Reloading - A reminder to pay attention

[cajuntec]

I normally reload by myself, with my door closed and attention completely focused. Today, as I was about 3/4 of the way through loading powder into cases, two friends stopped by. As they were interested in reloading, I brought them into the reloading room, and showed them where I was at - dropping powder, measuring it on my balance beam scale, and trickling it in carefully. After loading powder into that case and moving it to the loaded powder block, I decided to switch gears since they were there (I know I shouldn't have, but that's hindsight). I decided to seat bullets on the loaded cases I had, figuring it would be less time consuming and easier to monitor while talking (Note - Yeah... I know better. I f'd up.) About halfway through loading bullets into the "full" cases, I realized the one I had in my hands that was about to go into the press was empty. What? Quickly looked over at the "unloaded" block - Yep. It only had a few left. I was loading bullets into empty cases.

Bad part - I f'd up and wasn't paying attention to reloading.
Good part - I caught it before a problem at the range or out hunting occurred.

My punishment - Pull every single bullet I had just seated and start over again. I think I got off light.

OK, enough beating myself up. I learned from my mistake - Luckily I got out easy and only had to pull bullets and start over. It could have been worse.

So a reminder - Pay attention when you are reloading.

All the best,
Glenn

[BigTex.308]

Glad you caught it!


Ike

[trooperjd]

Thanks for the reminder and nice catch.

[Tuffbroadhead]

All smiles here brother...been there and done that many years ago..

[GarGuy]

Great point. Remaining focused is key to not making and catching mistakes. A few years ago my dad was loading 140gr 280s on a max powder charge. He loaded one that was really hard to seat. A few bullets later, another that was really hard to seat. Time to figure it out. A review of the bullets left in the brand new box revealed one that was noticeably longer than the others. It was a 168gr bullet. He pulled all the rest and found the two that were hard to seat. Both were 168gr bullets seated to the correct over all length even though they were longer. They were loaded on a powder charge worked up for the 140s.

Not only would the extra weight created much more pressure, the seriously compressed powder charge could have been catastrophic!

[bluelund79]

Good catch and a great reminder

[trophy8]

Glad you caught it.

I resize and prime everything then charge and load each one, one at a time. It's faster since I'm using a charge master but I don't have to worry about spilling powder if I know over cases or seat a bullet in an empty one. My OCD kicks in big time while reloading lol

[PSD Ryan]

I reloaded distracted once too. I had a good batch and somehow missed charging one round. I fired it. Better a squib than an overcharge though. Bullet got stuck in the bore, had to disassemble and push it out.

[oneforthewall]

Nice catch! Wish I could say I had never got lost in the process.

[Bowhunter87]

When I was a kid I loaded probably 100 12 gauge shells backwards, I was putting the shot in before the powder, my uncle looked pretty silly when he tried to shoot them at a skeet tournament.