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Old September 26, 2017, 11:39 AM   #201
briandg
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Starting to reload.
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Old September 26, 2017, 11:54 AM   #202
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Starting to reload.
LOL
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Old September 26, 2017, 07:35 PM   #203
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Well, I am probably not the only guy to do so but once I tried to deprime my thumb.

Life is good.
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Old September 26, 2017, 08:08 PM   #204
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I once made the mistake of letting go of the handle to use both hands and wound up with my right thumb caught between die and shell holder when it dropped. I grabbed at the handle to lift it and pushed it down a bit more. That left a mark.
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Old September 26, 2017, 08:13 PM   #205
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It was my delving into reloading that got my father to rekindle his interest from his younger days in firearms. That was when I was in my late teens and still under his roof.
He dove in head first for a time, going as far as to obtain an FFL license. Sadly his rekindled interest waned after a handful of years.

The first rifle that he purchased was a Weatherby Mark V in .300 Wthby.
His first trip to the range with it and his own reloads, resulted in flowed brass to the point that the head stamp was only half discernable at best.

I wasn't with him, and the only explanation that I ever got out of him was that he had seriously overcharged them.
Based on the bruise he sported, all I could say was ... uh yeah!

He immediately sent the rifle out to have what I believe was called an Accu-break installed, and never shot the rifle again without having a shoulder pad strapped on.

I've yet to pull one like that knock on wood.... but some day it's bound to happen.
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Old September 27, 2017, 10:15 PM   #206
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I once developed a load for my 308 that shot great. Being the novice I was at the time I had no idea that different brass would shoot differently. So after my range trip and testing my different lots, I decided I was going to load up enough ammo to not have to worry about having hunting ammunition for a few years. The problem was that I did not have enough brass to do so. I promptly drove to a sporting goods store, bought 200 once fired brass, and loaded every single one of them without testing it again. Drove to the range a couple weeks before that hunting season to confirm zero only coming to realize that my 3/4" groups were opened up to about 3" groups. Confirmed it multiple times on different range trips to make sure it wasn't just me. So now I have about 165 rounds of a load that doesn't shoot for crap stuffed away in the back of my ammo cabinet that I've been putting off tearing apart for about 6 years.
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Old September 28, 2017, 01:58 AM   #207
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So now I have about 165 rounds---
While I like my kinetic bullet puller for being simple and cheap, for this many rounds I think I'd save my time (and more importantly my arm) and get a collet bullet puller.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/68...-bullet-puller
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Old September 28, 2017, 02:35 AM   #208
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I've always thought all a kinetic bullet "puller" needs is a firing pin.
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Old September 28, 2017, 10:14 AM   #209
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One day Bruce Hodgden came to our house, one of my older brothers was shooting into the river bank, his shots were hitting 10' high. He called the bullet company he called the case company, he called the rifle builder and then he called Bruce Hodgden, he was sitting in front of the house the next morning.

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Old September 29, 2017, 04:42 PM   #210
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I remembered a really dumb thing I did several years ago . I purchased a Lee collet neck sizing die for 308 . First time I used it I got this



After a few more tries I was getting better



But wait that's not the dumb thing I did . Once I actually figured it out and sized a few necks . I found my neck tension / bullet hold was very light . I could push the bullet in with my fingers . I was thinking I need more bullet hold so I adjusted the die in the press and sized another case . This time I put a lot of force on the press handle and BAM CHING PING and the press arm went limp . It took a few seconds to realize what just happened . At first I thought I broke the press but that turned out not to be the case . What happened was the force I was putting on the die caused the top screw/cap to strip out and blast off the top of the die .

It was not long after that I realized my brain fart . The die uses a mandrel the neck gets compressed around to size the neck . I WAS NEVER GOING TO GET MORE BULLET HOLD simply by putting more pressure on the press handle . Reducing the diameter of the mandrel is the only way to get more bullet hold using this type of die .

Oh man when that cap stripped out I thought I broke everything based on the sound it made . Turns out those caps are made off aluminum . Hmm I wonder why that is Maybe so people like me don't break there press haha
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Old October 1, 2017, 11:18 AM   #211
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Metal god-I don't remember which magazine or reloading manual it was in but I do remember a guy with several cases like the ones you pictured above who wrote a satirical article about all the 'advantages' that cartridge shape gave him once he had found a gunsmith to rechamber his rifle to fit them.

He had several examples using different cartridges and opined while the new shape was universally better across the board it worked particularly well with the larger caliber, higher pressure loads. There was stuff about better sealing, reduced shoulder set back and a ton of other stuff. It was hilarious.
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Old December 2, 2017, 05:20 PM   #212
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Okay, lets bring this thread back in gear again.
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Last edited by Smoke & Recoil; December 2, 2017 at 08:33 PM.
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Old December 2, 2017, 07:12 PM   #213
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Okay, lets bring this thread back to life again.
Says he with no contribution??
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Old December 2, 2017, 07:25 PM   #214
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Loaded 200 nice 38 cases with 6.2 grains of hs6 under a nice powder coated 158 grain flat point bullet, all over a CCI primer...........in wet cases. At least Im getting go at removing squibs. I've almost burned through all the ammo.
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Old December 2, 2017, 07:51 PM   #215
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@ stagpanther,
Yes says I, you must do your homework and start at the beginning and do
some catching up.
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Old December 2, 2017, 07:54 PM   #216
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@Chainsaw. ,
Okay man, why were the case's wet...fess up
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Old December 2, 2017, 07:55 PM   #217
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@ stagpanther,
Yes says I, you must do your homework and start at the beginning and do
some catching up.
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Previous posts don't count if you're calling for a revival--soooooo?
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Old December 2, 2017, 08:30 PM   #218
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Continuance...yes, revival ?, no, the thread never died. As time pass', new members join
and learn and can benefit from reading OUR mistakes and might even post their
misfortunes as well, we might learn a thing or two from new reloaders as well.
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Old December 2, 2017, 09:39 PM   #219
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Loaded about a thousand rounds of .223 for my brother. Took a very long time.

Found him at a gun show selling it a few weeks later.

There were many ways that I could have spent that time that didn't involve being jerked around.
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Old December 2, 2017, 09:49 PM   #220
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Gee's, that wasn't brotherly like. You might want to consider a 50 piece
limit for the next person. We all learn as we go, I learned my lesson helping
a coworker reroof his house only to find out it was part of a realtor agreement.
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Old December 2, 2017, 11:27 PM   #221
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O.K Let me set this up. First I am A twenty-year Vet. Of a twenty-year Vet. So to put kindly I have a colorful language. Now I also have a grandson that has been loading with me since he was three so I installed a curse jar in the loading room and every curse word cost me $5.00.

Now the day in question I had a used press on my maintenance bench that the previous owner stated that he was not able to prim on it for two years. Now at the time, my grandson was known as the safety officer when we were in the loading room. He was dressed in his Bob The Builder hard hat, Safty vest, eye protection and dust mask carrying around his fire extinguisher pretending to put out fires while I worked on the press.

Now, I had just finished timing the press and had started loading primers. On the third primer that little -CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED- shot that damn fire extinguisher right up my ass. I thought I was dead and let out a line of curse words. I then looked back at my grandson to make sure he was O.K. and I saw the little digits on his hands just flying out. He is COUNTING CURSE WORDS. We settled on $100.00 because it was his fault. But he wasn't going to settle on less because I did curse.

That day he lost the name "Saftey Officer".
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Old December 3, 2017, 12:09 AM   #222
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When I was a kid I had access to my father’s extensive reloading room, and used to help him all the time.

As a teenager I did all sorts of incredibly stupid things. I was a menace. He loaded quite a bit of black, and I made several large bombs. I would load all sorts of things into 12ga shells: pennies (make a crazy sound), jacks, magnets, marbles, etc. I’d hot load cartridges (hot even by the standards of the ‘70s) and shoot them in his guns without permission. It is amazing I have all my fingers and both eyes.

I took a long hiatus after college, and when I took possession of all his stuff, I approached it vastly differently only then understanding how fortunate I was to have miraculously never destroyed a firearm and myself.
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Old December 3, 2017, 04:39 AM   #223
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Great story drain smith!!
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Old December 3, 2017, 05:58 AM   #224
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Many years ago I owned a gun shop and one customer was a bit strange....to say the least, but I got to know him quite well. Actually well enough that no way would I ever fire one of his reloads.
One day he was reading some article about how to make the .25 auto into a manstopper, but pulling the bullets on factory ammo, drilling hollowpoints on them and reseating the bullets.
He managed to get the process done, and tried one in his Raven .25 which wouldn't work because he hadn't gotten it properly crimped and still had a small flare in the case. It was stuck in the chamber and he couldn't get it out, so he attempted to pull the slide off the pistol to remove the stuck cartridge.
Well...the hammer was actually in a cocked position, so when he lifted up on the slide, it fired.......and very nicely sliced his appendix off in the process.
He spent about a week in the hospital and told me all about the shock to his system after he shot himself and the pain involved.
Not that long afterward, he was talking about getting even with someone by greasing the tires on the guy's car. Luckily he made a move to one of the northern states and I didn't have to deal with him anymore.
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Old December 3, 2017, 09:10 AM   #225
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Smoke, that roofing story is great. I have one too.

My brother in law, who is a real piece of work, bought a dumpy house south of town. It had been built by a not too smart farmer. Long story short, I put months into working on it with him, including new roofing.

Oh, he insisted on taking off each of the four layers one at a time. He also insisted that the dumpster be left at the street, so we would carry the waste about 100 feet on tarps. He refused to set his nailer to the same shoe setting as mine, so there was about an inch of discrepancy between his end and my end before he noticed it, and of course it was because my nailer was wrong. Should have heard him. He wanted to prime the paint, but not top coat it. He sawed off his has gas line because someone at the gas company had made him mad and he went full electric with service that was nowhere near as heavily rated as the load that he wanted for it.

Well, after all of that time and work, he quit his job to be with a woman. The house was repossessed about two years after we worked on it. In 2011 an EF5 tornado hit that end of town and his sweet little mansion vanished. Nothing left but the cellar.

That was a weird place. A lady who I visited nearby showed me a cute little flower bed in her back yard, I had the privilege of telling her that it was a grave. She was so shocked. Then she said that it explained the hand carved headstone in the crawlspace under the house. I can't remember the name on the stone, it was a lady, buried some time after 1900. That house will be gone too.
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