I was loading a couple hundred rounds of .223 rifle ammo the other day, and when I was done putting the bullets into a group of 50 cartridges I could not remember if I had done a visual check of all the cartridges to see that I had filled them properly with powder before seating the bullets.
The idea of possibly touching off a cartridge with no powder in it was not a good thought, so I thought about pulling all of the bullets and making absolutely sure the next time around. I gave the problem a little thought and came up with a great idea - WEIGH all of the loaded cartridges. Every cartridge in the whole batch weighed within 1-1/2 grains of each other. Since the powder weight was supposed to be 27 grains, I was then absolutely sure that I had charged every case with powder.
Would this work with small pistol cartridges? If all the cases weighed nearly the same then it should work but with only a few grains of powder, one could not be as sure as I was with the 27-grain powder charge.
The bottom line - don't let something distract your attention during the reloading and allow a mistake to be made. Double-check each and every process as you do them.
Another thing that I've heard of folks doing that scares the heck out of me is inadvertently mixing powder types in the same can. Assume, for example, that you've been loading a particular powder into your cartridges and have powder left over in your measure. You have three or four different powder containers on the bench. Without thinking about it, you open the wrong container and pour the powder from the measure into it. Imagine what could happen the next time you grab that powder container for a loading session.
The bottom line to prevent this gross error: Have only one powder container on your bench at a time and make sure it's the proper one for the powder that you're using for the current batch of reloads. Along the same line of thinking, have only one type of bullet and one type of primer on the bench at a time (making sure that they are right for the cartridges being loaded, of course).
The idea of possibly touching off a cartridge with no powder in it was not a good thought, so I thought about pulling all of the bullets and making absolutely sure the next time around. I gave the problem a little thought and came up with a great idea - WEIGH all of the loaded cartridges. Every cartridge in the whole batch weighed within 1-1/2 grains of each other. Since the powder weight was supposed to be 27 grains, I was then absolutely sure that I had charged every case with powder.
Would this work with small pistol cartridges? If all the cases weighed nearly the same then it should work but with only a few grains of powder, one could not be as sure as I was with the 27-grain powder charge.
The bottom line - don't let something distract your attention during the reloading and allow a mistake to be made. Double-check each and every process as you do them.
Another thing that I've heard of folks doing that scares the heck out of me is inadvertently mixing powder types in the same can. Assume, for example, that you've been loading a particular powder into your cartridges and have powder left over in your measure. You have three or four different powder containers on the bench. Without thinking about it, you open the wrong container and pour the powder from the measure into it. Imagine what could happen the next time you grab that powder container for a loading session.
The bottom line to prevent this gross error: Have only one powder container on your bench at a time and make sure it's the proper one for the powder that you're using for the current batch of reloads. Along the same line of thinking, have only one type of bullet and one type of primer on the bench at a time (making sure that they are right for the cartridges being loaded, of course).
