HK45c blows up

Guess what?  Reloads were involved.  Reloading is a dangerous activity, and requires extreme attention to detail.  Double charges and overcharges can put you at serious risk of injury.  If you do choose to reload, I cannot overemphasize the importance of doing it in a controlled environment with no distractions.  This is my personal opinion, but when loading ammo to be used under any circumstances, that should be your sole focus.  Not loading and watching TV, or loading and chatting with your buddies.  Your cartridge fabrication process should be your only focus.  Think about it for a second – when you’re reloading, you’re creating a tiny bomb that you plan on intentionally detonating inside a device that you’re holding in your hands.  I don’t know about you, but if I’m setting off an explosion that close to my face, I want to be certain I did my due diligence to make sure I used the correct measurements.

3 Comments

  1. You are right on , its not a spectator sport and if you are going to reload say 50 rounds … do not do it unless you know you will NOT be bothered or distracted by anyone or thing.
    Like you said … just one micro second of oops! and the next time you pull the trigger you may literally be carrying concealed ( in you ).
    And should you ever see someone reloading…No! its not a good time to say hi or ask questions.

  2. My local indoor gun range has new warnings up forbidding the use of reloads. The warning includes a picture of a S&W M&P 340 that blew up and blinded the shooter in one eye. I got to hold the remains of the gun as I own 2 340s.

    The manager and I reasoned that it had to be a detonation caused by not enough powder.

  3. I remember reading an article about gun blowups several years ago, they came to the conclusion that most blowups are caused by undercharged cases detonating instead of burning. As several reports of blowups involved light loads.

    They concluded that if there was less than 1/2 the available room in the case taken up by powder that the powder would not cover the flash hole allowing the primer to ignite the entire charge at once instead of burning from one end of the powder column to the other.

    They even went as far as scooping several cases full of fast burning powder and shoving a bullet down on top of it trying to make a gun blow up. They failed to do so.

    I always use a loading block and carefully inspect powder levels in my cases before topping them with a bullet. I also do not use a progressive press for this same reason, a powder measure can throw light charges, and I could double charge one case, any that look over or under the average level get dumped and charged again.

    Double check everything, because as you said, you are making a small bomb you are going to set off in a hand held device, which is an excellent description!

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