With woodchuck season just around the corner, it's safe to say a lot of reloaded ammunition will be burned throughout the summer.
Reloaded ammo is just as accurate and dependable as factory fodder if the hand loader does his or her part. There's no reason to fear that misfires will happen if the primer pockets are cleaned and the bottom of the pocket is cut square. Of course, the primer must be firm (but not crushed) against the bottom of the pocket.
Bullets will not slide back into the case if the neck has been properly resized. Nor will cases crack or split if they are not overworked and used too many times. There is no set number of times a case can be reloaded.
However, experience has proven to me that varmint cartridge cases become suspect after about four reloadings. I'm aware that some hand loaders get twice that many reloadings from a case, but it's not a wise policy to overwork a case. Normally, before a rifle blows apart, the case must first rupture.
The biggest problem most hand loaders will face is the stuck case or live round. Let's look at what happens when a shell is fired.
After the primer ignites the powder charge, a massive volume of hot gases begin to form in the case. The case expands against the sidewalls of the chamber. This is known as offset pressure, and it usually takes about 7,000 psi to do this.
With the case walls tightly against the chamber walls, the shell head pushes back against the bolt face. Not always, but sometimes this stretches the case. As a case stretches, a white ring forms around the rear of the case roughly five-16ths of an inch from the back of the shell head. The whiter the ring, the more the case has been stretched.
It will only be a matter of time until the case breaks apart at this point. This allows the hot gases to escape into the action instead of pushing against the bullet. If the rupture is severe enough, it might damage the rifle and the shooter.
After brass has been used a lot or is old, it loses its ability to flex. When the offset pressure pushes the case against the sidewalls of the chamber, the case almost instantly relaxes and allows the case to shrink. If this doesn't happen, the case will stick in the chamber, and a stuck case can easily ruin a day's hunt.
Also, cases that have been improperly resized will not slide smoothly into the chamber. The live round sticks part way in, and it's next to impossible to pull it loose. The bolt usually slips off the case head rim, and the shooter is faced with having a live round in the chamber. The stuck empty can be knocked out with a ram rod, but that's not a safe way to remove a live round.
When I had a reloading shop, I used a hydraulic system to remove stuck live rounds. It sure was messy, but it was completely safe. When a live round is stuck in the chamber, do nothing in an attempt to remove it. Pushing a ram rod against the tip of the bullet and striking it with a hammer can detonate the powder charge. Even filling the barrel with oil or water is no guarantee that a quick blow won't set off the powder in the case. There's no way of knowing if oil or water got past the bullet and neutralized the powder.
Gunsmiths remove the barrel from the action with special tools. Once the barrel is screwed out of the action, there is enough of the live round protruding from the chamber for the smith to neutralize the powder and remove the live round.
Flintlocks and percussion rifles do not use cartridges, but keep in mind black powder is a Class A explosive and can be detonated with a sharp blow. Don't dig around with homemade tools trying to get a ball out of black powder rifle. Here again, go to a gunsmith. He probably will remove the breech plug and dump the powder out, or in cases of a double load, he will neutralize the remaining powder before attempting to clean out the barrel.
I've been asked many times how a case used for hunting should be resized. My answer is "full length." Neck sizing serves no purpose in the average factory rifle. It's true that benchrest shooters may alter neck size, but they are shooting custom built rifles that have provision-machined chambers. The dies they use are a mirror finish of the chamber. In fact, some don't do any sizing. Their chambers are so precise, a round is reloaded without any sizing.
Stuck cases can be difficult to remove, and it's best to use the services of a qualified gunsmith.
