Shooting somebody else's ammo?

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griz

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A common statement here is “I will not shoot someone else’s handloads”. I’m wondering how far this goes. Is it a blanket rule for you, does it depend on who the other handloader is, or some other criteria? Would you shoot the other guys handloads in HIS guns? How about store bought reloads?

I suspect I am on the tolerant side. Experience has shown me that there are a few specific folks whose reloads I will not use, but I trust most people that I know to make safe loads.
 
I get pretty touchy about it, especially after firing a handloaded 270 Win handload out of the handloaders rifle. Just about had to beat the bolt open, and that did it for me.
I have a few deer hunting buddies who trust me to load for their rifles, but I will not do a thing unless they are with me and we agree on the components.

They buy components and basically use my press/scales to do it with me coaching. I get ginchy when we start getting near max and maybe I am overly careful, but I figure that if I need more fps, I'll buy a different caliber.
 
Oh sure, I'll try your loads...in your gun.

Ruining one of my guns because of someone elses poor handloading skills is a lesson that I don't care to learn.

Asking me to reload for you? No, but I'd be more than happy to show you how to load while using my equipment. That way you're learning and we're adding one more to the reloading fold.

Ed
 
Someone elses handloads

Okay, mabie I'm really old-fashion for my 32 years of age, but if I'm going to not trust someone elses handloads, I probably don't need to be shooting with them at all. Call me crazy, but I really don't want to go to the range (or anywhere else) with someone who has sloppy technique in reloading or likes to over charge amunition just to see what happens. To many things can go wrong, even when you are following the proper precautions.

Case in point. All total, there are about 10 people that I go shooting with on a regular basis, and I am one of the only 2 people who reload in the group. The other reloader has been doing so for about 15 years, and I got a lot of advice from him (as well as all of you who contribute to this forum; thanks again, I appreciate it) before I got started last fall. I've never thought twice about shooting his handloads, and he doesn't think twice about shooting mine, and it doesn't matter who's gun we are using. We both take good care of our firearms, and, although we both got into shooting in different ways, we all know that the most important part of shooting sports is safety.

I would say that much of this is common sense, but as my Grandmother has always told me "there is nothing common about common sense". The most important safety feature on any firearm is above and between the shooters ears.

With that being said, I'll get off my soapbox and call it a day.

D
 
Hey Chris, I can understand a legal liability, but a moral one? My loads are safe enough for my family members and people I really care about (including me!) If something does go wrong, I don't think I would question my morality.
 
One of the first things I tell people is that these are handloads and that I don't recommend using them unless you loaded them. I will not shoot other's handloads and I don't want people shooting mine. As stated above I will let other's use my equipment with my supervision to make their own loads. But they will not be allowed to do maximum charges on my gear.

I will not shoot anyone elses handloads and I won't let others shoot mine. Family excluded...For no other reason then that it's a good rule.
 
No, my reloads are the only ones I'l shoot. When I first started in the firearms hobby I bought a Colt New Service in .45 Colt caliber. A man whose only credentials was that he was an out of home dealer in firearms and did reloading loaded up a box or .45's for me. My wife and I drove out of the city and started to fire a few. One load simply went splut. The bullet was lodged in the barrell. A good lesson for me. I now check the level of the powder in the cases two and three times.
 
My teenage boys have been reloading for me for a couple of years now. My machines, my settings, my components. No problems so far.
 
Just as many guns go BOOM with reloads as with factory loads.

The fact that factory loads go BOOM is proof that NO cartridge is 100% safe, and that anyting can and will go wrong.

It's probibly more paranoia than anything else about some else's reloads 'He must be out to get me!!! I KNOW he triple charged with to quick a powder! I just know it!'.

Throw in a little well deserved pride 'My loads are the best! Cause I made them!' and you have a built in fear of anything that you did not produce.

And no, I would not shoot or let anyone else shoot my loads. I don't even buy factory ammo anymore. :neener:
 
"I won't shoot anyone else's handloads, and I won't let anyone else shoot mine. That is a degree of liability, moral if not legal, that I just don't need.

- Chris"

That is a very smart decision. I'm not always that smart though. For me, I've got to know the shooter really well, have seen and or used his/her equipment, and witnessed their actions when reloading. -And I look for visual imperfections in the loads I'm about to shoot. It really helps if I was the one that taught them. That said, I don't shoot very many 'other people's' hand loads as a general practice. I especially don't shoot anyone's advertised hot loads. In all my years of shooting regularly since I was a teen, reloading for the last 20 years, you can count those people on the hand of an aged man with lepperacy. Do I let other's shoot my hand loads. Not very often. If a bud is at the range and wants to try out one of my pistolas, then it's gonna have my loads in it.. Plain and simple. Do I just hand out boxes to friends or relatives to go shoot? NO. Do I let anyone shoot my hot hunting loads at all, even in my pistols? NO. (Yeah, there've been a few that said 'that cannon barks like a train wreck, can I try one'?) And I've let them. Other than that, NO. I'll have to admit, I have supplied some hot hunting loads to a good friend/nephew in my pistol that he carried hunting. He's got his own .44mag now, so he needs to start reloading. If someone wants to spend some time with me in my gun room, reloading, then they're doing much of the work with my supervision, he/she's still pulling the handle, and I'm still double checking the scale. Those, well those are his/her reloads. Not mine.

All that said, My juvinile son's shoot my hand loads. But when it's time, they'll be taught to reload on their own. Will I shoot their loads then?

-Steve
 
Lets reverse it.

YOUR ammo, loaned out to someone. Now you KNOW it's not your fault becasue your ammo works just fine in your gun, but somehow he manages to blow the end of his barrel off and pop brass bits into his eyes. C ould be the barrel was pluggged...could be he left the cleaning rod in the barrel..could be nearly anything. What do you think his first reaction would be?

OR if you borrowed some ammo, and the gun you were shootign went "boom" and embedded bits and pieces in you...waht's your first thoughts (adfter counting body parts and finding all present and accounted for).


LEt the ammo companies have the grief...let the other guy reload his onw ammo.

Any friend or acquantience that wants reloaded ammo just needs to ask...will even sit and drink coffee with them while they pull the handle and load their ammo on my equipment.
 
I don't shoot anyone else's reloads, nor give mine to anyone else. I have known three people whose homemade ammo I would and did shoot without qualms, and to whom I would give my homemade ammo. Two of the three are dead now, and the third one doesn't reload (or shoot) much anymore. The deaths and non-shooting had nothing to do with shooting, just natural causes and life changes.
 
Got that right...just has to get MOST of 12 people to agree (civil cases here do not require 12 out of 12) it was your fault..or partly your fault...and I seriously doubt your insurance company will stand behind you on this one.
 
No. Really, it's pretty simple.

I was talking with a buddy of mine (someone whom I know is prone to taking shortcuts) and he admitted to misreading some load data. Seems he loaded quite a few rounds of Bullseye at 8.2 grains instead of 4.2 grains (in .38 special, IIRC).

He said he loaded the ammo, and then let a friend of his pull the trigger. At the first shot he thought "that sounded a bit hot". Second shot "nope, that's definitely hot". He claims he stopped the shooting and changed ammo at that point.

Personally, I don't think he went home and disassembled the extra rounds. I figure he still has a box of this ubah-hot crap floating around out there. I'm waiting for him to blow one of his guns up or blow his hands off. Just to demonstrate his inneptitude, he claims he spoke with a gunsmith who said firearms are proof tested far higher than actual spec (saami, I assume) just as a protection against such mistakes.

I think he's an idiot who doesn't get how dangerous this can be.

Unless you absolutely, 100%, trust the loader, DON'T FIRE THE LOADS! You just plain never know...
 
Let me tell you guys. I'm the kind of person that is a FREAK about anything that I do, including loading ammo. I would have no problems with my friends shooting my ammo, IF AND ONLY IF they let me borrow their gun and let me tune the load to that gun. After that, the ammo would be the same every time with no worries. The way I do it, I know I won't do it wrong, so I'm not concerned with danger of loading rounds and letting others shoot them. However, shooting someone elses reloads is not my type of thing unless I have seen them reload. Otherwise they can go ahead and save their reloads for someone who doesn't need fingers and such.

My ammo= nice and safe
other person's ammo= Id rather not find out.

Continue discussion
 
I have shot my father's reloads and I have loaded ammo for him in a pinch. I would consider shooting another person's hand loads, but only if they are KNOWN (as opposed to rumored to be) masters of their craft.
 
ribbonstone: Your reasoning is seriously flawed. The only load that you KNOW was safe was the one that you shot safely. The fact that you load 10,000 good rounds doesn't mean that round 10,001 won't be bad. (Unless, of course, you convinced a guy named "Jesus" to pull the handle for you on every round.:))
 
I won't shoot anyone else's handloads, and I won't let anyone else shoot mine. That is a degree of liability, moral if not legal, that I just don't need.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%.

When I first started shooting, I bought the reloads made at the range where I shot (and where I bought my first 2 guns). I didn't know much about shooting then, nor about the risks involved.

About 17 years have passed since then, and I'm a bit older and wiser. I know that I make mistakes reloading, but I'm thorough enough to be able to catch them (or, at least, SO FAR I have been). While there are lots of people that I'd trust to shoot right next to me, or to have a loaded gun behind me, trusting that they were 100% safe and error-free in reloading is a different matter. If they made a mistake and I lost a body part or my life, I know that they'd have the guilts for the rest of their life, and I can't burden anyone with that. Similarly, I couldn't live very well with myself if one of my reloads injured or killed another.

Legal liability is an issue (I'm a lawyer, how could it not be), but it is of secondary importance to me. I like my friends and love my family, and I don't want to jeopardize that.

If I see someone doing the reloads, or if a skilled reloader saw me doing the reloads - well, then I might reconsider. Then two sets of eyes and two brains would be checking each other, and the risk would probably be about zero. I do intend to teach my kids to reload, and we'll certainly get to the point of shooting each other's reloads at some point...some point way in the future.

Oh, and if there are a bunch of foreign soldiers, ATF goons or zombie bears coming to my neighborhood, then I'll be reloading a bunch as fast as possible with the help of others, and we'll shoot whatever fits a particular gun. Barring that, I'm sticking to my rules.
 
Even in someone elses guns, my anatomy is a little to precious to trust to any but a very very select few.
There are maybe 2 people I would trust to fire there handloads.
If a problem occured I would chalk it up to experience since I know these 2 people and would trust them with my life anyway.
That is what you are doing.
Think very carefully.
Eyes in particular cannot be replaced.
 
I trust myself and my father. Noone else. I shoot his handloads in my guns and vise versa. He taught me how to reload and he is very meticulous, so of course I am as well. We've both been through about, conservatively, 70K-80K with one failed primer which caused a "squib". The powder was everywhere and the bullet lodged in the barrel. Weird experience. We just follow the simple rules of reloading.
 
Looks like I am about as far from the norm as one can get.

I shoot reloads. If someone is shooting their reloads and all looks well, I'll join in using up their ammo.

Might get me someday, but I doubt it.
 
I shoot MY loads in MY guns.
The only deviation is when someone offers to let me try shooting their gun, and I don't have any ammo with me in that caliber.
Since they're being so gracious, I'm not gonna ask 'em if they have any factory ammo.
I only export my ammo under very strict conditions.
One is that there's no pressure signs in their gun. Another is that they're normal gun hygiene is beyond reproach. Their guns are all kept clean, and only saw 'em dirty at the range. I have to have known them for years, and they have to have something I want, like good range brass, etc.
I will let a complete stranger fire my reloads in my guns if he has demonstrated safe gun handling when shooting his own guns. Once he shoots my gun, he's not a complete stranger anymore, is he?
 
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