Quality Control Of Reloads

Discussion in 'Reloading' started by Auzzie, Jun 15, 2021.

  1. Auzzie

    Auzzie 20g

    Decided to post this story as a timely reminder why it’s important to quality check your reloads and implications so not to get burned.
    This tale more about inconvience and mental punishment aspect not safety. In a rush to get to range and running late. Seeing as it was a training practice session pushed for time and not comp or important decided to grab and burn couple of boxes of 2nd class reloads The ugly ones we all accumulate with not so perfect crimps etc that get put aside for a rainy day. Sounded great in theory.
    Drive to range 40miles. Get ready dump some shells into pouch and go out to skeet layout.
    All focused and ready to do some dedicated pairs work. Load 2 call pull fire first second chambers but no hammer drop.
    Cycle everything by hand appears ok , go again exactly same thing. Then by chance looking into open chamber Is a spent 209 primer from previous shell lodged in the works stopping the hammer on the 1100.
    Do the shake rattle and roll finally get dam thing out. Load up and go again get a couple away but this time another one comes.
    Not so lucky and have to field strip on truck tray and drop trigger group to get out. What a pain!
  2. Auzzie

    Auzzie 20g

    Saga continues. Get back to the layout and finally get few more away down range after changing ammo. Then a malfunction on first shot but no primer this time. Nothing obvious but more shake rattle and roll nothing foreign try again all works for a while then fires first but not second this time. By now running out of time and patience and good light.
    Do another truck tray strip can’t see anything. Go back out all works fine , think it’s sorted after 10 . Low and behold happens again won’t fire first shot.
    With that I give up. Peanut Gallery has their say and jokes and head back to put gun away. Staring and saying names at shells in hand notice hole in crimp then feel loose pellets in bottom of shell bag.
    Light bulb clicks and Gee matey there is a loose pellet down in there!!!

    Go home that night completely strip trigger group and sure enough one solitary lone pellet deformed and hiding perfectly in cutout behind trigger milling. So perfect it can jump around like a ball in lotto barrel finding new home with each recoil or shake rattle roll.
  3. Auzzie

    Auzzie 20g

    Outcome!
    1. Complete waste of Saturday Afternoon
    2 Drove 80 miles for not much fun
    3 Any malfunctioning, unreliable piece completely destroys your mental focus and confidence.
    4 Holes In crimps is a no go from now on
    5 Thinking you can use a win 209 in Eurotrash and get away with it in an auto . Never again!
    6 Provided Peanut Gallery endless ridicule opportunity
    7 Completely avoidable situation and pain if normal quality checked loads were selected instead of being just lazy
    8 Good reminder why apart from safety reasons you should check your reloads are fit for purpose
  4. Ranger6

    Ranger6 Administrator Staff Member Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator

    Auzzie:
    That just plain sucks. The four letter word is one of my favorite, but I think I would have worn it out that day. Excellent reminder for anyone that reloads. And yes I do have a bucket under the bench for the ugly duckling’s. I decided long ago that I would just cut those apart and salvage the shot, wad and primer. I’m sure powder would be fine also, but I load to many gauges and there are a mix so just as easy to dump it.
  5. Auzzie

    Auzzie 20g

    Ranger this is for you
    I will pollute my own post this time with bit of Eye info you want
    This stuff is super complex above my pay scale and could waffle on for days so will try and do a barnyard explanation.
    This tip will be helpful straight from my friends research. Very very high % of women he is asked to assess for various team sports have balanced eye dominance by makeup meaning their domainancy effecting hand eye co ordination is not clearly established defined right hand, right eye as such. Their dominance can waver and drift momentarily and temporary between both eyes and can be directly effected by anxiety, nervousness ,blood sugar levels and chemical balances. Heavy stuff. But important when your assessing athletes for various tasks n positions of play especially catching. What he figured out is conventional tests and the responses to the tests that most coaches use to determine this as we know are pretty inconsistent to useless.

    So out of this where I am headed is you can determine And somewhat see it come into play on the skeet field by watching and seeing if ladies have repeated trouble consistently hitting a string of long incomers eg L1 or H7. This is where you see it Show. Everything can look good gunmount, eye on rib position , feet ,body mechanics , smooth swing and follow through yet they unexplainably miss time after time or will suddenly get bit of double vision happening then they get bit flustered and say that they are suddenly seeing double. Sometimes you get them to stand down take a few breaths and calm the farm. Then when they step up n go again ask if still seeing that second target? Lot of times they will say no and smash the next one.
    This pretty much says they need a patch and are getting mixed visual perception messages to the brain. Also makes you want to look at the barrel instead of focus on target.
    Patching somebody properly from here to get long term successful individual results is whole different ramble.
  6. Ranger6

    Ranger6 Administrator Staff Member Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator

    Auzzie: wow, pretty interesting stuff. yes, way above my pay scale also, but hey nothing says you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Understanding the little that I have been taught about the eyes has made me a better shooter for sure. I find it hard sometimes to convince people that you have to shoot both eyes open in clay targets, its not what they have learned from there grand dad, dad etc...
  7. Rudolph31

    Rudolph31 .30-06

    #6 makes #2 worth it, and invalidates #1. Because next time you’ll be the one ridiculing your friends!

    Also, I always have a spare shotgun in the trunk. A bulletproof IZH-27.
  8. Auzzie

    Auzzie 20g

    Yes Rudolph
    Poor Preparation = Poor Performance in my case example. Just being lazy and got caught out. That’s not how I normally operate rest assured.
    Lucky It wasn’t me using dodgey seconds plugs from under the reloading bench on your friends T6 or it would have been an episode for air crash investigations.
    Rudolph31 likes this.
  9. Auzzie

    Auzzie 20g

    Ranger I agree 100%. I think using two eyes correctly is the ultimate no question. We have two eyes for a reason. However what I have seen is there are plenty that have underlying or undiagnosed things going on banging away shooting holes in the sky or with inexplicable inconsistencies . You should here what my friend uncovers at team recruitment time testing for professional sport leagues.
    Things exist in the ranks of kids and women out there talking up the sport. You mention you know somebody tied up with the 4 H program. He will possibly have seen the exact same things too .Young Male boys in particular can have wavering dominance tendencies till they are about 13 14 and it stops . These kids usually struggle in conventional sport groups situations and end up migrating to solitary activities in frustration sometimes ending up at range with parents in tow.
    My kid was my obtometrist friends research project for a book he is writing , being identified this group and had to wear a patch for first couple of years till we could establish a sight picture then during this 2 yr time train his brain with a series of drills and eye exercises and using some apparatus. At 13 we removed the patch and let him loose. The results were remarkable and he shoots 2 eyes now and will forever. Seeing he was a lab rat my friend kept lots of data and notes so you could certainly see the transformation.
    The level of understanding out there to firstly work out what’s going on eye related and secondly help just doesn’t exist especially here as it is nowhere as high profile following or acceptance.
    What I will say though is he got very consistent sight picture messages and proficient using partial and strategic occlusion with the patch.
    As my friend says clay shooters function at the absolute pinicle of human eye design and performance and are top of sports optics pyramid. Therefore most advanced studies and thesis on eyes uses Olympic clay shooters as test subjects.
  10. Ranger6

    Ranger6 Administrator Staff Member Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator

    Very interesting, and yes if there is an eye problem it can be overwhelming for a shooter, and chances are they will either never understand why they are missing or just get frustrated and give up completely. When ever I am giving pointers, I always ask the shooter, do you know why you missed? I always preach that you should always know before you leave a station why you don’t have dead birds. I have a system of checks that I repeat over and over. Stance, focus, gun mount, etc etc. and for a new shooter it’s not important in the beginning for them to exactly pinpoint why they miss, just that they are thinking thru the steps.
  11. Auzzie

    Auzzie 20g

    Self diagnosis is vital to establishing improvement and allows you to build consistency. Consistency is everything and what separates good from great in my opinion. That pre shot routine has to become trustable , automatic and a subconscious action every time you step on the pad.
    Ranger6 likes this.

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