Reloading for Dangerous Game

[John Wasmuth]

Any reload you are not 100% confident with can blow your face off.

Reloading is a Dangerous Game.

DB

So is driving a car……..

 

[Daggaboy375]

My point.

Either you trust you reloads or not.

Dangerous Game is the least of your problems.

DB

 

[soumya sarkar]

!

For the DG hunting trip;

• Never ever handle primers with your fingers!

Any reload you are not 100% confident with can blow your face off.

Reloading is a Dangerous Game.

DB

Not so much if you are diligent and follow the process. It is fairly straightforward unless you try to hot rod and go out of specs for whatever reasons.

 

[soumya sarkar]

For the DG hunting trip;

• Never ever handle primers with your fingers!
• Use temperature stable powders for Africa.
• Weigh every round. If by some chance a round doesn't have the 70 or more grains of powder, that will be instantly noticeable!
• Safely feed every round through the magazine and chamber.

I would like to know the science behind not touching any primer, I guess the reference is to the inside of the primer which anyway cannot be easily touched. The circumference fits inside the cup pocket but the base will invariably be touched if not during reloads but when you are handling your cartridge.

 

[Mark A Ouellette]

I would like to know the science behind not touching any primer, I guess the reference is to the inside of the primer which anyway cannot be easily touched. The circumference fits inside the cup pocket but the base will invariably be touched if not during reloads but when you are handling your cartridge.

Sorry, I guess I need to spell this out...

Obviously the outside of a primer is impervious to human oils found on the skin, and whatever else is on one's fingertips. That is unless those oils migrate to the inside of the primers to the igniter compound.

Touching the anvil part of the primer may allow any oils on one's fingertips to migrate to the igniter compound. In a perfect world no bad effects will be experienced.

If you've ever had a primer that did not ignite the gunpowder in a cartridge as designed, the fault my lie with a contaminated primer. If I am going to be eaten by a lion or stomped by a buffalo, I hope it won't be because I fondled the primers!

I will be careful, you can take your chances!

 

[Doug Hamilton]

Any reload you are not 100% confident with can blow your face off.

Reloading is a Dangerous Game.

DB

I've known a lot of people that reload a lot of ammunition. Can't say I've ever heard of anyone blowing their face off. To be fair though, I never shoot any that I didn't reload myself.
The one time II could have blown some part of my body off was with a factory loaded 12 gauge round. A flock of pintails came overhead. I shot and the shotgun made a weird "thump." I pumped in a new round to fire off, but stopped myself from pulling the trigger. I found that the wad was firmly wedged inside the barrel. We.know what happens when you shoot with a barrel obstruction.

Shooting factory ammo can be a Dangerous Game.

 

[IvW]

If you are an experienced reloader it is like comparing a hand made rifle to anfactory production rifle.....

I reload all my own ammo, never had a failure...

 

[soumya sarkar]

If you've ever had a primer that did not ignite the gunpowder in a cartridge as designed, the fault my lie with a contaminated primer. If I am going to be eaten by a lion or stomped by a buffalo, I hope it won't be because I fondled the primers!

In that case you will never know....

 

[Daggaboy375]

I've known a lot of people that reload a lot of ammunition. Can't say I've ever heard of anyone blowing their face off. To be fair though, I never shoot any that I didn't reload myself.
The one time II could have blown some part of my body off was with a factory loaded 12 gauge round. A flock of pintails came overhead. I shot and the shotgun made a weird "thump." I pumped in a new round to fire off, but stopped myself from pulling the trigger. I found that the wad was firmly wedged inside the barrel. We.know what happens when you shoot with a barrel obstruction.

Shooting factory ammo can be a Dangerous Game.

Should have said "Shoot your eye out".



DB

 

[RayAtkinson]

I learned to reload in the 1950s, and hunted all DG with my reloads over the years, not not a single problem, talking rifles, pistols not so good!

 

[RayAtkinson]

I might add Ive seen a number of factory rounds fail for various reasons ..

 

[Nevada Mike]

Some calibers (like the 375 H&H) offer a wide range of factory loaded ammo so the reloading of ammo is not an imperative, though the expense can be rather high if you really practice as much as you should.

In my own case I have both a .375 H&H and a 404 Jeffery. Ammo for the .375 is easily found and not too expensive, ammo for the 404J is scarce and expensive. I reload all my rifle and shotgun ammo and tailor the reloads for the specific task intended. I also save from a little to a lot of money with equal or better quality.

 

[cmk]

I haven't taken my 404 for any DG hunt, but my hope is that I'll be able to do that in the future. Have owned that rifle for 5-6 years, and in that time I have not purchased or fired a single factory loaded cartridge. I actually started reloading because I wanted a big bore rifle, where the ammo would be prohibitively expensive. I haven't checked lately, but I believe that 404J ammo is about 15 $/€ a piece - if at all available.

As an added bonus, I now reload for all my centerfire rifles. Would probably not have started though, if I only had rifles chambered for standard cartridges (i.e. 30-06, 6.5x55 and 9.3x62). For those, the factory ammo is not that expensive, and it would take quite some time to see return on the investment in reloading equipment. Also, when reloading, you'll be working for less than minimum wages.

Even though I can now craft my 404 ammo at 1.5-3 $/€ (mainly depending on the bullet chosen), I don't see myself saving any money by handloading, but I DO get to do more shooting for the SAME amount of money. And that is the way I prefer to see reloading - having ammo available, and cheap enough to shoot and hunt with it.

Also, here there are not any particular requirements to be able reload, apart from holding a firearms license. You can however not sell or give away your reloaded ammunition.

 

[Puddle]

I might add Ive seen a number of factory rounds fail for various reasons ..

Yup. As I've related before in another thread. The first factory DG round went "click", then the second round went "click". Thank goodness it was during field practice rather than otherwise. That was enough for me. No more "Safari Grade", "hand inspected", DG ammo from that vendor for me. Ever.

 

[AZDAVE]

I will put is simply If you have to ask if you should reload for DG then you should most likely use factory ammo on DG hunts until you have enough experience to be a %100 confident in your hand loads.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

I will put is simply If you have to ask if you should reload for DG then you should most likely use factory ammo on DG hunts until you have enough experience to be a %100 confident in your hand loads.

I don't think the answer is as simple as that. If you read the original question,you'll see that he does reload now, but has been "spooked" by some of the opinions in AH that state that no one should ever use hand loads for dangerous game. Yes, we all know who that would be. Personally, I've had two ammo failures with factory ammo, and none with.my.handloads. I had no qualms at all about taking hand loads for my .458 WM to shoot a cape buffalo. Worked perfectly, as I.knew it would. Although I have been loading almost all of my ammo for many years, this was the first time I didn't use factory ammo.on a DG hunt. If I get to go again for buffalo, elephant or leopard, I will certainly be using handloads.

 

[grand veneur]

I will put is simply If you have to ask if you should reload for DG then you should most likely use factory ammo on DG hunts until you have enough experience to be a %100 confident in your hand loads.

We are 100 % confident of our hand loads otherwise we would not use it for big game hunting. We are willing to take some risks by hunting big game, but we are not careless.

 

[AZDAVE]

@Doug Hamilton I did over simplify the answer. I started to write a long dissertation on the + and - of reloading but figured that folks wouldn't want to read a short book. The man that taught me to reload for rifle and pistol was a bench rest shooter and instilled a level of detail in me that has paid dividends in many things in my life.

The only factory ammo I have ever hunted with is 22LR and shotgun shells. I have been reloading for over 5 decades and have seen some of the best and worst reloads that folks have put together.

So my comment was a short and sweet kinda reply. To me DG is about %100 reliability of the ammo and the rifle when both of those are spot on it develops confidence in your hunting equipment. That confidence allows us as hunters to enter the field and make ethical shots and cleanly harvest to DG we seek.

Each individual hunter has to decide what works for them and have confidence in themselves and their equipment.

 

[DLSJR]

Over the last 46 years I’ve shot both handloads and factory ammunition While rifle hunting. Most of the Dangerous Game ammo I’ve shot has been handloads, like 80-90%. The only misfires I’ve had were with Barnes 375 H&H factory ammo. Fortunately, that happened in practice, not while hunting.

Ive had a few factory shotgun shells misfire, but with more than 30,000 rounds fired from shotguns, one every 10,000 or so isn’t too bad.

 

[Rule 303]

I have not read the entire thread so may be repeating what others have said. I have hunted DG 3 times. All with reloads. With reloads I can use the bullets I want, normally Woodleigh SP and Hydro's. I practice with these. I have had several dud primers, 3 with PPU 375 H&H ammo ( these were early production runs I believe) and 2 using Remington primers. The PPU ammo was used for practices. The batch of Rem primers were disposed of. The primers I use I practice with and keep several box's of that batch for hunting reloads.

Given the millions upon millions of primers made there has to be some faulty ones get by. Best I can say is, if firing at DG and gun goes click, cycle that bolt hard and fast.