Attention to Detail- ALL OF THEM

[ukerduker]

THis morning I decided to reload some rounds because the weather wasn't that great. My Dillon press was all setup from my last session of reloading .223. I broke everything down and started to clean everything and put it all back together. I changed out my tool head and installed my 6.5 Grendel setup. All this time my boys were doing what boys do best- fighting. I had to play referee several times. (strike one)

After several interuptions, I got everything reinstalled.

- I verified the sizing of my case

- I checked my powder: 31.5 grains (Stike two)

- Checked my seating depth 2.260 (Stike three)

I ran my first round through the press and bullet seated with a lot of resistance. When I examined the projectile, it was partially crushed. I'm thinking, "what the hell! I checked everything out". I ran another round through and got the same results. GGGRRRRR, I rechecked all my press settings and they were correct. The resizing die was fine, the powder was throwing correctly, and the COL was right. What was wrong?

Well after some time, I could only think of one thing- too much powder. BUT I VERIFIED IT! I went back to my load data. HOLY $$!$. The data called for 29.0. I was compressing my powder to the extent that my bullet shape was crushed. What's an extra 2.5 (compressed) grains going to do???

PROBLEM- I was using the load data for my 120 grain bullets, instead of the 130grain. The only indication was the crushed bullet.

PROBLEM- The COL was 2.265, not 2.260

PROBLEM- Too Many distractions

PROBLEM- I didn't refer to the load data sheet from the start. I used the "oh, I remember that number" mentality.

It has been awhile since I loaded this round. Fortunately I had an obvious indication of a problem. This would have been ugly had I pulled the trigger with these mistakes. I included a pic of these rounds and the data sheet. My camera sucks at closeups, but these rounds are "notched" where the seating die pushed into them. I call this a lesson learned.