Right Tools, Wrong ...

With the help of Patrick Ryan from Redding, I set up a Redding T7 Press with the slide bar auto primer feed and Redding Competition .308 dies. I started with the Sierra 168-grain BTHP “moly” bullets, but decided to check on them, asking my friend Jacob Bynum of Rifles Only fame, and was promptly scolded by him. Since he loads lots of rifle ammunition for lots of shooting at long range he “told” me not to use moly-coated projectiles. In all candor, I didn’t want moly bullets, but it was all I could find for sale. As many of you know, sometimes it is hard to find what you want component-wise, as there seems to be a run on the stuff lately.

So digging deeper (with the help of Mike Shovel of Cor-Bon) I found some un-moly Sierra 168-grain BTHP projectiles, so I am in debt to him and Peter Pi and out of hot water with Jacob — what a rodeo. Anyway, I started with WW748 powder loading what I thought was a measured 45.5 grains of powder which in reality turned out to be a nominal 50+ grains, thereby making some loads “pretty hot” shall we say?

I thought I had checked the powder and the scale and re-checked it to make sure the amount was correct. Anyways, the bright light part (if there is one) is I only loaded about 20 rounds and then checked the cake mix so to speak. Realizing these were a bit much, Scott Anderson brought over his bullet puller and we pulled the job and checked the powder loads … oops! Something was wrong and fortunately I hadn’t blown myself up yet and, better yet, hadn’t loaded 3,000 of these booming phone booth killers.