Those old favors can bite you in the axx!!

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rcmodel

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About 15 years ago, a casual friend bought a 6.5 Jap Arisika rifle and had no ammo, and couldn't get any.

So I offered to help him reload for it if he bought a set of dies & some Norma brass, which was available.

We (he, with me supervising) loaded 100 rounds.

We test fired 10 rounds, then he sold the rifle, along with the dies, and 10 empty cases.

So today, he called me and said he had sold the remaining 90 rounds to another guy who had a 6.5 Jap rifle.

I told him I really wished he hadn't of sold my (his) reloads.

Then towards the end of the conversation, he told me the others guys 6.5 Jap had been rechambered to .257 Roberts, but they should work, right??

YIKES!!!!!! :what:

The .257 Bob rechambered Ariska's have 2/10" excess headspace and a .020" bigger chamber at the case head!!!!

I told him to get ahold of the guy ASAP and tell him not to try to shoot them!!!

Just goes to show, No good deed goes unpunished when it comes to reloading.

Now I'm setting here sweating tonight hoping the guy hasn't already blown himself up!! :cuss:

rc
 
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Amen to that. I used to shoot with a really old ranger. He had an old .25-20 I made some reloads for. Then he wanted me to lighten the trigger. It is really tricky to mess with the trigger on a lever action, but he had been shooting darn near 80 years, and knew he wouldn't be dangerous with it. I got the trigger real light, lighter than I would be comfortable with, but he loved it.

He told me about a year later he gave the gun to a young girl for deer hunting.

Should never have done it.
 
RC, thank you for sharing that story. This is why I try not to share my reloaded ammunition and explain to people why I won't share my hand loads. I have even made it clear to my brother that what we load together is only to ever be shared between us and that he would do well not to share his own reloaded ammunition. You never know. Here we are 15 years later and worried about those reloads. :(

Again, thanks for sharing that story....
Ron
 
I bought a model revolver off of a guy last year. He threw in about 100 rounds of 357 and 30 or so rounds of 38 special. A lot of it was just random handloads, probably spanning a few decades given the condition of some of the ammo. I finally got around to breaking all of it down yesterday so that I could reclaim the 357 brass. I didn't weigh any of the charges, but I ended up with a ton of powder that looked a lot like H-110 in some rounds that were probably real hot rods. There were some with what looked like HP-38, and a few that had the unmistakable color of Unique. In some of them, the powder appeared to be oily and clumped together in the case...maybe the power was starting to go bad...either way, I dumped it all on the front lawn.

The point is, the whole time I was tearing down this random ammo, I kept thinking about how the guy who origionaly loaded it could have been either been extremely cautious, or a complete idiot...but there is just no way to know. Had this ammo ended up in the hands of somebody who didn't know better, this could have been a real disaster.
 
In this situation the burden falls on the gun owner. Not that we shouldn't be concerned, but rifle owner should know better!
 
Know better??

The guy across the street drug a 7.7 Arisaka over to show it to me a couple of months ago and told me it was a 30-30 his dad brought back from Germany in WWII!!!!

Know better between a re-chambered .257 Roberts Jap rifle and a 6.5 Jap rifle??

Not gonna happen anytime soon, if ever!!
(Except among halfway informed gun nuts like us!)

It's been going on since 1946 to my knowledge!

rc
 
If it makes you feel any better, I was at the range about 35 years ago when a guy several benches down shot FIVE factory Norma 6.5 Jap rounds through a rechambered 6.5 Jap/.257 rifle (it was actually stamped "6.5 Jap/Roberts" very clearly, right where the mum had been ground off).

Other than some really strange looking brass, there wasn't any damage done. The cases held together and I don't think there was any gas leakage. We only learned about it because the guy started asking other shooters around him for advice since he couldn't get a single round to hit paper.

Someone said that the only thing that kept the rifle from blowing up was the semi rim on the 6.5 Jap case.

That makes sense, but I still say the guy was lucky that the Arisaka has a strong action and also that Norma makes some pretty good brass.
 
This is the same reason I like the headstamp to match what is loaded in the round. I feel reforming brass is a last ditch choice, at least for me when commercially available casings are plentiful. I will however reform the military brass with manufacturer and date only as those are not round specific loadings.

Well RC at least he told you what he did so you could at least have him warn them. I fear the same thing with some MAX Ruger only 45 Colt rounds I helped a shooting friend reload some years ago. He then suddenly moved away. I heard he had "money problems" and immediately thought about him selling his 300 rounds of ammo for cash. Hope he sold the revolver with them as a package if so. Could blow up a lesser revolver.
 
Best intentions can come back to haunt you sometime. Its hard not to load for someone else or to help them. I try not to, but sometimes its really hard to say no. I loaded some 30-06's for a friend last fall. He gives me a couple thousand once fired 223's a year, so it would have been hard to say no. I usually suggest that they buy a die set, shell holder and a Lee trimmer and come over and let me help them. Thats usually the end of that! And sometimes a new reloader is born!
 
I have never reloaded for friends. If they bring their own supplies over thay can use my equipment and I'll watch over them but that's it. A few people have asked my to seel them some ammo. ABSOLUTELY NOT
 
My brother in law bought a new gun and we got on the subject of reloading. He doesn't have reloading gear but has primers, bullets, and cases.

When he wants some ammo, he goes over to a friend, that sets things up and watches him load ammo.

I'm thinking I have a possible new home for my old lyman turret press and a lee auto prime my thumbs don't like.

I've given away reloads once. They are in my uncles 1911 and loaded on his equipment about 35 years ago. I should buy some commercial defense ammo and swap him.
 
If someone gets into my stash and uses my reloads, I figger I'm not responsible. I just don't want for any of my friends to get one of my OOPS! and hurt themselves or their guns...:(
 
I will let my kids and The Rodentwoman shoot my reloads but only if I have tested the batch first. They'd be with me at the range anyway in the rare event they express any interest in so doing.

My neighbor has expressed an interest in reloading and I won't go near it. I tumbled his brass once (just to impress him) and beyond that he's on his own. He's got a loose screw as evidenced by his incessant whining that one room in the house is half a degree colder than the others, and the furnace guy is out every two weeks for nothing. Not the kind of guy I want to get involved with at all.

My $.02
 
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