Reminder to be careful with reloading

by bj , Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 10:52 (4680 days ago)

A friend of mine related this story of what he saw at a range this past weekend:

"I am busy and not paying attention to that end of the range when I hear an extraordinarily loud bang for an AR.

I look down there and there is a flurry of activity. I walk down to see what is going on. I see a brand new once fired M4 style AR blown up. He says that he is shooting hand loads and that they were his first attempt. I ask him what his load was. He says 25.5 grains. I ask of what? He says TITE GROUP. I say you are lucky to be alive.

His AR was blown up but he was unmarked. The front 1 inch of the bolt and carrier looked to be lightly brass plated."

I've always known since I was very young that there were lots of different powders and they were specific uses, but I wonder how obvious this is to the person new to reloading. I've heard of people doing this same thing by loading 2400 into high intensity rifle cartridges, the justification being that 2400 says "rifle powder" on the label.