I go twice a year to remote South Dakota to shoot prairie rats. The ranch we shoot on has a massive number of these prairie rats. We normally shoot for two days and are burned out and go home. It is common to shoot 2000 round each in two days. That's a lot of ammunition and a lot of reloading.
I reload with a Hornady progressive press and have for almost two decades. The powder measure is also a Hornady that is made for my press. The powder measure is set and forget, because once you have it set for a particular type and lot of powder, the dropped amount doesn't change.
I load 24.9 grains of Hodgdon H-335 behind a 55 grain jacketed BT. Last fall I loaded about 500 rounds before my grand kids got here for a visit, then loaded another 500 rounds after they left. I dumped the 1,000 rounds of newly loaded .223 into a large ammo can that already had 1,000 previously loaded rounds of the exact same components.
My shooting friends and I met at the hotel and get everything ready to go to the ranch.
We set up and commenced thinning the rat herd. The very first shot I took resulted in a stuck bolt carrier, because the primer came out of the primer pocket and jammed the carrier. I cleared the rifle and the second shot had the same result. This went on for about an hour of fiddling and even making a phone call to couple different people I know that are highly experience and knowledgeable on the AR-15 platform. I looked several of the fired brass over and noticed all had bolt face markings, an axial gouge from the extractor and the rim was bent from the extractor pulling so hard on the rim.
Then this happened:
You see a case head separation, which resulted in a face full of very hot high pressure gas. My shooting was done. You can also see a very bulged primer with a rimmed crater and bolt markings on the head. At this point I knew the only thing that could cause all of these symptoms together is over pressure. I packed up my gun and ammo and spent the rest of the time there spotting with my binoculars for my shooting buddies.
When I got home, I pulled five cartridges and weighed the powder charges. Remember, I load 24.9 grains. All five pulled samples weighed 28.3 grains!!!! Holy high pressure bat-man! The pressure curve isn't linear, instead it's geometric. Who knows how high the pressure was in these rounds, but I promise it was huge.
How in the world does someone with decades of reloading experience and a controlled environment make a mistake like this? It took me a couple months to figure out how this happened. Remember my grand kids visited? Well, my grandson loves to go to the garage with grandpa and talk about cars, tools, and such. We were in the garage and I was working on something under the hood of a vehicle and he was puttering. At one point I looked over and he was looking at my reloading press and asked me what it was for. We talked about it and that was that. When they left, I reloaded the next 500 rounds, kind of in a hurry.
See where this is going? See the complacency that I set the stage for at the beginning? That wonderful powder measure that is set and forget? I was in a hurry? My grandson had to have turned the powder measure adjustment knob when I wasn't watching. Because I know that this powder measure never changes, I didn't measure the drop when I reloaded the last 500 rounds, because why would I need to, right? Wrong. Huge huge mistake that I will never make again.
I pulled all 2,000 rounds in the ammo can, because I had no reliable way to separate the 500 that I overcharged, then reloaded all 2,000. That is like writing 100,000 times, "I will check the powder drop every 50 rounds."
You can bet that now until forever I will sample and not get complacent.
I reload with a Hornady progressive press and have for almost two decades. The powder measure is also a Hornady that is made for my press. The powder measure is set and forget, because once you have it set for a particular type and lot of powder, the dropped amount doesn't change.
I load 24.9 grains of Hodgdon H-335 behind a 55 grain jacketed BT. Last fall I loaded about 500 rounds before my grand kids got here for a visit, then loaded another 500 rounds after they left. I dumped the 1,000 rounds of newly loaded .223 into a large ammo can that already had 1,000 previously loaded rounds of the exact same components.
My shooting friends and I met at the hotel and get everything ready to go to the ranch.
We set up and commenced thinning the rat herd. The very first shot I took resulted in a stuck bolt carrier, because the primer came out of the primer pocket and jammed the carrier. I cleared the rifle and the second shot had the same result. This went on for about an hour of fiddling and even making a phone call to couple different people I know that are highly experience and knowledgeable on the AR-15 platform. I looked several of the fired brass over and noticed all had bolt face markings, an axial gouge from the extractor and the rim was bent from the extractor pulling so hard on the rim.
Then this happened:
You see a case head separation, which resulted in a face full of very hot high pressure gas. My shooting was done. You can also see a very bulged primer with a rimmed crater and bolt markings on the head. At this point I knew the only thing that could cause all of these symptoms together is over pressure. I packed up my gun and ammo and spent the rest of the time there spotting with my binoculars for my shooting buddies.
When I got home, I pulled five cartridges and weighed the powder charges. Remember, I load 24.9 grains. All five pulled samples weighed 28.3 grains!!!! Holy high pressure bat-man! The pressure curve isn't linear, instead it's geometric. Who knows how high the pressure was in these rounds, but I promise it was huge.
How in the world does someone with decades of reloading experience and a controlled environment make a mistake like this? It took me a couple months to figure out how this happened. Remember my grand kids visited? Well, my grandson loves to go to the garage with grandpa and talk about cars, tools, and such. We were in the garage and I was working on something under the hood of a vehicle and he was puttering. At one point I looked over and he was looking at my reloading press and asked me what it was for. We talked about it and that was that. When they left, I reloaded the next 500 rounds, kind of in a hurry.
See where this is going? See the complacency that I set the stage for at the beginning? That wonderful powder measure that is set and forget? I was in a hurry? My grandson had to have turned the powder measure adjustment knob when I wasn't watching. Because I know that this powder measure never changes, I didn't measure the drop when I reloaded the last 500 rounds, because why would I need to, right? Wrong. Huge huge mistake that I will never make again.
I pulled all 2,000 rounds in the ammo can, because I had no reliable way to separate the 500 that I overcharged, then reloaded all 2,000. That is like writing 100,000 times, "I will check the powder drop every 50 rounds."
You can bet that now until forever I will sample and not get complacent.
