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Reloading Precautions for every re-loader

4K views 9 replies 10 participants last post by  dt-em 
#1 ·
Grab your shells 5 at a time and look inside every hull to be sure it is empty.

Do not rely on shaking them, some are actually sabotaged w/foreign objects let alone gravel from being raked up.

I have found chewing gum, gum wrappers, and even a dime in empties.

After inspecting the hulls, I go one step further w/Federal Top Guns, Estates and all shells w/ paper base wads, I put them on a cookie sheet and put them in an oven approx 170-200 degrees for about 20-30 minutes, leave them in the oven on the sheet until they cool down for easy handling before reloading them.

Serves 2 purposes, dries them out, no bloopers from moisture, less smoke.

I would bet that some gun blowups are caused by debris in empty hulls, in early years I had stumbled on this, a stone wedged in the powder drop tube and held back powder drop, then dislodged and dropped a large volume of powder, at the time I was loading Wnnchester Super Lite and a double charge could easily been done as the bushing was a #19 Super Lite Is a heavy Dense Ball Powder and would easily take a double charge.

Just think what chewing gum would do?


Gary Bryant
Dr.longshot
 
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#4 ·
I always remove my hull from the chamber making sure it's all there before I drop it in my hull hamper. Take a quick look down the bbl. before I load the next shell.

All empties go from the hamper, placed on gun room floor and inspected before I load them. I keep a piece of straight, coat hamger wire, beside the loader and before loading, I push it thru the powder and shot drop tubes on my MECS.

Vern
 
#7 ·
I only reload the factory shells I've shot. Been out of dumpster diving for quite awhile. Obstructions inside the hulls usually reveal themselves during reloading and then are dealt with. Inspect, reload, shoot, and reload again....now that oven deal -- way too much for me, but I can see why you do it if you have the time and use raked-up hulls....cya
 
#8 ·
Only reload shells I have shot. Inspect them prior to taking them home. Second inspection when putting them in shell holders [50 each]. Inspected again prior to placing in reloader. Good to MARK the bottom of the reloaded shell with marker/slashes. No more that 4 slashes or 5 times fired... no matter what the condition of the shell. Checked again when placing the finished shells in boxes. Reload STS, Golds, AA with Spolar wads. Fred
 
#9 ·
A long time ago, I put somewhat damp hulls in the oven to dry out, around 150 degrees. They all came out nice and dry and I thought the heat relieved all the stresses in the plastic hulls. Sweet!

Everything was super until I started reloading. I heard shot dribble out when the first loaded shell rolled off the machine. Inspected it and found a rather large hole in the middle of the crimp. Discard it and without much thinking cranked the next one - same result. Adjusted the machine crimp station to its max, next shell - same result. Dang it, what is going on!

After much fooling around, found out that the hulls that came out of the oven were shorter in length than those that did not receive the heat treatment. The heat had resulted in shrinking of the hulls! Had to discard a good 250 once-fired hulls.

Lesson learned.
 
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