Whoops

[Baldrick314]

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



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



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

[Noisydad]

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.

[AusC]

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

bang, bang, bang, KABOOOOM!



How did your pistol fare afterwards?

No harm done?

[Chronos]

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


Chrinos

[Baldrick314]

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

[Old Fart]

Bad luck Baldrick.

Good to hear everyone/everything is ok though.

I can only imagine blowing your your new pistol on the first shoot

[brisb]

Lesson learned without any harm done at least.

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

[yoshie]

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.

[Baldrick314]

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

[brisb]

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?

[Baldrick314]

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

[yoshie]

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.

[Baldrick314]

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

[Supporter]

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

[Baldrick314]

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

[Will]

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...

[Baldrick314]

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

[Blackened]

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