NEVER shoot someone else’s hand loads.

Never trust anyone else’s hand loads.

CSB to follow if any interest.

im almost drunk, lets hear it!!

I'll read it.

Just so you know, guys have been known to mistake grams for grains, thus developing the new +P+++ round.

Come on, this ain’t some safe thread.   Pics of blown gun for bonus points.

Did this guy give you some ammo?

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I saw that thread...

I’d like to see that velocity.  Gotta be in 9x23 range.

OST

No pics of blown up rifle....because it didn’t happen.

God’s angels watching over me.



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I ran a couple of these reloads down this “new to me” rifle.

These reloads all looked good.
Had the reload data on the case with permanent marker. 71.0 grains of IMR 4831 with some kind of 150 grain soft point....(they were Grand Slams) everything looked reasonable and it appeared the previous owner was conscientious about reloading.
The first one felt good and the bolt was normal to cycle. But the bolt was REALLY hard to open on the 2’d shot. Blew the primer out of the last one I fired.

I pulled the rest of the bullets apart and found a powder that was absolutely NOT IMR 4831
And the measurements I took were eye opening.

Wow, glad to hear no damage.   You just reminded me I have to tear down some 100 hand loads of .308 I got in a gun deal.  The guy who loaded it seemed solid, but I’ll never shoot it or give it away.

Local guy sells handloads..

No way am I shooting those.

When I took the rest apart I used one of those RCBS green hammers. Some came apart with 3 whacks-some needed 12!  I got a set of dies in the deal (in a box with the original California RCBS address and a price tag of $14.50!) I took the dies apart and it looked like they had been in the trenches of WW1-all full of weeds and dirt.
The powder was some kind of ball that reminded me of Winchester 721 or similar and (thankfully) measured light on my scales.

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Not many of us can afford it!  

I had some stubborn ones to pull down. Simply seating further didn't work, and I broke the collet the rcbs hammer uses trying to beat them out.

Finished by seating about 20thou in, two whacks with the hammer, and finish with the collet.

I used a regular shell holder in place of the hammer's collet. It destroyed some of the case rims, but I got my powder/primer/bullet back.

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It not just over charges of powder

I got some dead guys  3006 reloads
They looked fine, pulled one powder weight matched what was put on the box

Out of a whim I threw one in my case guage. It fell in an extra 30 thousandths more than
it should have . All three hundred of them had expensive headspace

Made 8x57 out of the brass, threw the powder on the rosé bushes

I did.  Still alive.  Nothing broke.

I was gifted a bunch of loaded .30-30, all loaded with a Lee hand loader (uses a hammer).

I weighed every loaded round and put them in groups.  Heavies were found to have 170 gr projectiles, the rest were 150.

Powder was measured with a scoop for the loading method.  I made a mean weight group and pulled the lights and heavies.  All of the charges were extremely consistent and anomalies were due to case weight.  Even with the mean group, powder weights were consistent.  All were lighter than starting loads in the current IMR 4064 catalog. No high charges, no empties, so I proceeded.

I fired the cases and found they were slightly oversized and wouldn't chamber in my Marlin.  They chambered mostly fine in my Winchester.  Around 50 of these reloads worked fine.

The rest I tumbled before pulling because the brass was not cleaned.  I sized, trimmed, and restuffed all of them that had undamaged projectiles.  


There may be a safe way to shoot someone elses reloads, but don't just run them blindly without some testing.  A digital scale is very necessary for what I described.

 Yes.  Expensive.

c

Damn spell checker!!