Thread: Casual

I heard stories from the old days where deer cullers got caught with hang fires while opening the bolt on there 303 's and ended up losing a bunch of teeth.

yip there were a few of those...and many other reports of bolts being siezed shut....Barry Crump had many do this...couldve been from placing entire rifle in stream to shoot trout LOL....
in 40 years of shooting,Ive had 1 case split and seperate in chamber........loaded by sports shop......3 primers so flat they were FLAT....same sports shop...thats when I bought my own gear..another shop loaded some 110s up for me and they were barstards of things to fire...ba-boom they went UNLESS I pointed rifle at sky then lowered and fired.
case life is much better with lighter loads..... its a balancing act,safety is paramount.
before my rifles were suppressed my loads were quite mild.....it suited me and stopped the dreaded "rhymes with grinch"....

Personal experience here. This one ended up with no damage to hunters, but a 5 day walk with a stainless steel walking stick:

Early 90's, did a looong walk through the Ruahines with a couple of other hunters. One had just purchased a brand new SS version of his old favorite: a Rem 22.250.

Took some of his hand loads along as they were 'accurate AF out of the old rifle".

Half way into the journey 3 spikers presented themselves off below us (on the Sawtooth ridge) just before midday. Mate lays the new rifle over his pack as says "watch this boys and weep". Shot was to be a tad over 4 hundy.

Chambers a round and....bolt won't close. As alluded to above, chambers are all different.
Mate gets a tad flustered and bangs bolt closed with fist. Still won't close completely. Then takes to hammering it back open. Finally bolt opens and springs rearward....depositing powder all over the place. Rifle now has a projo stuck in the throat by the lands. Only carrying a pullthrough, so ends up walking the rest of the trip with it as a walking stick.

End note: Spiker #1 ends up wearing a 50 gn Sierra out of well worn Sportco 222 for hanging around too long.

Well fellas tbh my feeling is that if you're even asking a question on a given mystery round , you shouldn't shoot it. It's under $2.... Whats all your other gear and physical attributes worth (eyeballs, teeth, ears etc).
If you weren't there yourself to verify what powder went in, just pull the projectiles and bin the powder. Whats that? Cant be more than a loss of $40 worth of powder on 100 rounds anyway.
Marked up bullets are just as accurate if you do it right. The neck tension is likely needing a touch up as well.

Or just be lazy and roll the dice.... Win tragic prizes

Well I've lost no teeth but did lose $200 and a hunting trip due to using a mates reloads in my .308.

A military round with the FMJ removed and replaced with some unknown (to me) soft point. Had to open bolt with a 4X2 and only half the case came out . Gunsmith had to remove barrel to retrieve the rest.

I got into reloading myself after that, and now will only ever fire factory ammo or my own hand loads.

Greeting All,
As mentioned above the cartridge is the cheapest part of our hunting kit and its reliability and safety need to be our first consideration. The use of other peoples handloads or our own where we stray from pressure tested data in our own handloads is bound to bite us on the bum sooner or later. Of particular concern are the handloaders who believe they can divine pressure from the appearance from the appearance of the primer. This practice was debunked decades ago but we still see it promoted. There are enough traps in pressure tested data with variations in case capacity, powder burning speed and hardness of projectiles without flying blind beyond that data. Let's all take care.
Regards Grandpamac.