Reloading mistake

[CP]

Somehow I managed to load a round with no powder in it.  Now I have a 240g Elmer Keith bullet lodged in the barrel of my favorite revolver.  I shudder to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t noticed and I fired another shot. 


A good wakeup call that you can never be too careful when loading.

[h20hunter]

I can tell you. My father loads and had a squib on his .45. That particular gun is a Kimber Eclipse full size. He was shooting and fired a round but it didn't go boom. He racked the slide just like you would clear a round and fired. He describes it as the gun jumped hard and locked up. The squib round was just about 1/2 down the barell. He was lucky. The results were a split barrell (inside the slide) and a bent guide rod. The slide was fine. He shipped the gun to Kimber, paid for the new parts, they assembled and shipped back. Now, a Kimber is a fine gun with very close tolerances. It is was a revolver he could have lost part of his hand and/or face. Also, some cheaper made guns with more room between parts can literally explode. If you load long enough it will happen to just about everyone. I keep a dowl in my kit in case I need to pound a round out. He still has the barrell and keeps it right on his loading bench.

[GoldTip]

Glad to hear you weren't injured.

[carpsniperg2]

yeah could of been very bad if you pulled the trigger again that is why i reload in very small lots like 5-10 shells and look into each case before i put the bullet into it to make sure there is powder. also i weigh every load out of my powder dispenser and never trust it. glad you o.k.

[JackOfAllTrades]

At least it was a hard cast lead bullet and you didn't follow it up with another shot. Kewl! You can expect ZERO damage from this situation. Spray some thin oil down the barrel from the forcing cone. Make sure the barrel is coated well. Close the cylinder. Use a wood dowl that's near the barrel diameter to pound out the slug. Put a piece of tape on the dowl so you know just about when the bullet will come out the forcing cone. No reason to force it into the cylinder. Don't use a hammer to pound on the dowl. Us the gun in hand, banging sideways or down on a hard surface. Trust me, you won't damage the gun. And it's safer on it than missing with a hammer on the dowel.

In more than 150,000 rounds of ammo fired through various guns in the past 25 years, I've had two squibs. (One was rimfire. One 38spl was intentional- don't ask.)

EDIT:   UNLOAD THE OTHER CYLINDERS FIRST! 

-Steve

[Bscman]

Yikes! Mistakes happen--I'm glad to hear you (and likely your gun) will be okay.

I load in trays then, before seating bullets, got over each one with a bright light to check they all have a charge, and they are all the same!

[Blacklab]

good catch  

 that could have been real ugly

Had the same thing happen about 10yrs ago with a bisley 44 mag. A range master dislodged it for me and says. Sir your quite lucky you could have damaged your gun. No *censored*  it wouldn't have done my hands any good either 

[yorketransport]

I squib a while back in my BFR. Either a weak primer or bad powder caused this one. The bullet made it 2" into the 10" barrel. A plug of partially burnt powder was lodged in the forcing cone and locked up the cylinder. Once the powder plug was cleared, I just used a piece of 3/8" dowel as sort of a ram rod and tapped the bullet out of the barrel. The real mess was cleaning all of the powder out of the internals.

I also had factory 41mag that did the same thing. Got a partial burn of the powder, but just enough to stick the bullet in the barrel. My father-in-law was shooting, and the shot just didn't sound right. He wasn't familiar with the gun so he didn't notice that anything was wrong. He just thought that it was a lite handload. I yelled at him to hold up just as he was about to shoot again.

Glad to hear that nobody got hurt.

Andrew

[shoot-em-dead]

About ten years ago a guy was getting me into reloading. He helped me pick out a press and dies and everything else. He wanted me to have light loads to start off with and I loaded them exactly as he showed me. I missed the first shot so I fired a second out of the .38 and two bullets came out. Looked like bbs out of a daisy one pump. I checked over everything and it was fine so I fired another and it too was stuck in the barrel. We used a dowel to push it out and I tossed all that ammo. Then I sold all my reloading stuff at the next gun show. Scared the crap out of me. About a year ago I worked up the nerve to get set up again and let me tell you I tripple check every move. I have been having lots of fun with it though and haven't had any major problems this time. I stick to a line my uncle told me after graduation.  "When in doubt-DON'T"  Any brass that doesn't look perfect gets tossed along with any finnished case. You just can't be too carefull  reloading. PS glad to hear you are ok

[ICEMAN]

CP, thanks for posting...

Scary for sure. Sometimes things are happening so fast.... duck hunting I once had a damp load that barely cleared the barrel and before I realized what it was, I had touched off a follow up shot....

[Gutpile]

Somehow I managed to load a round with no powder in it.  Now I have a 240g Elmer Keith bullet lodged in the barrel of my favorite revolver.  I shudder to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t noticed and I fired another shot. 


A good wakeup call that you can never be too careful when loading.

I didn't read all the replys so this may have been mentioned but be damn sure you didn't double drop the case next to it. This could cause a the pistol to blow up. You need to check every single case when loading pistol ammo.

[carpsniperg2]

yep there are a few out there like the 357 and 44 if a guy aint carful they can doubble charged and that is not a pretty thing.

[JackOfAllTrades]

CP and others...  Especially if you're shooting lead, 

If you're loading just for plinking, then there are many powder choices that allow a good load to use for target shooting, that even if you were to double charge, can still be shot safely in many guns. Other powders with different burn rates would be disastrous if double charged. The potential explosion goes up with shooting jacketed bullets, but even loads for them can be manipulated to shoot light, and still have a value of tolerance if double charged.

Obviously hunting loads and long range shooting can't allow this but until someone is an experienced reloader and is confident/comfortable with what they're doing, (being a little anal retentive helps), I advise to stick with those powders that build pressure a bit slower than others.

When I load for competitions, I load on a semi-progressive press that does not self index the cases so I have to drop the powder charge with a slap of the plunger and turn the turret, Every time the handle is in the down position. (Dillon 450 -I have the auto powder drop mechanism from a 550 but I don't use it.) When I get interupted in the gun room. I pull all cases out of the shell holder, dump them and start over. But when I load my 44mag hunting loads that are 'off the chart', I measure each one individually and set all in the load block and visually inspect that there's the proper level in all before a bullet gets set in the top. A double charge there would mean disaster for my Super Blackhawk! On the opposite end of the spectrum, An under-charge out in the woods could ruin my hunt.

-Steve