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Old November 27, 2007, 07:36 AM   #1
ShootingNut
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Corn Media in Casing

During the learning curve, a few of my early reloads I believe had a few pieces of corn media left in the casing, with the powder charge.
When a cartridge does not go BANG, but makes a wimpy attempt, I find pieces stuck to the inside of that casing.
My question is, am I correct in assuming that this is all it takes for this to happen (media left)? The powder (propellent) not burning properly.
When this happened yesterday, as always I check to see if the bullet made it through the barrel. Yesterday for the first time, I found that it barely had entered the barrel past the cone. So, when back on my bench I was able to drive it back out (S&W 686P).
Hate to think of what would have happened, had I fired off the next round! Kiss the 686 goodbye and who knows what else, right?
Now, I inspect and reinspect to be positive the casings are clean before charging.
Any thoughts or comments, will be most appreciated!
Regards,
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Old November 27, 2007, 07:47 AM   #2
bigbird34
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Primer pocket

Yes, You may have had some media in the primer pocket,or no powder,or very little powder in the case as well .....BB34
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Old November 27, 2007, 08:00 AM   #3
Sigma 40 Blaster
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This happened to me with my first batch of .380 I loaded, it was never a problem with .40 S&W. After ALMOST having the same problem with 9mm I have decided to tumble with spent primers in and manually cleaning any primer pockets that are dirty enough to warrant it.
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Old November 27, 2007, 08:15 AM   #4
ShootingNut
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Quality not Quantity

When I first bought my Lee Classic Turret Press, I had the 2 - 300 rounds an hour in my mind. After finding to much misindexing, low powder drops, and so on I now prefer to use it single stage and run batches at each die.
For me, this way I can really watch each step for a potential problem.
Example, even though weighing often, I light the charged casings for any light load. There was a time that I didn't believe in doing this, as someone else suggested. Well, recently I visually noticed 2 out of 100 (9mm rounds)
that weighed in at 1.2 and 1.4 grains, when the rest had 3.8 grains dropped.
So much for the "perfect" powder dispenser, have to use the old "peeper's" also.
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Old November 27, 2007, 09:48 AM   #5
Mike Irwin
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Weird.

I have NEVER had a short powder drop in my Lee disk measure with close to 50,000 rounds loaded.

My classic turret press has been incredible, even more so that I now have the Lee priming system installed on it.
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Old November 27, 2007, 05:49 PM   #6
kestak
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Greetings,

I think you made two mistakes:
1 - Not inspecting your cases before loading.
2 - Not inspecting your powder level in your cases when loading.

I use a dillon 550B and I ALWAYS look at the powder level. It happened to me a few times a grain made it through my inspection, but always I figured it out because my powder level was higher than usual.

I am not talking you down, but for the sake of your health and your guns, I think you should always do those checks. More experienced reloaders will confirm or tell I am wrong.

Thank you
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Old November 27, 2007, 06:00 PM   #7
ShootingNut
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kestak

No agrument there, AND I do exactly that now. Have for some time, not concerned with how many rounds I turn out, what I do crank out is going to be "nut's on".
Thanks, we think alike. We learn as we move on, right?
Regards,
SN
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Old November 27, 2007, 07:19 PM   #8
CrustyFN
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I also tumble with the primers in to keep junk out of the flash hole. I load on a classic turret using the auto index. I added a LED light and look at the powder drop before setting the bullet on and like Mike have never had a short charge with the Pro Auto Disk. Even looking in every case for the powder charge I can still load around 200 per hour at a comfortable pace.
Rusty

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Old November 27, 2007, 08:26 PM   #9
kestak
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Greetings,

In fact, last week I had some fumbling around and I put a double charge. Because I always look the powder, I avoided an incident for sure.

Thank you
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Old November 28, 2007, 06:43 AM   #10
ShootingNut
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kestak

May have been your lucky day, catching that double charge. May have been more than an "incident", more likely an "accident" with more than your gun remodeled.
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Old November 28, 2007, 10:45 AM   #11
Mike Irwin
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Using a new loading press a couple of years ago I dropped nearly 10 grains of WW 231 into a .45 ACP shell, which I then fired in my 1911 Mil Spec.

Gun survived without a problem; the magazine didn't.
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Old November 28, 2007, 11:18 AM   #12
ShootingNut
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Amazing

Mike,
What was the normal charge, 7-8 grains?
Gun O.K., but took out the Mag (with more cartridges in it?), that seems strange. Although I'm no gun expert for sure!
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