Cautions

[Hoptob]

This is one of those bizzare threads that starts well and then unexpectedly deteriorates. Pity.

I didn't read in Skip's OP anything targeting Gun4Fun or anyone else in particular. There was nothing about turf protection there either. Just a general -- and fair -- warning to keep reader's level in mind. Reasonable thing to do even if no explosives were involved.

Folks, it's easy to misread Internet post and take it personally when it was never meant that way. Perhaps we all should just cool down a bit here. Handloading is a great hobby. It's good to have a friendly place where you can share your experiences with a fellow man, get advice or just show off a bit. Let's keep it this way.

Mike

 

[Sgt Preston]

Sgt Preston here. Meanwhile back on the "real" topic....I have gathered load information from a variety of both good & bad sources over the years. The first thing I do is to compare a ??posted load?? to my reloading text books. Does the load fall near the mid range of well established loads. If the new load is within the written guide lines, I'll give it a try. Reloading = bombmaking where the bomb is placed 12" in front to your face. Reloading should not be taken lightly. We all need to be PERSONALLY responsible to verify all "given" loads & for our own safety. Failure to verify can lead to trips to the hospital and or damaged guns. Skip's point about using "close enough" components are right on the money. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

 

[rewster]

Originally posted by Sgt Preston:
Sgt Preston here. Meanwhile back on the "real" topic....I have gathered load information from a variety of both good & bad sources over the years. The first thing I do is to compare a ??posted load?? to my reloading text books. Does the load fall near the mid range of well established loads. If the new load is within the written guide lines, I'll give it a try. Reloading = bombmaking where the bomb is placed 12" in front to your face. Reloading should not be taken lightly. We all need to be PERSONALLY responsible to verify all "given" loads & for our own safety. Failure to verify can lead to trips to the hospital and or damaged guns. Skip's point about using "close enough" components are right on the money. Sgt Preston USMC LLA

+1

 

[Skip Sackett]

Well, just for the record, I wouldn't know you if you came to my door--never met.

And I cetainly don't mind being reminded to give proper cautions or to be more gentle with beginners. The sum of information and thought from all of us is usually more than any one of us can manage, and that's what it's all about-- helping each other out.

Common goals have made for strange "bed-fellows" in the past, nothing new there. OKFC, you are a class act bud!

Sarge,
You are awesome too! Friend!

 

[NKJ nut]

Skip didn't escalate it, the other guy did when he wanted to take something oh so personal. You would think Skip had banged him on the nose with his fist or something. Skip put up a friendly reminder that all of us should take to heart. I know I will. You see I happen to be one of those who has said "go ahead and do it", more than once. I shouldn't do that. I was wrong. I felt in each instance it would be OK to proceed. BUT, square one is the place to start. That IS the safe way. It does protect us from bodily injury or death and it does protect valuable guns from being destroyed. Sometimes we are not as cautious as we should be. Skip reminded ALL of us of that fact. I ( along with most of the rest of you) didn't take it that Skip was calling me (us) a novice and not to be giving advice on "his" forum. I (we) took it as a friendly reminder for us to use caution in giving advice.

Gun 4 Fun you were way too quick to take offense. If you want to be one of those "well recognized and established men" as you call it; you have chosen a poor way of doing it. Whining and pouting is a poor way to gain respect. Jumping to conclusions and inferring wrong doing by another member wont get it for you either. Work to help other people on the forum like Skip does. Do that and you most certainly will have as good a name here as he does.

 

[n4zov]

This is one of those bizzare threads that starts well and then unexpectedly deteriorates. Pity.

+1

 

[NKJ nut]

Originally posted by n4zov:

This is one of those bizzare threads that starts well and then unexpectedly deteriorates. Pity.

+1

I don't think it is particularly bizarre, though I do agree that it did go down hill quick. That was not the fault of the OP. Hopefully the friendly reminder that was put up is what people will remember from this thread. If that is the case this thread will have accomplished its purpose.

 

[walnutred]

Dang, and I thought ol' Smith was directing his comments at me. I feel somehow left out now that I see he was really talking about someone else

 

[Paul5388]

I was loading some shot shells last night in 12 gauge. If they happened to be for a S&W, would/could I be at liberty to share that information with the rest of the forum?

With the direction this thread has progressed to, there isn't any way that would happen, since there isn't any data for the load and there isn't any data for the payload either.

What kind of caveat would I need, as a caution, if I did post that information? Something like, "I made this load up from related data for an entirely different projectile, but it's mostly my own creation. Use it if you dare."

If all that is presented comes solely from the published manuals, there is absolutely no need for any discussion except, "Read page XXX of the XYZ manual". Of course, the manual would also need to have been published in the very recent past to be acceptable.

So, I won't be telling you what I concocted to deal with this problem in my front yard.

 

[Erich]

I can't believe you shot a tied-up prisoner!

 

[Skip Sackett]

Originally posted by Erich:
I can't believe you shot a tied-up prisoner!

You don't need to lead them near as much when they are tied!

 

[Paul5388]

It was a terrorist caught in the act, but there wasn't a need for a trial in this case. The rope was just to facilitate dragging the carcass through the streets of Mosul (or was that Fallujah?), errr ahh pastures of Rusk County.

Oh, I also shoot hogs that are in traps and don't even try a release and shoot approach.

 

[FrankD45]

He looks wet too. Have you been waterboarding???

 

[Paul5388]

Frank,

Here's the other side, the one that wasn't used to drag it up to the house on. It doesn't look as "wet" as the other side.

 

[Erich]

This little piggy went to Paul's house . . .

 

[S/W - Lifer]

This thread brings to mind my foolish youth, reloading, my 6" Model 19 .357 Magnum and Speer's number 8 manual.

I'd discovered the lightning bolt velocity potential of SR-4756 and put together a number of different max .357 loads right out of the book. I'd turned those bad boys loose and they were regular dynamite. Primers flattened & flowed like they had ignited the space shuttle. Some were pierced and had hot gas had etched and pock-marked the nose of the firing pin. Best of all, I couldn't get the brass out of the gun without a mallot. None of the usual tricks would cut it. It took some bonafide pounding to empty the cases from my gun.

This wasn't THE LOAD, it was all the loads. After all, they were all recommended top-end SR 4756 loads for the different bullets.

Just recalling this gives me the chills and it is hard to believe I was that dumb. Foolish, yes; immature, yes; stupid, no doubt. Fill in your own blank, I won't be offended.

What really sunk in over the years is this - anytime you have to mallot the brass out of a revolver it is obvious that they were loaded way past safe pressures. Charge hole expansion was exceptional, meaning each round fired had to have come near to blowing up the gun.

I'm not going to whimper and fault Speer. I should have worked up my loads. As far as I'm concerned, even sticky extraction is too much.

I'm a lot more careful now. I don't care where the data came from. Being safe is the way to load. Now I put reliability and reasonable accuracy over maximum power.

 

[Skip Sackett]

Lifer,

Thanks for bringing this thread back on course!

I thought I'd been HOGNAPPED!

Very insightful and appreciated.

 

[S/W - Lifer]

smith crazy - This is a pretty easy topic for me to speak up on. It finally dawned on me that a revolver failure at 50 or 60 K psi is possibly going to cause the loss of fingers or eyes. All I realy was doing was wrapping my hands around a container for mini-bombs that I had personally constructed. Of course I had stuck diligently to the data in the loading manual to make this happen. I took the load data to be reliable and safe. Maybe in a pressure test barrel - but not in MY gun.

The loads for 110 grain bullets - the hot lick of the day - were approaching 1700 FPS.

The final analysis is: So what?

I expect I could have done 1500 FPS safely, now that I'm older and wiser. But no, I went right for the brass ring.

Rifles, I think, are even worse since you snuggle your face up to a potential bomb. That can't be good.

Being safe in handloading is just common sense. Since I didn't use mine I can at least recall the experience stored under "lessons learned."

 

[James57]

Sometimes things can happen that don't appear to have logic. About 25 years ago I loaded some .38 special loads up with near max charges of 4756 for a Model 15 S&W. These were with 125 gr. JHP Winchester bullets that the loading manual listed at around 1300+ fps.. They shot just fine, producing very flat trajectories and the fired cases were easy to extract and no flattened primers. They were also very accurate. My brother decided he would like to try them in his Model 66 .357 and I gave him a box to try. When he tried these same loads in his 66 they were a different animal altogather. The recoil & bark seemed excessive on the first cylinder. The cases were very hard to extract from the cylinder and the primers were flattened to the point that the primers were trying to flow around the firing pin slightly. He quit after the first cylinder. These loads had been very carefully loaded; each charge of powder hand weighed, etc. They had been worked up slowly from a starting load in my Model 15. The only thing that changed was being shot in 2 different revolvers; one being .38 special and one .357 magnum. I had been loading for 20 years or more at the time and thought I was a very cautious citizen but that experience sure opened my eyes to one fact, when it comes to handloading you can't be too cautious. What works in on revolver might not work in another. I have not loaded that load since. My experience and my opinion anyway. James

 

[Skip Sackett]

Great comments all.

Here is another thing that brings the need for these types of reminders. Anyone notice at the bottom of the main reloading section that there is a banner now that shows who is in it? Every time I have looked since it has been down there, there are far more "guests" than logged in members.

Now I know that there are those that don't automatically log in with each session, but it could mean that we are being "invaded" (good meaning) by those that are "window shopping" and are below even the novice level in our hobby.

Squabbles go on at every level of everything, I'm not speaking to that issue. I am speaking back to the original topic of this thread, caution.

It is possible that some of those "guests" are of the type that see numbers or "go aheads" and use them without checking or any common sense.

I like the way this thread is going. Cautions are good. Reminders are good. Experienced shared is good.

Thanks and keep them coming.