270 case.
Pita!!
Honestly it wouldn’t be the best/safest idea but I would probably have just shot the mixture running a minimum charge rate for which ever powder made up the bulk of the mix especially since their charge weights overlap for a 130 gr pill.
 
I’m curious how his efforts to screen worked out?

Or did you just make lawn fertilizer out of it.
It works . About 70% of the imr 4350 falls thru and 5% gets stuck in the screen but none of the H4831sc goes thru. I scooped out most of the H4831sc and had about 1/2 lb I screened out and left the rest alone. Mabey a few grains of mixed in 7 lbs. Don't seem to hurt my loads any but I'm not running at max either.
 
I primed 50 7mm-08 cases and loaded 20 of them before deciding that I didn't like loading for it and selling the rifle. Pulled the bullets because e-tips are pricey right now.
 
I wish I had a pound of H1000 for every time I dumped powder into my chargemaster without checking to be sure the dump spout was closed.

I have considered making a sticker for my top lid, “ close the drain spout” haven’t decided which adjective I need to add as a reminder. Stupid, moron, dumb ask.
 
Loaded this last year.
Shot it a few weeks ago. 3 times no boom. Tore it down today.

You can see the soot where the bullet protruded into the case.
 

Attachments

  • 20221115_144034.jpg
    20221115_144034.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 25
I'll have to add a new one to my list: I regularly load 27.4 grains of powder in my .223 but a couple of weeks ago I loaded 250 shells with 24.7 grains of powder.

A few days later at the range, those loads easily hit the 200 yard gong, but I couldn't hid the 300 yd steel, and my only hit at 420 yards was with over a foot of hold-over.

When I load shells, I write the load data on the box of shells. I must have transported the 7 and 4 numbers on one box that I had previously loaded some time ago, and set my powder measurer to that lower number at this loading session. Luckily, I transported the numbers down instead of up.

My RCBS collet bullet puller worked great to quickly pull those 240 unfired low powder shells.
 
I have considered making a sticker for my top lid, “ close the drain spout” haven’t decided which adjective I need to add as a reminder. Stupid, moron, dumb ask.
I could use one of those stickers! I have done that several times. I about dumped powder in my Chargemaster yesterday without check it out first. Looked down just in a nick of time. I hate watching the powder run out when i forget to close the drain on it.
 
I’ve got a case stuck in a FL bushing die, double loaded a case spilling powder all over the bench when I pulled the funnel off the case and forgot to prime some cases and then charged them. Mistakes happen but I’ve loaded thousands of rounds without a hiccup also.
 
I was doing load development for a 270 win and a 30-06. I just got done loading imr 4350 and was loading up some H4831sc. When I went to dump the powder I emptied about 1 cup of the h4831sc into the 8lb jug of imr 4350. For the last hour I've been picking H4831out of imr4350.
And I think I've picked out enough for half a 270 case.
Pita!!
I just loaded some 223 and wondered why each case bulged when i seated the bullet. Then i rememberd i use my universal depiming die to deprime the cases. HMMMMMM
 
Back
Top