The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Sets the scene,
Over the weekend I was in buying mode and managed to locate and purchase a very nice Enfield No4 7.62 conversion, the chap I purchased from gave me all sorts of buts and bobs to go with it as he was giving up rifle shooting, very nice I thought.
Among this treasure trove of kit was approx. 250 rounds of reloaded ammunition which I thought very nice a deal sweetener if ever I saw one.
Here comes the good bit,,,, I asked him what the particular load he had made was, he wasn't sure but said he had followed advice given to him by a gun shop, so picking his brains some more we got as far as a 155gr bullet, nice I thought, then came the powder warning bells began to ring as he mentioned Bullseye and other powders, say no more I thought im going to pull the lot, which I duly did.
The results were very interesting to say the least.
Some were identified with having about 44 gr of I think is H4895 I pulled all of them.
The rest which he said were bullseye well I don't know it seemed to be a mixture of very fine ball powder and extruded stick, yes in the same case the charges ranged from 0 to about 47 gr very scary I thought.
The bullets were a mixture of SMK's and Palma match all mixed in these so called batches, a lot of the cases were very slippery as if he had been using Vaseline as a case sizing lube I have seen nothing like this in my life im really surprised the guy still has all of his fingers and a head
At least I now have a stock of Match kings

You definitely did the right thing! This is why I don't shoot other peoples handloads. I'm struggling to even understand how there could be an unintentional mix up of two powders in the same case. Even if you forgot to empty your powder hopper and put new powder straight in you would only get one or two cases where the powder has mixed.

Very odd indeed. This is why having a published handloading guide is essential!

And this is exactly the reason I can't understand anyone not wearing eye protection on the firing point. You've no idea what Darren Double Charge next to you has been cramming into his cases.

Makes you wonder how some people are still alive and/or have all the fingers and eyes...bloody scary

Alan

I buy a lot of mixed ammo from auctions (usually dead person's effects) - it's amazing what loads you find in the ammo!
It's essential to pull ALL ammo of unknown parentage.

I also pull ammunition of known parentage, I do so because I know the parents.

Yep, only one person's reloads I trust - MINE!

ukrifleman.

dodgyrog wrote:I buy a lot of mixed ammo from auctions (usually dead person's effects) - it's amazing what loads you find in the ammo!
It's essential to pull ALL ammo of unknown parentage.

I would definately be cautious if a dead person offered me his homeloads.

pnuk wrote:And this is exactly the reason I can't understand anyone not wearing eye protection on the firing point. You've no idea what Darren Double Charge next to you has been cramming into his cases.

I would never shoot anyone's reloads other than my own, but yes this would certainly make you think about wearing glasses if you didn't normally.

I was at a range a few months ago shooting prone only a couple of feet away from a chap also shooting prone as we were sharing a lane. He was all to proud to tell me how he had reloaded a certain type of case that was not normally reloaded. Then proceeded to shoot through a batch pretty quickly until he hit a squib load and blocked his barrel with a bullet. I suspect he didn't charge it with powder when reloading. Luckily for both of us he stopped shooting when he realised before firing the next round and sheepishly left the range. Haven't seen him since.

To be fair I've missed the odd case once or twice but always spot my mistakes during reloading and before seating the bullet. It's not rocket science, use more than one source of data for loads, get a reliable powder measure or charge master, check your measurements/COAL's etc and double check everything you do. I always shine a torch over my batch before seating my bullets so any discrepancies stand out.

I also check every case with a torch before seating the bullet it only takes a minute but it can save you a lot of grief. I don't use any bodies hand loads except my own. I'm mentoring a probationary member of our club at the moment he is a new shooter all though I have known him for several years. I'm taking him through the basics of reloading on a one to one basis. Its good because I'm having to do every thing from scratch its reminding me that I should not take anything about reloading for granted no matter how long you have been at it or how experienced you may think you are one mistake is a mistake to many.