God Protects the stupid.

[misunderestimated]

So I reload to control the quality of my ammo. I cant even tell you how many rounds I have reloaded and shot. The worst problem I have ever had was failure to fire (when I look at the round it looks like a light primer strike) That being said I have a Dillon 650 with a charge alarm for one of the stations. . Last week I started to reload after work till about 9pm so I would have some rounds for a match on Wednesday day. Well I am shooting the match fire off a round and the next round would not chamber. So tap wrack and it would not chamber hard hit to the back of the slide still won't chamber, Drop my magazine and come in with a fresh mag and tap wrack still no chamber, OK brain says STOP ! we have a problem. I let the range master know ,disassemble my firearm,pull the barrel and there it was a squib that was stuck just barely inside of the barrel. THANK YOU GOD! Imagine had the bullet been a little further down the barrel. We knocked out the squib, I finished the match short 120 points (catastrophic) I did not get 2 magazine off in the corce of fire. there is no alibys,no crying ,no reshoots ,you just have to step up and finish the match

So in going over in my head what did I do wrong . I think I figure out what I did wrong. My case feeder was jammed ,I took a case from my shelf and put it in place but I must not of stroked thru the entire stroke because I also got an alarm that I thought was a low primer so I just filled the primers, never realizing it may of been a low powder charge from the half stroke. When things go side ways I normally always go thru a full stroke but leave the loader in the up position and handle down untill I can investigate where the problem is . So I screwed up, I have to make sure I am better tuned in when reloading ammo .

 

[Darth]

"Tap and wrack"

 

[kev74]

I'm glad there was no bang after the tap, rack. I've done similar, also with no catastrophic result.

It sucks at the time, but you won the prize on that one. You'll never try to shoot again without being confident everything is right, and it didn't cost you a gun, finger or eye to learn it!

 

[Robin]

I'm glad for you that nothing more than a wake up call happened. Sometimes we can get complacent, I know I do, a reminder like this is the right medicine. Heck, I wasn't even there and it gave me pause enough to make sure I double down on my procedures. Thank you for posting this.
Robin

 

[Shoots100]

You got lucky. Late nights and a hurried reloading session make for bad news.
I usually load 500 rounds a night and set up for the next nights session after boxing the ammo.
IE, fill the primer tubes, powder hopper, brass and bullets.
I sold my 650 and SDB's and bought another 550 after having issues with my ammo quality.
My 550's have case + bullet feeders.
The auto indexing is sometimes a curse.
I like having the ability to stop the process if an issue arises.
My 550 ammo output is a little less than with the 650, but my worries are a lot less now too.

 

[CzechFan]

How does the charge alarm work on the 650?
Does it detect undercharge as well as double-charge? (I know, I could go check out Dillon's site)
And can I get that alarm for my 550B ? Seems like the manual indexing feature makes it more likely that I might eventually wind up with 2x the intended powder.

 

[squib]

Glad our meeting was not catasrophic.

 

[Eddie Gunks]

I have done the exact same thing. (Tap and rack. ) And then my brain turned on.

My method when I reload is if the press stops for any reason, malfunctions, does not finish the stroke, I take all of the cases off of the Press and start fresh. The only one that I leave on is the one that needs to be crimpped. I can probably leave the last two stations on, but I just feel better taking them all back off and starting new.

That is probably where your “no powder” round came from.

I stopped using the alarm system for the powder check because of all the false positive so I was getting.