[Steve48]

I had a bad day at the range. After several tens of thousands of reloads, I had my first overcharge today. I was firing my Taurus 817 .38 SP snubby. After the first couple of dozen rounds, one went bang instead of "bang". The Taurus was completely locked up. I finally managed to get the cylinder open and the remaining live rounds slid right out, but I couldn't get the brass from the overcharged round to move forward or back without tools. Since I hadn't brought anything else to shoot, my day was done.

When I got home to my workbench, extracting the bad round was no big deal. The Taurus seems none the worse for wear, and I hope to get it back to the range tomorrow. Lessons learned? Well, four:

1. Take a backup gun to the range in case of a malfunction that you can't fix.

2. Drink one to the folks at Taurus. They make a rugged revolver. :drinks

3. Be even more careful in reloading procedures. How? I'm not sure, yet. I use a Dillon progressive loader that automatically advances the case after it's charged, so it's pretty difficult to overcharge one. Nevertheless, I must have done something wrong, because no one else was there when I loaded that round (darn it!).

4. Mind your eye protection. It could have been worse.

 

[steve66]

Hey Steve, Glad you and the revo are okay. Could it be that the bullet was seated a little to deep causing the excess pressure?

 

[FLRon]

Glad you're OK Steve! :thumsup

 

[T.S.]

Steve, glad to hear that you are OK.

2. Drink one to the folks at Taurus. They make a rugged revolver.

+1 to that. :thumsup

 

[Glock23-4-Me]

Glad your okay brother
​

 

[Steve48]

Thanks, guys.

Steve, I don't think a deep seated bullet would cause as much overpressure as I got. Also, I'd have noticed the round sitting lower in the ammo box, because it would have been hard to fish out. Somehow I got extra powder in that case. I've triple checked the automatic thrower on the Dillon since then, and all seems well there. One possibility is that powder somehow got hung up in the throat of the thrower and then all dropped into the next case. If that's it, I'll have to be on the lookout for a squib in that same ammo box.

 

[steve66]

Thanks, guys.

Steve, I don't think a deep seated bullet would cause as much overpressure as I got. Also, I'd have noticed the round sitting lower in the ammo box, because it would have been hard to fish out. Somehow I got extra powder in that case. I've triple checked the automatic thrower on the Dillon since then, and all seems well there. One possibility is that powder somehow got hung up in the throat of the thrower and then all dropped into the next case. If that's it, I'll have to be on the lookout for a squib in that same ammo box.

if you have a scale you could probably find the squib pretty quickly

 

[Steve48]

Would that it were so. Awhile back I was thinking about the powder issue and decided to weigh a bunch of loaded rounds. The variation in the weight of the lead cast bullets, with lubricant, and the different cases adds up to too much to spot a 3.2 grain difference in powder charge. I was surprised, but there it is.

 

[deadeyedick]

Was that your .38 Special ++++P load? :laughing

 

[Steve48]

Nah, it was my automatic de-priming load (!). It needs some work.

Meanwhile, I weighed some factory jacketed hollow points. A sample of 20 gave me a standard deviation of 0.5 grain. With those, Steve66's idea of weighing would be an option for finding a no-charge or a a double charge. Not so with my home-cast bullets.