Hum. Guess I messed up.

[hotrod150]

Personally I have always thought that charging a whole batch of cases in a loading block was just asking for trouble. Just seems way too easy to double charge or miss one. I mount my powder measure to the press with a bracket that goes under the lock ring on the die, and seat a bullet in each case immediately after charging it. Charge case, seat bullet, repeat as required. In 30 off-and-on years of handloading, with over 16,000 rifle & pistol rounds loaded on a single-stage press, I have never repeat never double-charged a case or missed a charge. (yet)

 

[arjay]

After 25-30 years of reloading thousands of shotgun,rifle and pistol rounds,I managed to make two squibs in a small group of 38s a few years ago while batch loading.It can happen.

 

[kwselke]

I like loads that fill up a case. When I load .38 it a small amount of powder in a big case. I have to take a flashlight and shine it into each case to check for no charge or double charges. The dipstick idea sounds good.

 

[rwsmith]

I use two blocks

Personally I have always thought that charging a whole batch of cases in a loading block was just asking for trouble. Just seems way too easy to double charge or miss one. I mount my powder measure to the press with a bracket that goes under the lock ring on the die, and seat a bullet in each case immediately after charging it. Charge case, seat bullet, repeat as required. In 30 off-and-on years of handloading, with over 16,000 rifle & pistol rounds loaded on a single-stage press, I have never repeat never double-charged a case or missed a charge. (yet)

I use two loading blocks. Empties on the left, charged ones for the right. I never tried to charge a whole block of cases because I think that's asking for trouble. And I still check them with a flashlight.

 

[hdfinder47]

Back in the late 70's I loaded 2 boxes (100 rounds) of 38 special PPC loads without any powder. Single stage press. Got distracted. Ended up pulling 6 boxes to figure which ones were bad. Hadn't happened before or since but it happened. (Now I load on a progressive.)
If you fired off a whole box with good results, it ain't the powder, IMO - and as others have stated. Pull 'em and try again.

 

[SgtLumpy]

I use two loading blocks. Empties on the left, charged ones for the right. I never tried to charge a whole block of cases because I think that's asking for trouble. And I still check them with a flashlight.

That's a perfect solution. Another is to mount UNcharged brass onto the block primer side UP. Then as you charge them, put them back in the block mouth UP.

And no matter how you charge, still check them with a flashlight.


Sgt Lumpy

 

[fredj338]

DO you decap then tumble brass? I have never not had powder ignite. It would have to have been badly contaminated. I have powder 20yrs old that still shoots fine. A clogged primer flash hole could be the culprit if you are sure powder was in the case.
I load on a progressive, but when I do go to the ss press, I turn all my cases over primer side up & charge one at a time, impossible to over look or dbl a charge.

 

[alwslate]

Like some others on here I also no longer use loading blocks. My
powder measure is mounted right beside my press. Pick up a case,
charge with powder, look inside, start bullet into case and seat bullet
with press. Hard to make a mistake this way.

 

[Wireman02]

squib

I've had the same thing happen with an old bottle of unique.
powder seems ok smell, visual. 3 squibs same batch. I suspect
no powder.

 

[sellersm]

The collet pullers will not work on lead bullets. Mine will pull 158 gr. JHP .357 bullets in nothing flat. Even the RCBS instructions state they do not work on lead bullets. Since it is stated in the OP that the loads in question are 158 gr. LSWC brucev is going to need a whack-o-mole puller.

Don't tell my collet puller that! It hasn't met one lead bullet yet that it hasn't pulled!! Don't mean to be argumentative, but my experience is exact opposite of what's stated...

 

[sellersm]

And to the OP, I'm guessing those rounds have little to no powder in them, as opposed to having bad powder.

 

[brucev]

Well boys... there's good news, and there's bad news.

First the good news. The powder is fine. There were 100 rds. loaded. I pulled down the rounds in the first box, all of which had no powder. I pulled down the rounds in the second box, just to make sure I hadn't double-charged them. They were all fine. I reloaded all the cases with the same 3.7 gr. load. Went to the range and shot a fifty round qualification twice. Scored 246 and 248. The 248 would have been 250 if I hadn't got in a hurry and dropped one round into the eight ring. Looks like my 686 is going to be burning a lot of that 452AA.

Now for the bad news. While throwing powder charges, the measure acted odd. I looked and found a shotgun pellet, about 7 1/2 size, in the powder. I got a fine mesh sifter from the kitchen and screened the powder. In about 2.4 pounds of powder I found almost a tablespoon of lead shotgun pellets. Don't know how those things got in the powder. My brother was an extremely careful person. I'm pretty sure he didn't put those pellets in there. At any rate, I screened the powder using a very fine mesh and removed the pellets.

Then, disaster struck. As I was moving the canister to the table, I messed up and dropped it. Almost an entire large Solo cup of powder spilled on the floor. What to do? What to do? Well... I swept it up and screened it as before. Surprisingly there was just about no foreign matter in the powder. After five screenings, there was not anything beyond a few pieces of dead grass and some cat hair. I set this powder aside and later used it to load the rounds that I took to the range.

Now, in all my 30 years of reloading I've never dropped a open canister of powder. If it were not so hard to find pistol powder, I might have thrown the spilled powder away. However in my area I have in the last year found a single pound of Red Dot and a single pound of Winchester 231. I use the Red Dot along with some old Green Dot and Herco for lead bullet loads in my 1903 and 1903-A3 rifles. I plan to use the 231 in my revolvers. I am however going to have to stretch this 452 along with what I have left of Unique. Hopefully the availability and price of powder for reloading will not continue to be so very limited and high.

 

[arjay]

Supplies seem to be trickling back.My lgs had quite a few bricks of Federal Match sp primers last week and the gun show I attended last weekend had several vendors with good supplies of powder for around $30/lb.

 

[Green Frog]

Personally I have always thought that charging a whole batch of cases in a loading block was just asking for trouble. Just seems way too easy to double charge or miss one. I mount my powder measure to the press with a bracket that goes under the lock ring on the die, and seat a bullet in each case immediately after charging it. Charge case, seat bullet, repeat as required. In 30 off-and-on years of handloading, with over 16,000 rifle & pistol rounds loaded on a single-stage press, I have never repeat never double-charged a case or missed a charge. (yet)

Whatever safety procedure one uses will only work as well as it is followed. I find it easy to get distracted while working and put a bullet into a case with no powder... so I like to fill a 50 round block with cases and perform each task to all alike before moving on to the next step (with a single stage or turret press.) After filling all my cases with the proper amount of powder, it is easy to look at the whole tray (with strong light shining in) and find any cases that have a different amount (more or less) than their neighbors.

In reality, the main place I've gotten in trouble in recent years was with a Dillon 550 that bridged powder.

This works for me... be sure and reread the first sentence of this post before you pick a strategy for yourself.

Froggie

 

[arjay]

I do better loading a block of cases with powder,then looking at them with a strong light.I was loading some 38s one at a time on my new set up this morning and caught myself trying to seat a bullet on an empty case :-O

 

[Bkreutz]

This is the reason I got the optional powder check system when I bought my 650. If there's too much or not enough powder in the case, it starts squealing. It's main intention was to warn of double or no charge situations but I've found that if I adjust the system really tight I can get a squeal out of a load that deviates more than 0.1 grain. Really handy system, works much like the earlier post about the marked dowel rod except that it's electronic (and I make sure to check they system before each session to make sure the battery isn't dead or something else has happened).

 

[BLUEDOT37]

Put the lime in the coconut & mix them both together

Well boys... there's good news, and there's bad news...

Glad they're shooting good for you now. That's a bummer about spilling the powder, but I think we've all had a fumble, in one shape or fashion, that we kick ourselves for. I doubt "a little dirt" will hurt it.

Did your brother use the 452AA to reload shotgun shells? I'm pretty sure that was the same one I used to use long ago for shotgun shells. Maybe one of his kids was helping him by directly adding the birdshot to the powder, to speed up the process?

 

[Steve in Vermont]

Two observations. To paraphrase Murphy's Law, anything that can be spilled will, at some time, be spilled. As to observing the level of powder in a casing, with some (Trail Boss) it's easy. Others, such as BE, is more of a challenge. This was one reason I stopped using BE. We should all ask ourselves: Whatever method I use am I satisfied that every load is safe? And I mean every one, not 9999 out of 10000.

 

[Nevada Ed]

Sorry to hear of the spill............
I think most of us have flipped some primers, powder or bullets onto the floor in out travels.

It cleans up but I noticed the bending over gets a little harder each year, now............. and yes, I dumped some lead shot into a pound of power, too!!

Only did it one time!! Made sure to never do that again. Only one jug open at a time from that day on.
It also helps if the brain is engaged, before putting the feet or hands into motion, since getting older and the eye sight is slowly going.

Way to go with the qualifying..........you young whipper snapper.

 

[RacinbobSW]

Here's my 2 cents worth. It seems that the problem could be with the reloads for whatever reason. Bad powder, mistake, etc. A while back I loaded up 100 .38 spl. on my Dillon Sq Deal. After I was finished I couldn't help but have a feeling something was wrong with the rounds. I rethought everything over and over and couldn't pinpoint what was bugging me. I pulled all 100 just for my peace of mind. My point is, if there's any question what so ever about your reloads, don't shoot them. To this day I still have no clue what was bugging me about those rounds but I was glad I didn't shoot them. It's just not worth the potential risk.