Pay attention

[79troublehead]

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2015/01/what-happens-when-you-load-pistol-powder-in-a-rifle-cartridge/

[Lowpower]

If we're coming out of the closet....

 

Back in '74 I accidentally loaded some pistol powder in my Rem 788 .22-250. I was loading .45 acp and the .22-250 back then using a lee hand loader. 

The old ones you beat on everything with a hammer. My mistake was keeping the powders side-by-side on the shelf.

 

Now, can I say I really loaded my pistol powder in place of the rifle powder? Not that I was aware of but there was no way I could have double loaded a 

.22-250 without powder all over the place. But I digress......

 

So here I go out to the wide open expanse of western Alaska to try out my newly reloaded ammo. I lined up on an old tree stump around 250 yds away and

squeezed one off. BOOM! The darned rifle kicked like a 10 ga Goose Gun. I never saw where the bullet went. Other than the big boom and recoil I figured 

things were normal and I was looking where the bullet went. When I think back I'm pretty sure the bullet disintegrated as it left the barrel.

 

What was telling was when I when to open the bolt it was stuck closed. And I mean stuck. I went back to had to get out a big hard rubber mallet to bang the bolt open.

It did finally open after some pounding and what I found was a completely disintegrated brass case with only a small piece left in the chamber. The base of the case

slammed back against bolt face with enough force to blow out the extractor and ejector.  I still have that bolt to remind to watch what I'm doing when I reload. 

 

While I have to say I was very impressed with that model 788 with it's 9 lugs on the bolt and happy that nothing came of a bad load I will say I got lucky and

never plan to try my luck again. I now stick masking tape on every bottle of powder and write with a magic marker the powder brand/number along with the

rifle or pistol cal i load with it. It still has its original  labeling on it but labels, having the same look and color, I want no mistakes. 

 

I take every precaution I can and hope and pray that no reloaders ever make this mistake and by reading this folks with think hard about how they're doing it 

and what they can do to make things safer. 

 

Lp

Edited January 12, 2015 by Lowpower

[Sidewinder]

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2015/01/what-happens-when-you-load-pistol-powder-in-a-rifle-cartridge/

Thanks for the post 79troublehead. This is exactly the kind of "warning" information I was hoping to bring to the fore with my thread "Buying and Selling Reloads". I felt that if I presented too much information on the subject that I'd be perceived as anti-reloading...which I'm not. I'm anti-reloading for the purpose of "re-selling", for the reasons covered in this thread, and a hand-full more. I was hoping our members would enlighten others to be aware that they may, in fact, be buying re-loads on various sites, when they think they are buying "loose" factory loads. None of us want to see anyone get hurt while enjoying the hobby we all love. Hopefully, we all agree that we have to look out for our fellow brother and sisters involved in this sport. Perhaps my intention for starting the thread was misunderstood. This thread shows that we need to put all of this information in the hands of the less informed, for the safety of all of us. I've been re-loading since the '60s, and never sold one round that I have reloaded...nor have I ever allowed anyone else to ever even shoot one of my re-loads. We must be very careful in our re-loading/hand-loading operations! Complacency in most things can be bad, but in re-loading it can be down right dangerous! Safety - Safety -Safety is our friend!

[stumpy]

A friend of mine is an experienced shooter and handloader.  Intelligent, safe, experienced handloader.  He is also emotional.  He had just bought a S&W 1917 revolver in 45acp caliber and wanted to wring it out at the range but had no ammo loaded.  Off to the bench for a short loading session he went, then to the range.  At the sound of the first shot, he thought to himself "Wow, this pistol has some mighty recoil!"  At the sound of the second shot handgun bits and pieces went flying!!!  The top of cylinder and the topstrap were gone!  He checked and found no damage to his hand, arm, or any other body part.  He packed up everything he had and drove home.  He walked straight back to his bench and started looking over his components.  He had used 45acp brass that was clean and little used, correct large pistol (standard) primers, 230 grain jacketed bullets, and a correct pistol powder (still in the measure).  All looked good.  He threw a charge of powder into the pan and weighed it, and it was his correct charge weight.  He confirmed the charge weight by checking his handloading manual.  And then time stopped.  At the top of the page he was reading he saw the source of his misery.  In his rush to load ammo for his 45acp revolver he had opened his manual to data for 45 Colt.  He had overloaded his short 45acp cases with data for the longer 45 Colt caliber.  This simple error, made in haste, cost him a fine handgun.  It also cost him endless teasing by all who learned about the event.  Could have been worse, a lot worse.  He escaped with no physical damage but his ego was destroyed.  Since that time he has double and triple checked his loading data at every loading session.  Seems that this lesson was well learned.  And remembered.

 

Stumpy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if 

[E4 No More]

Ok, I'll bite: what's wrong with pistol powder in a rifle? Is not H110 a pistol powder used in a 300 BLK?

 

You should be careful of your loading with ANY powder.

[E4 No More]

A friend of mine is an experienced shooter and handloader.  Intelligent, safe, experienced handloader.  He is also emotional.  He had just bought a S&W 1917 revolver in 45acp caliber and wanted to wring it out at the range but had no ammo loaded.  Off to the bench for a short loading session he went, then to the range.  At the sound of the first shot, he thought to himself "Wow, this pistol has some mighty recoil!"  At the sound of the second shot handgun bits and pieces went flying!!!  The top of cylinder and the topstrap were gone!  He checked and found no damage to his hand, arm, or any other body part.  He packed up everything he had and drove home.  He walked straight back to his bench and started looking over his components.  He had used 45acp brass that was clean and little used, correct large pistol (standard) primers, 230 grain jacketed bullets, and a correct pistol powder (still in the measure).  All looked good.  He threw a charge of powder into the pan and weighed it, and it was his correct charge weight.  He confirmed the charge weight by checking his handloading manual.  And then time stopped.  At the top of the page he was reading he saw the source of his misery.  In his rush to load ammo for his 45acp revolver he had opened his manual to data for 45 Colt.  He had overloaded his short 45acp cases with data for the longer 45 Colt caliber.  This simple error, made in haste, cost him a fine handgun.  It also cost him endless teasing by all who learned about the event.  Could have been worse, a lot worse.  He escaped with no physical damage but his ego was destroyed.  Since that time he has double and triple checked his loading data at every loading session.  Seems that this lesson was well learned.  And remembered.

 

Stumpy

 

 

I did something similar with my Ed Brown Kobra Karry in that somehow, (I still have no idea how), my (cheap Harbor Freight), scale switched from grains to grams. I'm surprised that the bullet seated, but the Ed Brown took it without damage...luckily. When I realized what happened I threw that piece of crap scale out and bought an expensive one. I do not cut corners on my reloading equipment anymore.

Edited January 15, 2015 by SWJewellTN

[Miltech]

I know from experience (a bad one) that you can follow the proper steps and still get into trouble. In my case I wanted to load some 100 gr short jacket rounds in .30 carbine. I found load data in my volume II Hornady Handbook for Unique powder which I had on hand. I now know this is not a good application for this powder but I did not at the time.

 

The min load in this manual is 7.6 gr, the max shown is 8.9 gr. I loaded close to the min. but did not try them for some time. When I finally shot some of them they did not cycle the action well so I "assumed" they were under powered. I let my Grandson shoot a couple of rounds but cycling problems caused him to loose interest and leave.

 

The first round fired after he left resulted left me with a splintered stock, a cracked receiver and a cracked barrel on a Plainfield copy of a military M1 carbine. I also had a very sore hand but no injury other than that. I am thankful it was me and not my Grandson.

 

My immediate thought was that I had screwed up loading and had caused the mishap that way. I went home and pulled some bullets and weighed charges on a 10 rounds and checked them against the load data and all was correct. I then suspected the weapon. I went to the internet and researched the Unique load for the carbine and found that a loads shown were in the 4 to 6 grain range. Hornady had screwed up in this loading manual (granted it was published in 1975 when I started loading and probably been corrected long ago. My event happened in 2013). I also pulled the remaining rounds that I had loaded to prevent anyone every using the even though I no longer have anything in that caliber.

 

The lesson learned from this for me was to cross check new loads even from reputable sources with other data to verify that it makes sense.

 

My loads were almost double the recommended, and likely the cycling issues were due to the nature of the pistol powder used.

 

I thought I would share this, maybe it will give others a thought to double check the data. I do have pics of the damaged carbine but am not up to speed on posting them. 

[79troublehead]

Ok, I'll bite: what's wrong with pistol powder in a rifle? Is not H110 a pistol powder used in a 300 BLK?

 

You should be careful of your loading with ANY powder.

You can indeed use a 'pistol' powder in rifle loads, I've used Unique, 2400, 4227, 296, in calibers from .375 h&h (with a .375 round ball used in .36 cap and ball firearms), to .22 hornet with complete safety. The danger is in loading the same quantity of faster burning 'pistol' powder as would be used in a slower burning 'rifle' powder.  All gun powders burn, but it is the rate of burning (expansion rate of gases) that raises pressures. This is a very simplified answer, but it covers the basics. In a closer example, as far as burning rates; 15 gr. of 2400 in a .357 with a 158 gr bullet (for example), would be a fairly stout but safe load, whereas a 15 gr. load of Bullseye would make a pretty decent grenade.