Last night I was loading some Barnes 50 grain Varmint Grenades in .223. I usually use RX10 for these but as I was out I substituted Varget. I checked my reloading notes and had one tried load at 26.5 grains. There are no published loads for the VG and Varget that I have been able to locate. OAL was 2.210 and my notes indicated that the VG max for my chamber was 2.26. All good so I loaded up 20 rounds. Now the VG is a long bullet and this was obviously a compressed load so I took extra pains to measure each completed cartridge to ensure I was okay. All finished and I put everything away for the night. Sitting watching the tube I started getting this feeling something with the reload was wrong. I rechecked my notes and the 26.5 was possibly a 25.5. I went to PointBlank to check and sure enough it was recorded at 25.5. I had worked up to this from the recommended starting load I was given at 24.2 grains based upon output from Quickload. I unloaded all rounds with my kinetic bullet puller. That wasn't much fun. Now I am sure that I wouldn't have killed myself using the hotter load but I may have damaged my rifle. Lesson learned is to double check those notes

Good catch on that load problem!I have a friend that I have hunted and reloaded with for years that did a similar thing with a 17 remington.He called me later and said that his gun was constantly keyholing at 100 yds on paper.I looked at the gun and hand loads and could not see anything obvious externally.So we got out the reloading manual(s) and pulled one of the bullets and weighed the charge-1/2 grain over max as I recall!He pulled the rest and reloaded to the correct spec,and the gun still key-holed.He took the gun to a smith that showed him that the throat had been washed out for about 1/2".That little reloading mishap cost him a new barrel from remington!After many years with these "mouse gun calibers" I have found that they are very sensitive to minor changes.Primers was my last shocking learning experience!I changed from std small rifle(cci) to bench rest (cci) and blew my 223 -3/4" groups to 2&1/2 ",and the chrony velocities were all over the board!Some varied by 200fps!I went back to the std primers and things settled back down.Go figure!

I hear you man, I have gotten the heeby jeebies after the fact on a couple and went back and dumped em out. Always better safe then sorry in this game.

The grass is really green right outside of my reloading shed!

fnuser wrote:

The grass is really green right outside of my reloading shed!

Don't throw a lit match out there, is that what you're saying?

1895ss wrote:

fnuser wrote: The grass is really green right outside of my reloading shed! Don't throw a lit match out there, is that what you're saying?

Maybe its because he hasn't been out there in a while and it needs to be mowed.

fnuser wrote:

The grass is really green right outside of my reloading shed!

Been there...done that. Only a few weeks ago I decided to load up a heap of 12g 26 gram clay target loads. Topped up the hopper with powder and started churning them out. Got to about cartridge # 30 and thought (as did Mac) "something isn't right here"...something was giving me a nudge in the back of my mind. I sat back and started thinking...then thought "I might check the powder charge being dropped". THEN IT HIT ME !!!! When I topped up the powder hopper I inadvertently picked up my bottle of Alliant 410 powder and topped up a hopper of Alliant PROMO !!! It cost me enough powder to load maybe 100 cartridges...BUGGER.

Like FNUser, I was going to throw it on the lawn, but thought...I bought this stuff to burn, so burn it will. Put it in a tomato soup can and "lit the wick". WOW...a volcano . The resultant sheet of flame went about 3 metres in the air, and of course it didn't end there did it....nooooo. It was just close enough to the shade cloth on my pergola to melt a hole about 30" in diameter...even though I put the can outside the pergola.

Oh well...that's life I suppose. I wasn't happy about loosing that much powder because it has destroyed my reloading budget predictions for this lot of powder...but at least, like Mac, experience came to the fore when something just didn't seem right. I don't think that the mix of powders would have been dangerous...the rounds would have cracked a bit, but I wasn't going to take that chance...especially with a shotgun when pressures are critical.

Cheers, Vince

vince im betting you havent heard the end of this 30" hole from the mrs yet huh?....lol oh if i had a nickel for everytime ive done something similar.....

dare I say,
Look up and live? (also receive less flak from all involved or laughing, like me)

jcruthis wrote:

vince im betting you havent heard the end of this 30" hole from the mrs yet huh?....lol oh if i had a nickel for everytime ive done something similar.....

Nah...she has left me alone about this one...surprisingly. Fortunately, the hole isn't in a critical part of the shade cloth...it's actually on the edge and has has effect on the provision of shade.

Thank goodness.

Cheers, Vince

good catch you guys its far nicer to hear you caught it rather than read an obit that you bought it.

I tend to feel the same way Elvis.

Cheers, Vince

My only stuff up so far is priming too soon after ultra-sonic cleaning.

After miss-firing near half of the shots, I pulled the rest.
That was about 50 rounds pulled.

And keep the "waste" powder. Apart from having fun with it, put some in a small container in your hunting pack for helping get fires started in an emergency.

Is there some reason not to reuse the powder?

In my case, I have to assume some of the powder may have been wet as well. And I'm trying to shoot from 1000 yards, so any possible problem needs to be avoided.