Whoops

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Whoops

Post by Baldrick314 » 09 Jan 2014, 10:14 pm

So I took my new pistol out to the range yesterday for it's first shot. Although it mostly went well I had one failure and it was a big one

Image

In the photo below you can see the tiny amount of brass that kept it from being a complete separation

Image

Turns out I got a bridged charge when I was loading. One case got none or very little powder and the next case copped a double dose. After doing some reading up on progressive presses I found two possible causes, a dirty powder funnel on the die that charges your case and pulling the handle too quickly on the press. I pulled apart my press and did find it quite dirty so I cleaned it out and then charged three cases and weighed the powder from them going much slower than I normally would. All three weighed exactly the same charge so hopefully that's problem fixed for now
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Re: Whoops

Post by Noisydad » 10 Jan 2014, 6:02 am

I'd bet that raised your heart rate and livened up your day! I don't use a powder thrower but have ALWAYS been in the habit of looking in EVERY case after tipping in the powder and again before seating the bullet.
There's still a few of Wile. E Coyote's ideas that I haven't tried yet.
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Re: Whoops

Post by AusC » 10 Jan 2014, 7:18 am

Noisydad wrote:I'd bet that raised your heart rate and livened up your day!


bang, bang, bang, KABOOOOM!

:lol:

How did your pistol fare afterwards?

No harm done?
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Re: Whoops

Post by Chronos » 10 Jan 2014, 7:26 am

Most important is that your ok but is the gun ok?

Perhaps a change of powder would help reduce the chance if this happening for others. A friend of mine destroyed hey .357 lever gun by double charging a case. Something that could have been prevented by changing to a powder that filled the case, which she did. A charge of the old powder less than half filled the case, while the new powder 3/4 filled the case meaning a double charge over flowed making a mess and if the bullet was seated ( nit tgat you could on that much powder) it sat in 1 1/4 charges of powder not 2


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Re: Whoops

Post by Baldrick314 » 10 Jan 2014, 7:39 am

I normally do visually inspect each one before I seat projectiles but I missed this one. The gun survived fine :). It didn't really hit me till later how close to disaster I came but it's definitely an eye opener. I'm going to just go slow and see how the consistently the press performs after the clean up but if I have more issues I'll look at different powder options or perhaps just weighing every charge and manually charging cases
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Re: Whoops

Post by Old Fart » 10 Jan 2014, 7:55 am

Bad luck Baldrick.

Good to hear everyone/everything is ok though.

I can only imagine blowing your your new pistol on the first shoot :cry:
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Re: Whoops

Post by brisb » 10 Jan 2014, 11:51 am

Lesson learned without any harm done at least.

How tough was that to pull out of the chamber afterwards?
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Re: Whoops

Post by yoshie » 10 Jan 2014, 12:08 pm

That's the risk you run with a progressive, Dillon make a powder alarm that triggers if not enough or too much powder is thrown. Another cause could be short stroking or double stroking. Its common when something goes wrong, like a primer goes a stray, or case misfeeds etc. If I ever have a stoppage I always check where I got up to and usually dump the powder back and put the case back into rotation after priming.
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Re: Whoops

Post by Baldrick314 » 10 Jan 2014, 12:35 pm

brisb wrote:Lesson learned without any harm done at least.

How tough was that to pull out of the chamber afterwards?


It ejected fine. I didn't know anything had gone wrong until I was picking my brass up. I think it was a combination of too much powder and brittle brass cos it was about 15 year old once fired
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Re: Whoops

Post by brisb » 10 Jan 2014, 12:37 pm

Interesting that you didn't notice it for what looks like a pretty serious failure.

Where you shooting solo at the time or along side everyone else?
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Re: Whoops

Post by Baldrick314 » 10 Jan 2014, 3:34 pm

brisb wrote:Interesting that you didn't notice it for what looks like a pretty serious failure.

Where you shooting solo at the time or along side everyone else?


I was shooting with about 6 other blokes, all far more experienced than me at pistol shooting, and noone noticed anything out of the ordinary
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Re: Whoops

Post by yoshie » 10 Jan 2014, 5:50 pm

Did you get a squib with the round that got too little powder? If not I'd say you might not have had a bridge or a double charge, especially if you didn't notice a bigger recoil round, also if you didn't get a projectile stuck in the barrel. I'd say it was more likely old brass or just a faulty case.
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Re: Whoops

Post by Baldrick314 » 10 Jan 2014, 7:56 pm

yoshie wrote:Did you get a squib with the round that got too little powder? If not I'd say you might not have had a bridge or a double charge, especially if you didn't notice a bigger recoil round, also if you didn't get a projectile stuck in the barrel. I'd say it was more likely old brass or just a faulty case.


I had a couple rounds that I thought were squids that day but each one cleared the barrel but didn't cycle the action. If I hadn't had those I'd assume the same. As it is I think it's a combination of old brass and a larger than average load
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Re: Whoops

Post by Supporter » 11 Jan 2014, 4:04 pm

Baldrick314 wrote:I was shooting with about 6 other blokes, all far more experienced than me at pistol shooting, and noone noticed anything out of the ordinary


Tough to tell in that kind of setting.

When there are 4 or 5 or more blokes shooting at once it just becomes a rattle of shots and you'd need something to go real wrong to notice at the time.

Good that it didn't happen in this case :)
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Re: Whoops

Post by Baldrick314 » 11 Jan 2014, 4:12 pm

Supporter wrote:
Baldrick314 wrote:I was shooting with about 6 other blokes, all far more experienced than me at pistol shooting, and noone noticed anything out of the ordinary


Tough to tell in that kind of setting.

When there are 4 or 5 or more blokes shooting at once it just becomes a rattle of shots and you'd need something to go real wrong to notice at the time.

Good that it didn't happen in this case :)


The match we were shooting is one shooter at a time so I'm sure someone would have noticed. Main thing is nothing broke and noone got injured :)
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Re: Whoops

Post by Will » 12 Jan 2014, 10:18 am

Baldrick314 wrote:Main thing is nothing broke and noone got injured :)


That's what you want.

At least you learned your lesson in a harmless outcome.

Could have been worse...
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Re: Whoops

Post by Baldrick314 » 15 Jan 2014, 8:27 pm

Took the Glock out today and fired 100 rounds with no failures. Looks like everything is running smooth now :)
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Re: Whoops

Post by Blackened » 16 Jan 2014, 8:59 am

Baldrick314 wrote:The match we were shooting is one shooter at a time so I'm sure someone would have noticed. Main thing is nothing broke and noone got injured :)


One at a time you maybe would.

When there is a firing line of 10 blokes though it's like a hail of detonations. A bomb could go off half the time and you wouldn't notice it :lol:
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