The Goose
NES Member
After almost 20 years and literally thousands of rounds of ammo reloaded I finally blew it big time. My first instinct (once fear, disgust and embarrassment have subsided) is to completely bury this, pretend it never happened and move on. My next instinct is to share the experience in the hope that someone else does not make the same mistake.
I hit the range today to try out my brand new S&W 686 +1 snubby in .357 mag. I was about half way through my second box of reloads, I pressed the trigger, gun went boom, something hit me in the face, safety glasses went flying, the left lens of my regular glasses also went flying and I was standing there going WTF just happened. Then I was frantically scrambling trying to find my lost eye glass lens so that I could see clearly again. I popped the lens back into the frame and below is what I found.
I was shooting a 158 gr. JHP over the starting load of True Blue from the Lyman manual. Recoil was fairly mild and then BOOM. A double charge (I believe). The good news is that other than a bruised cheek bone (and ego), pitted eyeglass lens and a completely mangled brand new revolver no real harm was done. Thank God for safety glasses (and thank God that no one else was there cause pieces went flying). They probably saved my left eye, given that the safety glasses were smashed and my regular lens had a good ding in it. I will say that this type of event really gets the blood pumping and heart pounding.
After composing myself I packed up and while driving home I just kept thinking about what could have happened to cause this. I am (was) meticulous when I reload. I always focus and I check the powder charge about every 10 rounds or so. The session that produced this load was no different. I went over every detail in my mind and then I think I might have figured it out. At one point a piece of debris had fouled up the primer feed and I stopped to clear it. Once cleared I continued reloading and I think this is where I made the mistake. I should have cleared everything off of the shellplate at that point. Just dump the powder back and started over. Instead I just went "Oh yeah, this is where I left off" and kept on going. No doubt I double charged it at that point. A really stupid mistake and completely avoidable. If memory serves the load was 8.6 grains with a max load of 9.5 (I do not have the data in front of me). So a double charge would be more than 17 grains. So this is the result of not taking a few minutes to be safe. The .357 magnum is a fairly hot round to begin with and with a case that can accept 2 and even 3 times the safe load of some powders it ain't no foolin' around.
I hit the range today to try out my brand new S&W 686 +1 snubby in .357 mag. I was about half way through my second box of reloads, I pressed the trigger, gun went boom, something hit me in the face, safety glasses went flying, the left lens of my regular glasses also went flying and I was standing there going WTF just happened. Then I was frantically scrambling trying to find my lost eye glass lens so that I could see clearly again. I popped the lens back into the frame and below is what I found.
I was shooting a 158 gr. JHP over the starting load of True Blue from the Lyman manual. Recoil was fairly mild and then BOOM. A double charge (I believe). The good news is that other than a bruised cheek bone (and ego), pitted eyeglass lens and a completely mangled brand new revolver no real harm was done. Thank God for safety glasses (and thank God that no one else was there cause pieces went flying). They probably saved my left eye, given that the safety glasses were smashed and my regular lens had a good ding in it. I will say that this type of event really gets the blood pumping and heart pounding.
After composing myself I packed up and while driving home I just kept thinking about what could have happened to cause this. I am (was) meticulous when I reload. I always focus and I check the powder charge about every 10 rounds or so. The session that produced this load was no different. I went over every detail in my mind and then I think I might have figured it out. At one point a piece of debris had fouled up the primer feed and I stopped to clear it. Once cleared I continued reloading and I think this is where I made the mistake. I should have cleared everything off of the shellplate at that point. Just dump the powder back and started over. Instead I just went "Oh yeah, this is where I left off" and kept on going. No doubt I double charged it at that point. A really stupid mistake and completely avoidable. If memory serves the load was 8.6 grains with a max load of 9.5 (I do not have the data in front of me). So a double charge would be more than 17 grains. So this is the result of not taking a few minutes to be safe. The .357 magnum is a fairly hot round to begin with and with a case that can accept 2 and even 3 times the safe load of some powders it ain't no foolin' around.
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