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Old November 17, 2012, 07:37 PM   #26
sserdlihc
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Thanks for the post. Nothing embarassing about safety and the safety of others. Good Catch. Continue to learn and hone this craft of reloading.
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Old November 18, 2012, 11:18 AM   #27
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Glad you caught it as it would of done some real damage.Safty first always. THIS IS THE MAIN REASON NEVER TO RELOAD FOR FRIENDS !! We all make mistakes and there are things that we just dont see.[ bad carma ?]

I have had my share of mishaps and share them so others can heed the warning. Its, NOT IF it will happen to me, its, WHEN WILL it happen to me !!

Safe loading, Happy Thanksgiving to all,

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Old November 18, 2012, 11:23 AM   #28
Brian Pfleuger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by myg30
Safty first always. THIS IS THE MAIN REASON NEVER TO RELOAD FOR FRIENDS !!

I have had my share of mishaps and share them so others can heed the warning. Its NOT IF it will happen to me, its WHEN WILL it happen to me !!
Not true at all. Just because it happened to you doesn't mean it will happen to others.

There are many reloaders who have enjoyed the hobby for decades and loaded 10s or even 100s of thousands of rounds without a single mishap.

If you've had your "share of mishaps", you either have an unusual definition of what constitutes a mishap, or you are not following the "Safety First" creed, no matter how much you might think you are.

That statement of the variation "There are only two types of people, those who have done XYZ and those who will!" is used in all sorts of hobbies/activities, mainly to make the people who HAVE done XYZ feel better about having done it. Motorcycles are a good example. "There are only two types of riders! Those who HAVE dropped their bikes and those who WILL!"

Bull. Plenty of guys ride 100s of thousands of miles without incident.

It's no more true for reloaders than it is for motorcycles, or anything else.
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Old November 18, 2012, 01:02 PM   #29
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Brian's right. If one is having mishaps with his reloading then there's some serious holes in your procedures and an effort to identify the problem area should be made and corrective action taken to be sure it doesn't happen again.

If you've ever loaded a good batch of ammo, then you should be able to do it every time. What was different when the batch with the mishaps occurred? One should have no distractions, no drinking, no drugs, no television, nothing that could interfere with your thought process. The ABC's of Reloading do not allow for skipping B.
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Old November 20, 2012, 09:19 AM   #30
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A quick and easy way to test for a squib stuck in the barrel without making a range safety officer upset is to drop something (.22 shell) through the barrel while pointing downrange and tilting the barrel downward.
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Old November 20, 2012, 03:41 PM   #31
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That's a good idea. I thought about that situation myself . I always have a pencil in my gun box . I use it to field strip my Sr9 c . I can simply leave the gun on the table pointing down range and slide it down the barrel. I hardly ever see range officer where I shoot . So it shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully I won't need to check at all if I can help it.
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Old November 20, 2012, 07:53 PM   #32
jerryv
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this is what can happen if you dont pay close attention to every round you load and the sound and feel of every shot.
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Old November 21, 2012, 02:21 AM   #33
Edward429451
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A quick and easy way to test for a squib stuck in the barrel without making a range safety officer upset is to drop something (.22 shell) through the barrel
Too short. Try a bic pen, old style, no clicking.
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Old November 21, 2012, 11:53 AM   #34
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when I was going from single stage to progressive someone here recommended that I buy a powder cop die. Simple and inexpensive but it works. I think mine cost me around 25 bucks, much cheaper than reconstructive surgery
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Old November 29, 2012, 04:59 AM   #35
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Squib Rounds

I had a cast bullet stuck in the barrel of my Redhawk .44 Mag, which I caught, and pounded out. Had a squib stuck in the barrel of my Glock 17, which I missed, and fired out... Didn't even know about it right away, except that the bulged barrel kept the slide from cycling properly. Now I try to be more careful.
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Old November 29, 2012, 06:16 AM   #36
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Good catch! A good reminder for us all to pay attention. Quality control never stops, it just starts over when we pick up our empty brass

Edward--Sometimes a lot can be said with few words. I think you nailed it right here.

I use a single stage press and have never seen a reason to go other ways. All cases are put in plastic case holder and before i start seating bullets , I look from above down and filled cases to make sure powder levels look even on all cases.
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Old November 29, 2012, 08:28 AM   #37
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I've had a squib with revolver shooting but never with a semi-auto. Question. Would a squib actually make the pistol cycle to where you could even shoot another round? Just wondering.
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Old November 29, 2012, 12:16 PM   #38
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I am so paranoid I only let myself and immediate family shoot my reloads and only when I am standing right beside them when they shoot. Only had 1 squib in 4 years of reloading but it can happen to the anyone.

Side note is that factory ammo can also cause squibs. I have been shooting off and on over 50 years now and witnessed it happen for the first time last weekend with a factory 9mm during a competition.
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Old November 30, 2012, 08:36 AM   #39
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Would a squib actually make the pistol cycle to where you could even shoot another round? Just wondering.
Good question, you would certainly think there would be cycling problems. Both of my squibs were with semis - one in my Ruger Mark II, the other in my Colt .25ACP (and both factory ammo). Come to think of it I don't really remember, but it's possible that I had a feed error on each. On the .22 the bullet barely got into the barrel so the next round wouldn't even go far enough in to chamber (luckily).
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Old November 30, 2012, 09:04 AM   #40
Dan Newberry
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This is good advice for reloaders and factory ammo shooters also.

I've seen one 44 Magnum round from one of the major reloaders who market reloaded ammo in this area fail to put the bullet through the barrel. It was lodged in the forcing cone of the Ruger Vaquero...

My friend who was shooting cocked the hammer immediately after the squib, and I was able to yell and get him stopped.

Then...

A Hornady Critical Defense .380 pistol load... no powder, but the bullet went all the way through the barrel and bounced off the target 7 yards away. No kidding, factory Hornady.

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Old November 30, 2012, 07:20 PM   #41
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Excellent points Dan. Sadly for me I live in a state where it makes more sense for me to use factory ammo for HD/CCW (this is debatable, but not in this thread) so I have to trust that the factory ammo I carry will actually go bang.

I generally carry 2-3 different brands/types of ammo in my HD/SD guns (all tested for consistent POI) to help mitigate the risk but I would certainly prefer to trust my life to my own ammo if I felt it was worth the legal fallout.
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Old November 30, 2012, 10:04 PM   #42
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Sadly for me I live in a state where it makes more sense for me to use factory ammo for HD/CCW

I would certainly prefer to trust my life to my own ammo if I felt it was worth the legal fallout.

Both these statements are true no matter what State you live in. He who loads his own and ends up shooting some one dead with it,,Well they might find out just how bad of a idea it was to do it. Prosecutor will bury their butt in deep sh-- Load your own to practice,but use store ammo for SD all the time.
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Old December 2, 2012, 03:32 AM   #43
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Quote:
Would a squib actually make the pistol cycle to where you could even shoot another round? Just wondering.
I too had a friend warn me about squibs, and was a little concerned after hearing the horror stories.

Last month, at a match, I witnessed one. It didn't cycle the gun, but there was a lot of experienced talent there and no one realized that it happened. Luckily the bullet was still near the camber, so it won't load another round even though he tried

I hope Brian is right, and that my next experience with squibs is reading about them.
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Old December 2, 2012, 09:55 PM   #44
polyphemus
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"I came accross one that seemed really weak. It made more of a poof and had little or no recoil. If I were really new to this and was not pre warned I may have continued shooting.."
This is intriguing,if the round released "little or no recoil"then it surely was not ejected and the cycle would have stopped right there,"continued shooting" under normal circumstances then would not have been possible. Only negligence
could at that point attempt to fire the pistol again.
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Old December 3, 2012, 12:55 AM   #45
brigond
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Yes , we can call it negligence or we can call it a number or different things. The point of this thread is to make folks aware because it does happen. If this thread can make someone pay more attention or stop and take a different (safer) coarse of action when something doesn't feel right than it was worth posting it.
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Old December 3, 2012, 07:06 AM   #46
rebs
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I load all my powder with a RCBS powder dump and place them in a loading block when the block is full I take a flash light and check each case for powder.
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Old December 3, 2012, 10:20 PM   #47
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When I load on my progressive I always use the RCBS Lock-Out Die and it WILL lock-up your press if something is funny with the charge. For single-stage I usually put empty cases in one block, charge them, and set the charged cases in a second block.

This works well for me.
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