Marshall Stanton
07-14-2001, 08:52 PM
I feel free to talk about this little instance now that it has been several years since it has happened, but none-the-less for the sake of privacy, I've changed the names of those persons involved. *
A local friend was over at the shop one day, and asked if he could have twenty or twenty-five of my .44 Caliber 325g WLNGC bullets. *A neighbor of his had a then new Ruger Stainless Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum with 7 1/2" barrel they wanted to put some heavy bullets through. *We'll call my friend Larry and his neighbor Frank for the sake of needing names here.
Well, Larry and Frank were both fairly new to metallic cartridge reloading, although they both shot lots of trap loads every weekend and reloaded volumes of shotgun shells for many years. *Still, they were relatively new to the metallic cartridge reloading game.
Larry had fired some of my handloads out of my guns when we had been out together a few times, and loved the way those heavy bullets in the .44's performed. *He and Frank had just gotten their .44 Mag dies and wanted to load up some ammo for that new Stainless Ruger SBH.
Larry asked what load I used in my SBH, and I replied that I used 21.0 grains of H110, a Winchester large pistol primer and Winchester Brass. *Which he dutifully wrote down on one of my business cards, then merrily walked the two blocks home with his bullets.
The following weekend came and went, and Larry gave me a call on either Tuesday or Wednesday, to tell me that Frank was rather upset with him. *They had gone shooting that weekend, trying out their first new .44 mag handloads in the new stainless Ruger. *Seems something went wrong....
Well, Larry misplaced the business card that he put into his shirt pocket with the loading data for the .432"-325g WLNGC bullets in the .44 Magnum. *He did remember the load however when he went over to Frank's house the following evening. *Larry remembered that I had specified Winchester large pistol primers and Winchester brass, which they had on hand, and Larry remembered that the charge was 21.0 grains of powder.
Frank asked Larry "What kind of powder?" *"I don't remember, it was pistol powder of some kind!" , replied Larry. *Well, they looked around the loading room and much to their satisfaction found a canister of powder that was marked "smokeless pistol and shotgun powder". *They dutifully set their brand-new powder measure to throw 21.0 grains of this powder, filled all the cases, then seated their 325 grain WLNGC bullets in the cases and proceeded to apply a firm roll crimp to the case mouth.
Come Saturday morning the recoil from the first two rounds were horrific, nearly twisting the big Ruger rolver out of Frank's massive, muscular hands. *The third round took the cake! *When Frank brought the revolver off of recoil, he no longer had a rear sight, in fact his whole top-strap of the Stainless Super Blackhawk was broken loose at the rear of the frame, and twisted up at about a forty-degree angle, hinged at the front, and only the bottom half of the cylinder remained in the revolver... the missing half was never found! *
Yep, they loaded those shells up with pistol powder, 21.0 grains of UNIQUE!!!! *Although we can laugh at such a blunder, the scarry thing is, that while no one was even scratched in this incident, it could have had fatal results just as easily! *No, pistol powder isn't "pistol powder", as such.
Neither of these men had a clue concerning burning rates of powders, nor the pressures generated by changing powders of different burning rates for a given load. *They had no reloading manuals for metallic cartridge reloading, no books giving loading instructions, and being in their late fifities in age, were too embarassed to ask for help!
I hope that here on the forum, we can be a place where someone just starting out can feel free to ask even the most basic of questions, with the confidence that they will be answered in a non judgemental way, and hopefully avert a potential disasterous situation such as the one I just relayed.
I had every confidence that both of these men had a pretty good handle on what they were doing, especially with their nearly twenty years of shotshell reloading experience. *My mistake was making that assumption.
Well, perhaps not really humorous, but I really couldn't figure out another appropriate place to post this. *Perhaps it can be a guidepost for us all!
God Bless,
Marshall
A local friend was over at the shop one day, and asked if he could have twenty or twenty-five of my .44 Caliber 325g WLNGC bullets. *A neighbor of his had a then new Ruger Stainless Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum with 7 1/2" barrel they wanted to put some heavy bullets through. *We'll call my friend Larry and his neighbor Frank for the sake of needing names here.
Well, Larry and Frank were both fairly new to metallic cartridge reloading, although they both shot lots of trap loads every weekend and reloaded volumes of shotgun shells for many years. *Still, they were relatively new to the metallic cartridge reloading game.
Larry had fired some of my handloads out of my guns when we had been out together a few times, and loved the way those heavy bullets in the .44's performed. *He and Frank had just gotten their .44 Mag dies and wanted to load up some ammo for that new Stainless Ruger SBH.
Larry asked what load I used in my SBH, and I replied that I used 21.0 grains of H110, a Winchester large pistol primer and Winchester Brass. *Which he dutifully wrote down on one of my business cards, then merrily walked the two blocks home with his bullets.
The following weekend came and went, and Larry gave me a call on either Tuesday or Wednesday, to tell me that Frank was rather upset with him. *They had gone shooting that weekend, trying out their first new .44 mag handloads in the new stainless Ruger. *Seems something went wrong....
Well, Larry misplaced the business card that he put into his shirt pocket with the loading data for the .432"-325g WLNGC bullets in the .44 Magnum. *He did remember the load however when he went over to Frank's house the following evening. *Larry remembered that I had specified Winchester large pistol primers and Winchester brass, which they had on hand, and Larry remembered that the charge was 21.0 grains of powder.
Frank asked Larry "What kind of powder?" *"I don't remember, it was pistol powder of some kind!" , replied Larry. *Well, they looked around the loading room and much to their satisfaction found a canister of powder that was marked "smokeless pistol and shotgun powder". *They dutifully set their brand-new powder measure to throw 21.0 grains of this powder, filled all the cases, then seated their 325 grain WLNGC bullets in the cases and proceeded to apply a firm roll crimp to the case mouth.
Come Saturday morning the recoil from the first two rounds were horrific, nearly twisting the big Ruger rolver out of Frank's massive, muscular hands. *The third round took the cake! *When Frank brought the revolver off of recoil, he no longer had a rear sight, in fact his whole top-strap of the Stainless Super Blackhawk was broken loose at the rear of the frame, and twisted up at about a forty-degree angle, hinged at the front, and only the bottom half of the cylinder remained in the revolver... the missing half was never found! *
Yep, they loaded those shells up with pistol powder, 21.0 grains of UNIQUE!!!! *Although we can laugh at such a blunder, the scarry thing is, that while no one was even scratched in this incident, it could have had fatal results just as easily! *No, pistol powder isn't "pistol powder", as such.
Neither of these men had a clue concerning burning rates of powders, nor the pressures generated by changing powders of different burning rates for a given load. *They had no reloading manuals for metallic cartridge reloading, no books giving loading instructions, and being in their late fifities in age, were too embarassed to ask for help!
I hope that here on the forum, we can be a place where someone just starting out can feel free to ask even the most basic of questions, with the confidence that they will be answered in a non judgemental way, and hopefully avert a potential disasterous situation such as the one I just relayed.
I had every confidence that both of these men had a pretty good handle on what they were doing, especially with their nearly twenty years of shotshell reloading experience. *My mistake was making that assumption.
Well, perhaps not really humorous, but I really couldn't figure out another appropriate place to post this. *Perhaps it can be a guidepost for us all!
God Bless,
Marshall