Something Else to Look Out for!
I am into my 65th year of handloading and, in that time I've made the usual mistakes and encountered the usual problems and have learned to pay close attention to minor details. Yesterday I came across a new-to-me issue:
Several years ago, a friend bought at auction a batch of cartridges put up by a commercial loader. He gave me the stuff he had no use for including 5 boxes of 7x57. I fired a box of them and the cartridges did not measure up to my accuracy/velocity standards so I shelved them and moved on to other projects. I noticed them the other day and decided to break them down to salvage the components for a load that performs better in my rifles. The existing cartridges consisted of new Winchester brass, unknown primer, 150 gr. Winchester power point bullet, and 45 gr. of a ball powder resembling W760. I pulled the bullets and dumped (discarded) the powder by inverting the cases and tapping two together to empty them. I then sat the empty cases in a loading block. At some point I glanced at the cases and noticed some dark spots on the inside case walls. Some of the powder had attached itself to the inside of the cases. I thought it was just a few kernels but I proceeded to scrape it off with an allen wrench. But it was not just a few kernels! The worst was 1.2 grs and the average was .35 grs.! If the brass had not been unfired and shiney I wouldn't have noticed it and would have reloaded it with a full charge on top of 1.2 gr. that was already in there. It's doubtful that, with my loads, the extra dab of powder would have created a major issue but it sure would have played mysterious hob with the extreme velocity spread.
Be careful out there; no detail is too small!
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Thanks for the story. Good advice. 'Stuff' does happen.
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I've also seen powder stick to the sides of brass rifle cases and have also seen powder eat a hole in brass and ruin primers. The powder would turn the brass and the base of copper bullets Green. Some say the powder stabilizer went bad.
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I cannot shoot reloads that other people have reloaded and I also do not buy so called once fired brass or reloading powder from suspicious places or people, but I'm paranoid about reloading components. Stay Safe.
When you reload it's all your fault if things go South. No passing the buck.
I've seen so called once fired brass for sale with primers still in the brass and Ronnie Milsap could that the brass had been reloaded, could see the bright shiny CCE primers in the brass and I've got some re-loaded brass that looks like factory, it has the factory looking Remington gold plates primers installed that could be sold as primed factory brass
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A good story and reminder that you must pay attention to details when reloading. Each step in the process must be done right or the whole batch is unusable. Thank you for the info.
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