Dangers of handloading process

[Dombo63]

My toothbrush tastes of brass

[toffe wrapper]

Yep many years ago my mate crunched a primer on a lee 1000 and they all went bang. Bit of a cut finger and new primer parts required.
JF if your reading this PM me it would be great to catch up.

At the shield hardy shoot one of or our guys had his 10mm Glock go bang during the match, suspected double charge on hand loads result 1 broken Glock and a cut hand a bit of shock so no drama.

Reloading is dangerous but WTF you only live once and factory ammo eats into the beer money

[ovenpaa]

I had a long think about this and no, I cannot think of a single personal instance where something remotely serious has happened to myself or the reloaders I know. I have never had a primer go bang whilst being seated nor had powder spontaneously combust. I have probably picked up the odd cut or two however nothing memorable and worst case scenarios are really silly things like passing a tray of prepared brass to the Viking for powder throwing, only to be told a few minutes later that I had not primed the last two rows. For me/us reloading is an intrinsicly safe exercise and I probably go to more extremes than some as I do things like expanding and necking down brass a couple of sizes and machine my own brass from scratch.

Thinking about it, I have not even managed to burn a finger or two whilst annealing and about the only things that have ever been damaged are cases during early wildcat experiments.

[Mr_Logic]

Matt - yes, the pain is very real. As for major danger, er, no...

[Dougan]

Reloading is dangerous

Not looking to argue, but I've got to disagree with that - while the consequences of shooting a wrong load can be bad, the actual process of loading is very low risk...

...the likelihood of an accident (assuming you're doing it properly) is very low, and the potential consequences aren't very serious...if you're wearing eye protection what's the worst that could happen; you could get a bit singed, or get a bit of primer embedded in you...

...I would say that everyday gardening and DIY carry much more risk.

[ovenpaa]

Dougan, you raise a very good point regarding eye protection and I find myself wearing such things more and more, I use them in the workshop, when I am reloading and just about all of the time I am shooting and one resolution for 2015 is to always wear eye protection at the firing point.

Eye protection is cheap and easily replaced, eyes are not.

[Swamp Donkey]

Dougan, you raise a very good point regarding eye protection and I find myself wearing such things more and more, I use them in the workshop, when I am reloading and just about all of the time I am shooting and one resolution for 2015 is to always wear eye protection at the firing point.

Eye protection is cheap and easily replaced, eyes are not.

Very good point there Davy. Not even worth thinking about, eyes are precious. In fact, losing one doesn't even bare thinking of :/

[bigfathairybiker]

I spilt hot coffee over my keyboard when I saw the price Midway charge for reloading gear.

Mark

[Dougan]

Dougan, you raise a very good point regarding eye protection and I find myself wearing such things more and more, I use them in the workshop, when I am reloading and just about all of the time I am shooting and one resolution for 2015 is to always wear eye protection at the firing point.

Eye protection is cheap and easily replaced, eyes are not.

Apart from 'stripper clip thumb', the only other shooting injury I've had was when I got a bit of still-burning powder in my eye (faulty ammo in a .22 semi auto)...it stuck to the white of my eye (fortunately only the white...) and was very uncomfortable for days...

...and yet I can still be lazy when it come to using eye protection while shooting...I think I'll follow your lead and make more effort this year.

[Alpha1]

ovenpaa wrote:

Dougan, you raise a very good point regarding eye protection and I find myself wearing such things more and more, I use them in the workshop, when I am reloading and just about all of the time I am shooting and one resolution for 2015 is to always wear eye protection at the firing point.

Eye protection is cheap and easily replaced, eyes are not.


Apart from 'stripper clip thumb', the only other shooting injury I've had was when I got a bit of still-burning powder in my eye (faulty ammo in a .22 semi auto)...it stuck to the white of my eye (fortunately only the white...) and was very uncomfortable for days...

...and yet I can still be lazy when it come to using eye protection while shooting...I think I'll follow your lead and make more effort this year.

_________________

I am paranoid about eye protection for a good reason this is me the day after being released from Hospital having surgery on my right eye to save my sight. At the same time they removed a cataract from the left eye and replaced the lense in the eye otherwise I would not have been able to see at all while we waited to see how the right eye recovered. I found out afterwards they also removed the lens from the right eye and replaced it so I would not have to have follow up surgery if the right eye recovered successfully . It took a couple of month but luckily the sight returned in the right eye all though not as good as I would like. The lenses in my eyes only work at one distance I can see for miles but can not see a foot in front of me with out corrective glasses.
My point is GET YOUR EYE PROTECTION ON.