Range day, with extras . . .
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Thank God for digital cameras, I can take a dozen bummer photos before I get a good one and it doesn’t cost diddily, except for the camera of course.
Another great day at the range today (Friday), nice weather with a cool breeze that just about made it perfect. My shooting was anything but perfect, it was slowly getting better, group wise, through the last half dozen trips there, but not today. I couldn’t group worth a damn. It took a while before I had some semblance of a group so I quit then.
Not many members shooting when I arrived but when the last ones departed they left a ton of nice once fired brass just a glitterin and a twinklin in the sunlight. The folks that were there before them must have left a load of their own also, it took me about a half hour just collecting it . . .HOW SWEET IT IS!!!!
After finally straightening out my back from all that bending, I moseyed on over to eyeball the “DUDS” bucket before I started shooting, just to see what troubles some folks are having with their ammo. When I spied the accumulation of other people’s shooting woes I was aghast! There, sitting in the bucket along with all the different caliber ammo was about sixty, 45 ACP’s. The 45’s looked newly reloaded and unfired and seemed to be all done by the same person.
I know that when I reload I can feel the powder when I shake the case (at least I thought so). With these I couldn’t feel anything. No way I would try to fire these puppies, (didn’t have a 45 with me today anyway). They could be loaded to the hilt with powder thereby not allowing any movement of the powder in the case and that would cause irreparable harm to gun, yours-truly and what little reputation I may have. These "Duds" are going to be dismantled and the casings and bullets used over again. I'll probably fire off the primers at the range, there's nowhere at home to do it without raising a ruckus.
Upon closer inspection, I thought, whoever did the reloading of this ammo must have been having a bad day. One or two of the loaded cartridges didn’t have a primer at all and a couple more had an “inverted” primer. I found only one case with a crack in the wall that ran two thirds of the way down from the top. I just couldn’t wait till I get home and get that ol’ bullet-puller a-hummin again. Just want to see if they didn’t have any powder in them, (which is my guess) or if they were over loaded.
Wouldn’t you know it, when I arrived home I was requested to get ready we’re having guests tonight! Perhaps if they get engrossed in the Olympics I can sneak away for a while and do a little bullet pulling and investigating. I would like to measure the powder charge, if any, and also see if I can decipher just what brand it is by the shape of the powder kernels and if it’s the correct measure he used.
I did a lot of hammering with that bullet puller when I finally got a chance and much to my surprise the rounds had powder in them that measured 3.5 gr. The bullets were semi-wadcutters that weighed in at a respectable 185 gr. I saved my Speer Reloading manual somewhere about six months ago and I’ll be dipped if I can lay my hands on it now. I just wanted to check out the powder charge. Of course I don’t know the brand of powder used but at 3.5 gr. that seems like a light load to me . . .I think I’ll check my Winchester 231 powder and see if the kernels (grains?) match up to what came out of these (I'll chuck the old powder of course.)
There was more damaged casing now that I was working on them. Seven or so had cracks in them and one had a crumpled section on the mouth of the case. Add those to the ones that had no primers and others with primers inverted. What does that add up to . . .about twelve out of sixty?
Perhaps the reloading fellow just chucked the rest of a group of 100 that he reloaded seeing that a decent percentage of the cases had cracked? A friend of mine said that he may have sold his 45 and just chucked out the ammo. Wouldn’t you give the buyer the ammo? No, maybe not, you’d be liable if the ammo was faulty.
I tried putting a match to a "pinch" of the powder to see if it still was potent, it did flared up nicely. I haven't compared the powder to what I have on hand, can anyone guess what the powder is just by eyeballing it?
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![[wink]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/002.gif "Wink [wink]")
He went to dry fire and I see him start to squeeze the trigger and stop, he then looks at me and asks 'how do you take the safety off?'
