I had spent time prepping two tray full of .308 and 6BR brass after coming back from the shooting range about 30 days ago. I had cleaned all the carbon off the brass, annealed, primer pocket uniform / cleaning , resized all brass, run it through a Giraud trimmer to trim to the correct size and primed and left them on the trays ready to be filled with powder. It was a tiring day, so I covered the brass / trays with a rag only to come back later to finish. Thirty days went by and nothing was touched because I have been quite busy, so I had time last night, so I plugged in the Chargemaster and the FX120 to warm up for 30 mins. It was 9 pm and earlier the day was about 100 degrees, and the thermometer read 95 degrees in my garage at that time, so I switched on the fans. Thirty minutes later I went in my garage shirtless and it was like a sauna after turning the fans off to stop the draft so it won't affect the FX120 because its so sensitive to draft, so I uncovered my brass and picked up the .308 brass to see that the primers are in to remind me that the cases were prepped as usual. So I sat down to weigh and filled all of the .308 brass with RL15, and pushed it aside, then drained the ChargeMaster and filled it with Varget and did weighed / filled the 6BR brass. It was so hot and the thermometer read 93 degrees! Sweat was dripping from my elbows and down my chest and back, so I stopped to go inside to cool off. After 45 mins, I went back to finish seating the bullets, started seating 155 grain Palmas in the .308 and was done, then switched to the BR and I picked up a BR case and seated a 107 Sierra MK and returned the completed cartridge back to the tray and to see that the cartridge did not seat upright as it once did before I took it out of the tray to seat that bullet in. I picked up the cartridge and looked in that empty tray space and there was powder kernels in the bottom of that tray. Guess what?

I forgot to put primers in it!!!! Imagine sweating my butt off in that garage for an hour to weigh / fill cases for the 6BR only to forget to double check what I did 30 days ago. For now on, I will write a little note on what case prep had been done to certain brass, etc.

Ever have anything like this happen to you and please state your experiences. It must be fun to listen to other's experiences so it won't happen to us.

2 years ago I had acquired an Ackley improved rifle. I had 20 cases that had been fire formed. I was instructed by a trusted source not to size until after the second fire. I loaded them up and was at the range when I realized, resizing includes decapping (usually) but decapping does't have to include resizing. I had failed to reprime. Needless to say a puller was added to the collection.

Lets just say that I have included an additional step in my reloading process, when I have poured the powder into the cartridge I move the cartridge to another tray or move it over another row. Why do I do this? Well...ummm someone has forgotten to put primers in before and by moving it I check to see if powder is coming out the bottom

Ok I really do it to prevent a double charge but it has a secondary benefit of making sure I reprimed it because yes I am guilty of forgetting to do that (more than once) lol

MTM case guard boxes are your friend. When you buy brass, you buy those boxes. That brass lives in those boxes all of its' life. Then, you get you a roll of blue painter's tape and a black Sharpie. You put a piece of tape on the lid of the box and you write what the brass has had done to it, and/or what it needs.

Another policy is case head up, not case mouth up. That way you can see if you have spent primers, new primers, or no primers in the brass.

I normally decap and clean after the range then prep at later dates. A few times I have forgot to remind myself the brass needed to be sized. Primed and loaded powder only to have the case neck be bigger than the bullet.

Yes, we have all made reloading oops. It's all about procedures and following them to making sure each step is completed before you go to the next step. I use the Sierra bullet stickers that come in the boxes to write on with each step. If it says RTL, it's Ready To Load. If not, you have to know where you are in your steps. You can make a quick note on something to know where you are in the process if you plan to stop and return for later.

My first loading faux pas was also sizing and charging 50 cases only to string powder from the loading block to the press before I realized they had no primers.
De-primed, neck sized, primed, threw powder and trickled up to charge weight, seated bullets on 50 7RM Norma cases. When I got to the range I figured out this was the cycle I needed to bump the shoulder back. since that day, all cases get a .001-.002 shoulder bump every cycle. No more neck sizing for me. That was also when I made the transition from an inertia to collet in the press puller.
Stuck a case in the die with inadequately applied imperial sizing wax. Decided to try one shot. Sprayed cases liberally. Did not allow drying time. Dimpled the shoulders on about 20 of 50 nosler 7-08 cases. Quit drinking beer during case prep.
In the infancy of my reloading, while I was in the Ricky Bobby faze I had a serious need for speed. I had a smoking fast 270 load with H 4831 in Winchester brass. After 3-6 loading cycles the primer pockets were FUBAR. Instead of reducing my charge weight, I bought a box of Lapua brass after reading about how many loads some were getting out of it. I loaded em up with my same load, put three in the mag. First shot seemed kinda loud. Bolt lift might have been a little sticky but hey, the brass looked good. Shot the second one and the bolt locked. After that when I changed a component, I worked back up to my load. It was years later and more than one failed ejector before I saw the wisdom in “need more gun for more velocity”.

Yep, I’ve done the no primer thing. For me, the worst mental lapse is to forget to close the powder dump gate when changing to a new powder. What a mess.

What Fireman said is almost exactly what I do. MTM boxes, Sierra data sticky on inside of box and Blue painters tape on the outside with pertinent info.

haha, great stories. I've obviously never messed up anything. All my loads, including the test batches, shoot less the a dime at 500 yards too.

I think I just haven't been reloading as long or as many rounds of some of yall but here some:
- Had one small batch of 50 have one without powder and one without primer.\
- More than once I have bumped my reloading block hard enough to toss powder out of cases. Regardless of how many are on the block, it's impossible to know which grains came out of which so , again having done it multiple times, i just empty all them and start over. Once I did it after charging case #45-ish of 50.
- Once I went to size cases and didn't apply any lube. I just thought i was being a wuss so i muscled through a few before realizing that I don't even see the can of one shot out of the chemical cabinet. Learned how to pull stuck cases. NOTE: a separate depriming tool maybe one of the biggest lessons learned for me. It's really helpful to feel how the case resizes and you can't really do that without having the primer removed before sizing. I like this alot now.

In the summer, I charge cases at the dinner table in the AC, 50 at a time, between AC cycles of on and off. I have never spilled but have tried a double charge (luckily it won't fit). Then go to the garage to seat. I prefer to charge then immediately seat to prevent error. I like winter time reloading.

My most recent screw-up wasn't a big deal. I loaded up a small batch of .300 WM/180 gr to test. I ran them through the chrony and got about 150 fps more than what I was expecting. When I got back home, I discovered I had loaded 165 gr bullets by mistake.

I keep all my brass in zip lock bags, sorted by caliber and number of times fired. Inside of each bag is a small checklist of all the normal steps that are checked off as each step is finished.

Have crushed a few mouths or shoulders, but that is frustrating, rather than dangerous. Firm believer in using reloading blocks, which allow the cases to be either up or down. Like to be able to see fired primers, and then know that when they are mouth up, they are ready for loading. I use powders and lot density which will prevent any chance of double charging.

I have done the very same thing as in left a primer out. The one thing that would scare me about your procedure is doing two cartridges at the same time. If I am loading one type of cartridge, I stick with that until I am all done, from a-z before moving on to a different cartridge. That would suck to accidently use the wrong powder or primer in a whole tray of whatever you are loading.

I still use the lube pad that cam with my rcbs stuff and would typically oil 5 at a time then run 2 that weren’t oiled. Stuck a case really good and got a little frustrated with it...

Here is one that I still haven’t figured out how to break down. I load and shoot a lot of .38 hollow base wad cutter target loads out of my .357. They are just plain old fun to shoot. No recoil and more accurate than me. My loading regime is to deprime and tumble. Size. Expand. Then prime. I prep and prime a big coffee can full at a time. Then all I have to do when I open up the coffee can is throw the powder charge and seat and roll crimp the bullet and end up with this.

Usually a smooth as silk operation but one came off the press fully loaded like this. figuring out how to take the S.O.B. apart is like a rubic’s cube.

Inertia pulled and deprime. I’ve pushed out a few upside down primers. I sweat it every time.

I keep it on my bench as a monument to complacency.

Yep, I've loaded test rounds without primers. Fortunately I had another rifle/caliber to shoot on that trip. I now keep all brass primer up in their cases to avoid that mistake.

Last fall I loaded 50 rounds of different seating depths and 5 different powders. I got all loaded up to head to the range and a little voice said “double check your loads, make sure they will chamber in today’s rifle”. So I proceed to chamber a round and the bolt has hard to close, next 20 rounds the bolt wouldn’t close. So I immediately get my bullet comparator out and all checks out with my notes. It took a minute of staring at my loaded rounds and it hits me like a ton of bricks, I didn’t set my shoulders back far enough for this rifle!! I only had about 4 hours to get my shooting done so I pulled all 50 bullets, dumped my powder, resized and hand wiped the lube off, got new charges in the case and bullets seated in about an hour. After that it was all good and found a good load!

Yup, I have used the reload eraser (bullet puller) several times

The worst is packing up multiple customer rifles, traveling to the range, only to realize you left ALL your test loads on the bench! And you're 45 minutes away.

Breaking news:
I loaded up the ole Chargemaster with Tac after getting the whole bench ready. Super stoked because ladder test went well. Any guess what I did or didn't do? The dump valve for the Chargemaster was wide open. it's a good thing I was wearing my earphones and walked away to let it warm up. And this is why I have this ghetto rigged 3-walled box the chargemaster sits inside of but still a mess.

I have NOT screwed up in my reloading! At least, not in the last 45 minutes, while I was eating supper. Now, during the previous 50+ years, I'll admit that if there is anyway, anyway at all, to screw up the reloading process, I have done it. Fortunately, none of my screw ups were of the type that cost me an eye, and ear, or a firearm, but I'm sure I've got it in me to do just that! Reloading for these new calibers like the 300 HAM'R and the 6mmARC is opening all kinds of new opportunities. . .

Have I ever screwed up... HA! In 40 years? I could write the "Don't do this" encyclopedia of handloading!

I have two Chargemasters and after making one mess I put a small rectangular Tupperware container under the openings and use them to catch powder and if I forget they are there ready to catch mistakes.