A few days ago while at my local gun shop, I was given 2 100-round MTM boxes of reloaded .357 ammo; the story was that the ammo came as part of an estate sale batch of firearms they had recently acquired. (I was given the ammo under the caveat that it was to be salvaged, not shot.)

The rule of thumb is "never shoot someone else's reloads" - here, the rule was proven wise... One box's label indicated 45 rounds were loaded with 14.5 grains of Unique - this level is essentially a double-charge!!! (The maximum load I could find in my collection of manuals used 7.8 grains.)

I spent last evening taking them all down to salvage the components; out of curiosity, I weighed some of the powder charges - they ranged from 14.1 grains to 14.7 grains, with a random 10-round average of 14.4 grains of Unique, and one case had no powder in it at all! Crimping was wildly inconsistent - some cases weren't crimped at all, still showing a slight flare from bullet seating, while others had crimps so heavy that I had to tighten the bullet puller collet to the point that the bullets were seriously deformed. One case even looked as if it had been run into a 9mm sizing die in an attempt to make a heavy taper crimp...

The other box of 100 was labelled as using 13.5 grains of 4227 - an extremely light load of a slow powder. These were disassembled, as well; all of them were uncrimped, with noticeably flared case mouths.

I now have over 150 primed cases, 103 158 gr. Hornady XTP bullets and 43 158 gr. Speer Gold Dot hollow-points. The cases are destined for low-power plinker loads - I've a few pounds of Trail Boss for this purpose.

I can't help but wonder if there were originally 50 of the heavy Unique loads, and the missing 5 were lost due to a "Kaboom!"

With 158 grainers, 14.5 gr Unique would come in at around 1480 fps, which is pretty sparky and a Ruger only load to be sure. Good thing you cannibalized them.

CDFingers

CDFingers wrote: Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:54 pm With 158 grainers, 14.5 gr Unique would come in at around 1480 fps, which is pretty sparky and a Ruger only load to be sure. Good thing you cannibalized them.

CDFingers

Maybe a Ruger #1 or #3... A .357 Blackhawk (the large-frame single action) might survive, but I shudder to think about the pressures involved. I'd bet extraction of the fired shell could be a bit sticky, too.

No way I'd want to shoot that load unless I had a revolver I didn't care about and a way of firing it from safe cover. (And maybe a Kevlar blanket tented over it to keep the flying bits under control!)

Someone should have removed the keys from grandpa’s reloading room.

14.Anything grains of UNIQUE?? No way! That's a kaboom waiting to happen. 14.5 grains of 2400 is right about a full-house load with 158gr bullets, and that's well above 30,000 PSI (40,000 CUP), so I don't even want to imagine the pressure levels with that much Unique.

Here's what Lyman's 49th says, and they include pressure specs.

158gr Hornady JHP #35750:
Unique: starting grains = 6.4gr, 18,900 CUP; max load = 8.3gr, 38,300 CUP
2400: starting grains = 11.3gr, 20,700 CUP; max load = 14.9gr, 41,800 CUP

That's how overloaded these loads were. Yeouch.

You were absolutely right to follow that safety rule. You really are putting your life into someone else's hands when you shoot that other person's reloads.

Bubba’s pissin’ hot hand-loads. This guys reloads are why I can’t ever find unique locally; he using it all up!

But agreed, never shoot anyone else’s hand-loads.

Generally, I’m most worried about squibs than over charged loads, but sheesh those were insane.


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Bisbee wrote: Sun Feb 12, 2023 2:43 am Someone should have removed the keys from grandpa’s reloading room.

Yeah - I was thinking along those lines myself. The extreme variations in crimp & charge (not to mention the charge itself!) seem to suggest that someone's attention & focus wasn't entirely present...