I've just been reading some posts on case forming. I still have to
do some but only to make cases that cannot be obtained new. I
have 30+ rifles, before I made it rule to only use factory brass I
had a couple mishaps. Once while deer hunting with Rem 742,
30/06 I got a 270 mixed in ammo, in 30/06 case. I probably
wouldn't have noticed had I not fired this cartridge. Bullet cleared
bore,case split, fire and dirt blew out bolt cover(plastic)and had to force bolt open. The other one still makes me shiver though
it didn't go to completion. I had 350 short mag/ wildcat, formed
on 300hh. Buddy of mine got old Rem 725-300hh, we grabbed
the 350s by mistake,lucky he had me shoot 1st, I saw immediate
wrong ammo! But they would have chambered.

Lordy. Put ammo in box that is properly labeled.

I have rifles on 280, 06 & 338-06. You just have to pay attention.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

just saw that happen 2 weeks ago. a couple of guys were sighting in their rifles for the start of deer season, one had a 308 the other a 7mm08,(both Remington ammo in like boxes) one shot the 7mm08 out of the 308 and wondered why he didn't hit the target, took 2 shots be for he realized what he did.

D'oh!

Never once mixed up rounds. None of my calibers are that similar.

I always put reformed ammo in plastic ammo boxes and mark with bold marker what is inside, and try to keep similar rounds in different colors (not always possible). When I make 8x56R MS out of 7.62x54R Russian, The brass is about 4mm short but the OAL is so long it won't fit in the magazine. But you get into cartridges like 270/280/6-06 or 308/7-08/260/243 you can mess things up in a hurry. Ivan

My wife hates when that happens...

I'm only loading one caliber so far but made my own label system from the start so when I add more there will be no confusion.

I have reformed 270 to 35 Whelen and 308 to 243 and 358. Both 35 calibers get nail polish across the base to let me know the headstamp is incorrect.

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Front sight and squeeze

EugeneNine;
Even though you are just loading one type of ammo.............
that box needs to have the caliber listen on it, just in case
someone else picks it up, just to be on the safe side.

As for the 30-06 that let a 270 case chamber and still be able
to close the bolt seems to have a problem with head space.
This should have never happened. Glad that things turned out ok and no one lost any body parts.

A shooting buddy of mine managed to shoot a 35 Remington out of 8x57mm Mauser (I think that was the combination) and lived to tell about it.

I have to admit to firing a 44 Magnum out of a SAA chambered in 45 Colt. No damage to gun (that I can tell, anyway).

The only screw up I'll admit to was a 380 shot out of a 9mm. I had reloaded 2000 9mms and a 380 case slipped into the mix, when I policed up the brass I had this funny looking case. read the headstamp and realized what I'd done.

SWCA 892

I know someone that fired a couple of 9mm loads in a third generation .40. (4006) It swelled the cases up pretty good but didn't break anything.

I have a couple of rifles that I have resized other caliber brass for, but I don't generally let other people use my reloads either. I have a 264 Win Mag that I use a lot of 7 MM Rem Mag brass with that I've resized and annealed because it's a lot easier and cheaper to find 7 MM brass than 264 Mag. And I also have resized 308 and 243 brass for my 260 Rem. After resizing the necks I anneal these also. If not annealed, I find I get pretty short case life before I see split necks. I guess it work hardens the heck out of the necks when going up or down on caliber .5 mm or more.

One other case to watch out for 9 MM Luger is the 9 MM Makarov. They look damn near the same, but the Makarov is 1 MM shorter than the Luger. I ran across this on some range pickups where someone had left some Makarov cases on the ground. I don't know what would happen if you reloaded in the Makarov cases for a Luger pistol, but it might not be purty.

It's rarely an issue shooting smaller dia bullets in a larger bore. I've even intentionally fired 223 in my 7tcu just to form the cases. The bigger problem is stuffing a larger dia bullet into a smaller bore.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

Many years ago I had 41 Mag and 44 Mag ammunition boxes lying on the table at the range. The ammunition was handloaded, and the rounds were identical: both were nickel cases and my own hardcast SWCS... I mistakenly put 41 ammunition into my 629 Classic and fired two rounds before figuring out what happened when the bullets missed the target completely. No safety issue (other than me having "head up hinder parts" syndrome) because of the larger chamber in the 44, but it sure gave me two funny looking cases. They were shaped like miniature beer glasses...

If the Makarov round chambers in the Luger chamber, you need a new barrel, because your chamber is loose.

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What would Jim Cirillo do?

I didn't try one in my pistol. But if you pick up the empty brass and run it through a resizer for 9 MM Luger, I would imagine it would chamber just fine. The rim diameters of both are within .01 mm of each other and base diameter within .03 mm of each other. But you still end up with a case 1 mm short, plus the Makarov operates at lower pressure than Luger, so the case might not be built as strong.