Learned a lesson the hard way

[Remington788]

I was loading a batch of .45 on my Dillon progressive machine.
Things were going great, rounds were cranking out and piling up in the bin.

As usual I stop every 15 or so rounds and check the powder load on the scale. All was going fine. Then, I go to dump one on the scale and it is empty, not a single grain of powder.

So, I just have to pull the bullets on the last 15 rounds and refill them. Wrong!

PROBLEM: All of my rounds are falling into the same bin, mixing together.
Which of the 15 rounds in the bin are bad? They all look the same. Tried weighing them, not helpful. There would only be about 4gr difference between empty and full. There is enough variance between different empty cases to mix that up. So, I am now pulling the bullets on all 75 or so that I loaded. No way I am taking the chance of a primer only load.


LESSONS LEARNED:
1. Check the powder hopper occasionally.
2. QC the powder weight every 10 or 15 rounds
3. Move the completed rounds from the collection tray to another container after every QC check so that there are not to many there if you do run into a problem.

[BimmerJon]

Put them aside for the range


Failure drills!!!

[Gunsnwater]

Shake them listen for the powder. If you cant hear it ask the wife or a kid. Got to be quiet.

[Remington788]

Put them aside for the range


Failure drills!!!

You mean squibb drills? No thanks to that.

Shake them listen for the powder. If you cant hear it ask the wife or a kid. Got to be quiet.

Tried that, could not hear anything. That technique works fine with .38s, but Clay's seems to fill the .45 case pretty full.

[animalmother85]

I doubt you'll hear a few grains of pistol powder by shaking them.


Dillon makes a low powder alarm. I recommend it.


Been there. Done that, but I was a little more fortunate as it were rifle rounds and it were less than 10.

[Remington788]

The low powder alarm may be worth it. I figured out a cheap alternative to the low primer alarm but figured "how dumb can I be that I would let the hopper go empty?". Rhetorical question.

(ps, the cheap alternative is a .25" dowel on top of the primer stack with with magic marker stripes that tell me when it is almost empty).

[Farbmeister]

You should be able to hear/feel the powder in a .45ACP

I use bullseye (4 grains) and you can hear the powder if you shake them.

[Remington788]

You should be able to hear/feel the powder in a .45ACP

I use bullseye (4 grains) and you can hear the powder if you shake them.

Clay's does not make enough sound for me to make a judgement.

Safest bet is to pull them all and start over. An hour lost at this is worth it in comparison to what could happen with some bad rounds.

[filgun11]

I am interested with the RCBS Powder Checker die. Planning to get it when I go Progressive reloading. Maybe worth checking it out.

[ScorpioIM]

My first thought was to weigh them, but if the cases vary that much, you're SOL.

I just got a 550 about 2 months ago, and have reloaded almost 4,000 rds. (38 spcl, 357, and 9mm) I'm going to get a set of 40 dies and start on them next.

Loading the 357's, I'll get 3 or 4 cases out of 100 where the primer gets inserted sideways. I'm using CCI SP Magnum primers. The tube seems to be clean, as is the rest of the machine, including the primer slide.

I've also noticed, that with the 357's, the new primers sometimes shave brass while getting pressed in. Do some manufacturers crimp primer pockets on 357's? (all once fired brass, mostly Herters)

Since I'm new to this, have you, or anyone else reading this, experienced any problems like this, and care to help a "rookie" out?

John