The Confessional is Open! What's on YOUR "Shelf of Shame"?

[GeauxTide]

Selling my LH German Mk V in 7mm Weatherby and my 5" Model 27.

[beardking]

Not necessarily a reloading "shame" but this did happen when I was at the range shooting some reloads and factory ammunition. I found out that you can successfully chamber and fire a .40 S&W round into a 1911 compact .45. Luckily I found this out without causing damage to myself or the .45. I still have the exceptionally expanded .40 S&W case sitting on my reloading bench as a reminder to pay attention at all times.

[Rangefinder]

Not really much to speak of where reloading is concerned except a nicely squished 357 loaded with a SWC. One of those Homer Simpson moments where I wasn't paying attention to detail and didn't bother varifying settings before getting busy. Hadn't loaded any 357 for quite a while and forgot I still had my seater dialed down to 38's and was listening to a radio talk show that had me thoroughly distracted (blathering politicians get me pretty heated). First crank on the rockchucker and had the handle about half way down and SHOULD have felt the resistance that says "wake up dummy, something ain't right". Nope, a little extra pull before reality sinks in. Wow, what a crimp!

[Lemmon]

I pulled the trigger on my Winchester M70 243 heavy barrel rifle. Fortunately I was wearing glasses and felt the powder vapors hit my face and along with the extra loud boom. I was not hurt but could not open the bolt until I found a 2X4 and tapped the bolt open. Out comes the round "welded" to the bolt. Then I noticed that the front of the brass "neck" was no longer there. I looked up the barrel and did not notice the neck stuck in the chamber. I pried off the shell from the bolt and the primer dropped out and the primer pocket was enlarged. The base of the shell had and exact imprint of the bolt face. My gunsmith check out my rifle and declared it ok. He told me I was lucky. Not sure what had happened as it could have been a double load or light load that exploded. I weighted and pulled all the rounds that I had reloaded. Apparently that was the only one that I had a problem with. Scarred the living daylights out of me. Lemmon

[troy_mclure]

loading up some lee tc-401-175-tl i had just cast, noticed they were going in real hard, then noticed that the lube rings were being shaved off because i had forgotten to expand the case mouths.

also left the drain open on the charge master 1500 before too!

[miker84]

I'll play.


It felt a little crunchy when seating the bullet.

[Poodleshooter]

I made some pregnant .45ACP brass using Bullseye and lead reloads in a Glock 30.

[Sport45]

^^^

So that's how we get new brass. Using lead reloads in a Glock!

I always thought the stork brought it.



Before anyone starts, that was meant to be humerous and not a Glock bash.

[ipscchef]

This one was serious. Using some older but still good Powder I will not name because I do not think it was to blame, I loaded up a few rounds for an IPSC match with a powder that I did not usually use for that application. I went out of my shed to try three rounds for recoil, with my ears on but no "eyes" on.I pullled the trigger, The gun, my Kimber that I have used for 13+ years in comp. completely came apart on me, parts were all over my driveway. The next day the eye surgeon pulled 56 pieces of brass, all brass, out of my eyes in a very uncomfortable procedure. I still thank God that I can see. I put the Kimber back together and she still runs like a well oiled machine, except that the grips had to be replaced as I had to use a knife and tweezers to dig them out of my hands. About a week later,when I could see fairly well, I pulled the rest of the rounds and they all measured right on the money. My friend reloaded some in his Kimber and they ran just right, giving a 170 power factor with my lazercast bullets. I will never know how that happened, but I consider myself lucky to be able to see, and I take my handloading more seriously than I can tell you now.I still have the surgeons bill, and if I had a digital camera I would put a picture of it up.
Just my story
P.S Even though it takes a while, all of my IPSC loads were done with a single stage RCBS and hand weighed, so I do not know how this happened nor will I ever, but my only response to this incident is more caution and attention to detail.

Bill Henderson

[THEZACHARIAS]

Not really a loading error, but... was pulling the ram out of my rock chucker for a cleaning and re greasing. Loosened the screw in the bottom holding the pin in place, pulled the pin and... forgot to catch the ram as it came out of the bottom of the press. It landed square on the loosened screw with enough force to deform the threads. Had to drill and tap the ram with a larger screw before I could use the press again. The old screw now sits in a jar on the shelf as a reminder.

[HappySig]

This isn't on my shelf, but it is certainly in my memory, a guy at the range told me a "great" load for a 6.5 x 55 Swedish Mauser, well, I trusted him and I loaded up 20 rounds and went out and shot them and the first round went off much harder than it was supposed to, damn near like a 30 06, and I knew that that gun wasn't supposed to go off like that, so I came home and took them apart, and his charge was almost 3 grains over Max of what my loading manual said. Two lessons learned, never shoot anybody else's pet loads, and always, always consult the manuals.

[Ideal Tool]

I don't know if this qualifies as a "reloading" goof...but here goes. Back when I was about 12 or 13, I was always trying to make black powder. Could never get it to go like real stuff..only a semi-fast burn. Found a half-used road flare & mixed some of that in..not much better. Took one of my dads paper 12ga. shells & opened up. Mixed this with my own & got a little better burn. Using opened shell, I stuffed as much powder in as I could compress & still get all felt wads back, folded & glued crimp. Next afternoon as it was getting dark, I took shell into woods back of house & pondered how I might set it off. wedged it in woodpile & thought about shooting primer with BBgun, but didn't think I could hit so small a target without getting real close...(good thing for me I didn't try this). Finally I hit upon the brilliant idea of centering shell on muzzle of said gun, held this over top of head as far as outstretched arms could reach, kind of scrunched head down and almost closed eyes..I still wanted to see what would happen...& pulled trigger. With a thundering roar, the woods around me lit up as if it were noon! Found shell on ground..only brass head left..then I noticed the battery cup primer was missing..like a fool I looked for it on ground..then I happened to look at BB gun muzzle... that primer of about 1/4" dia. had been forced over 2 inches down that .177 bore!
Then it finally sunk into my thick skull, and I started to shake...what if for some reason, that primer had skidded off that muzzle..and my head right under it! My guardian angle must have earned his overtime that day!

[Crashbox]

I've only been reloading for about 11 months but there was one time- for some odd reason- I violated my own rule of only *one* powder at a time on the bench; I had both TiteGroup and 2400 sitting out. Fortunately nothing bad occurred but I have never violated this rule since, and I had better not!

[MW surveyor]

Only been reloading since June. I'm sure I'll have something if I keep reloading.............but I hope not!

[Edward429451]

I didn't do this one but it's worthy of notation. I bought a 5 gallon bucket of some guys reload rejects in 223 rem for 1 cent each and planned to pull them all and recover brass and bullets to use. It was a good deal it turned out to be right around 2400 rounds

During inspection of the brass I found a 223 decapping pin embedded in the brass inside, offcenter from the flash hole! This was in a loaded round. This is the weirdest thing I have seen reloading.

[Sevens]

As interesting a story as that is...
I'm left wondering just how in the bloody hell anyone that calls themselves a handloader makes 2,400 reject rounds of anything.

Is he an idiot? How good can the good ammo be if he's made 2,400 bad ones? And one of them had a piece of decapping pin inside the loaded round?

Gotta hope that when he grenades a rifle, it's only him that gets hurt.

[HeroHog]

Originally Posted by HappySig

I'm lucky I wasn't hurt
This isn't on my shelf, but it is certainly in my memory, a guy at the range told me a "great" load for a 6.5 x 55 Swedish Mauser, well, I trusted him and I loaded up 20 rounds and went out and shot them and the first round went off much harder than it was supposed to, damn near like a 30 06, and I knew that that gun wasn't supposed to go off like that, so I came home and took them apart, and his charge was almost 3 grains over Max of what my loading manual said. Two lessons learned, never shoot anybody else's pet loads, and always, always consult the manuals.

BTDT with an 8mm FN-49. Touched off a few rounds noticing they were "rather stout" and had a jam on the 3rd. Close inspection showed a primer had blown out of its pocket and jammed the action. I looked at the other two rounds and they too showed signs of primers bringing backed out/flattened! I too vowed "never again" and pulled and trashed the lot!

[CrustyFN]

OK here it goes. I load on a Lee press and use FCD's. I feel much better now.

[mapsjanhere]

Flow Chart Diagrams?

[Colorado Redneck]

Powdered up a few loads of 22 hornet that hadn't been primed. Two different times. Powder leaking from the bottom of the case.

Squib load in 38 special. My daughter in law was shooting my son's new Smith revolver when she encountered that load. Luckily the slug hung in the forcing cone and locked up the cylinder. Could have been way more than embarrassing...Really lucky!

So, now I always check the cases before powder charging and after powder charging.

[wuluf]

My very first round, i followed the directions step by step, primered by hand, powder by dipper, then seat bullet. Hadn't adjusted the seating depth, and the top of the bullet is BELOW the mouth of the case. Saving that one, i want to encase it in a Lucite cube...

[x_wrench]

i have several stories. but i will only do what turned out to be the wosrt. i was working up some low speed/pressure cast bullet loads for my 300 win mag. and part of this, i was trying to kill two birds, with one stone, so to speak. i was shooting for accuracy and using a chronograph at the same time. i know for some of you, this is no big deal. but i have to concentrate real hard to chew gum and walk at the same time (not really, but i do get distracted easily). anyway, i was using a in the end of the barrel laser bore sighter, to make sure i didnt shoot the chronograph. which i had done the week before (fortunatly, all i hit was a wire rod that held the screen). well, you probably have already guessed where this was headed. and yes, i did, touch off the gun with the bore sighter in the end of the barrel. and yes, it did ruin the barrel. it only bulged the end, so i had a local gunsmith shorten it up, mostly becasue it was only 3 weeks til deer season. anyway, that did not work. the gun would only shoot 3" groups after that. then, my nightmare began. i took it to one of the best known gunsmiths in the state, with a new take off barrel that i had bought off from gunbroker. it took 7 months to get it back, and when i shot it, it was a little stiff to open the bolt. i really didnt think much about that at first. when i went to reload the brass that i had shot, i like normal, neck sized them. i went back out after a couple of days, and that is where i found the horrible truth. i went to load a round into the gun, and the bolt stopped about a quarter of an inch ffrom closing all the way. and i could not open it. i ended up coming home, and beating the bolt open with a rubber hammer. i had to find out what was wrong, so i got out the micrometer. to my suprise, the brass was out of round, egg shaped in the back half of the case mostly. what happened was the smith had cut the barrel a little, so the open sights would end up on top. and of course, after doing that, he had to open the chamber up a little. when he did this, he cut the chamber out of round. so, back to the gunsmith it went. after another month and a half, i called to see what was going on. he said he had a used barrel laying around the shop he was going to put on it. that did not set well with me at all. i ended up buying another new take off barrel from gunbroker. i called after another 2 weeks, to let him know, and at that point, he said the used barrel he was going to put on it was no good, and he was going to have to order a new barrel from remington. i told him that i bought another new take off barrel, he was quite happy. and he said he would reimburse me for the 2nd barrel, which he did. anyway, after all of this, i eneded up with a barrel that is on the gun. the job was not what i would call a good professional job, but it is on, and the gun shoots reasonably well. the barrel is not lined up correctly, meaning the stamping on the barrel is in the wrong place. by doing this, he did not have to cut the chamber, which might be the best thing that could have happened in this particular case. iam i real happy with the job, no. but i will live with it. at least for now. if i end up with a big chunk of change, someday, i might take it to another gunsmith and have it fixed correctly. but money is really tight right now, and i can get better than sub moa from it (with handloads) so i will just leave it for now. now, the chronograph stays home, until i have an accurate load worked up. then, i take it, and crongraph ten shots, so i can come up with an accurate balistics table for it. no more two birds with one stone for me.

[TXGunNut]

Mine's a 1.065" dia. Douglass barrel from a PPC Open revolver loosely based on a S&W 586. Fired a squib in a match about 15 yrs ago in Katy, TX during Match 2, (somewhat fast-paced) and for some reason decided to proceed with firing the rest of the string (and match). Both bullets hit the target but were zeroes and the barrel now had a loose area just forward of the forcing cone. I was wanting to change twist rates anyway and the barrel makes an interesting paperweight. There's a cylinder from the same gun but that wasn't a loading error. Makes a cool stand for my powder trickler.
Seems there's a Green Mountain barrel around here for a T/C Hawken percussion rifle but that doesn't count, right?

[Glen-Bob]

Mine comes from a "friend". Years ago I was given some 30-30 win. reloads. Being older and assumed knowledgeable my trustworthy friend had to know what he was doing........ The rounds were hard to chamber in my 336C to the point that extra pressure was required to chamber the rounds (that would chamber) after firing 2 or 3 I noticed they were a little more umph than usual. About this time common sense took over and I put his reloads aside. Later on I asked him what the deal was with the ammo he said "I load them hot, that way usually the primers come out and saves a step". Later on I found out he also gave someone some 38's who was shooting to qualify for CC permit and they had 3 rounds jam in the BBL.

Lesson learned early about anothers reloads. Don't take anybodys nor do I load for others.

My personal error came from a recent round of 45ACP loads. Somewhere between old age and blindness I was off on seating depth had several rounds that would not chamber, my fault left them long. I usually setup and measure to start then spot check as I go. May not have had calipers properly zeroed to start is all I can come up with. As I would hate to think I short stroked a seating process.

[ethan95]

nothing like a thread to scare the **** outta me . excuse me while i go weigh all 1000 of my .223 loads.