Stopped by the range yesterday to run a few mags through my new (new to me that is) Sig 229 in .40 S&W and got into a conversation with the guy next to me who was doing the same with his new (to him) Colt Officer's Model 1911. He had some factory hardball and some JHP reloads that a friend had given him to try out and was having trouble getting the JHPs to feed, so we talked a bit about polishing the feed ramp, etc., He eventually decided he was happy just running hardball through the gun so ended up giving me the 49 remaining reloads in the box with the assurance that the guy who loaded them "knew what he was doing."
Well, having not recently fallen off the proverbial turnip truck I wasn't about to just shoot anything I didn't know the provenance of, so upon getting home I pulled a couple bullets and weighed the charges and found that they were 260 gr. heads over 4.9 gr. of a very fine-grained powder. Now, of course I don't trust myself to ID a powder (except the obvious Red Dot and similar "tagged" ones) by sight, but a few minutes spent with a reloading manual showed that it was most likely 700-X (4.9 gr max charge) or perhaps a slightly less-than-max charge of Bullseye, and knowing a bit about the relative burn rates of powders, I figured they're most likely safe loads. So I'm thinking that maybe I'll shoot them up, and while I'm deciding if I want to do that or simply pull the bullets and reuse bullets and cases, I notice what appears to be a big scratch on one case. Upon closer inspection, it's actually a split that runs damn near from the case mouth to the case head (!), and after I look at a few more, something on toward half of them have similar split cases! Now I know that the .45 ACP is a pretty low-pressure cartridge, but that's just wrong.
So, a reminder to all who may encounter similar benefactors - if it's not an obvious factory load, or if you didn't reload them yourself, or if you don't know for absolutely, positively sure who did reload them (and of course also trust that person), then it's usually best to pass, assuming you value your weapon and the hand that holds it, that is.
Well, having not recently fallen off the proverbial turnip truck I wasn't about to just shoot anything I didn't know the provenance of, so upon getting home I pulled a couple bullets and weighed the charges and found that they were 260 gr. heads over 4.9 gr. of a very fine-grained powder. Now, of course I don't trust myself to ID a powder (except the obvious Red Dot and similar "tagged" ones) by sight, but a few minutes spent with a reloading manual showed that it was most likely 700-X (4.9 gr max charge) or perhaps a slightly less-than-max charge of Bullseye, and knowing a bit about the relative burn rates of powders, I figured they're most likely safe loads. So I'm thinking that maybe I'll shoot them up, and while I'm deciding if I want to do that or simply pull the bullets and reuse bullets and cases, I notice what appears to be a big scratch on one case. Upon closer inspection, it's actually a split that runs damn near from the case mouth to the case head (!), and after I look at a few more, something on toward half of them have similar split cases! Now I know that the .45 ACP is a pretty low-pressure cartridge, but that's just wrong.
So, a reminder to all who may encounter similar benefactors - if it's not an obvious factory load, or if you didn't reload them yourself, or if you don't know for absolutely, positively sure who did reload them (and of course also trust that person), then it's usually best to pass, assuming you value your weapon and the hand that holds it, that is.