Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada What happens when you drop cartridges on the way to the firing line

I had 70 Nosler 150 gr. BTs loaded for testing. Ten powders. The cartridges were in an MTM 100 rd red box. I dropped them, and everything got mixed up. No point wasting them, so I took them with me today to make noise with. Here are 20 shots of who knows what recipe, splashed onto the target. How did I do?

But wait.

Normally, people post pictures of small groups that they've shot. A known quantity of the same powder, loaded behind their favourite bullet.

Well, I have a small group too. Consider that this is an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. Further, the circle is 6 inches wide. The powder brands, types and weights were completely mixed up. 18 of the 20 shots were within that 6 inch circle at 100 yd. All 20 hit the paper. Would a deer have gone down, if shot by any of the bullets in the pic? Yep. Maybe not at 400 yd, but out to about 200 yd, he's toast. Finally, they are Noslers afterall, and are magical (or so I'm told).

Nice shooting.


Am in the habit of marking the charge weight, powder type and bullet weight on each cartridge.

On large bore wfn I mark the powder gr weight numerically on the meplat, too. Makes selection easier when loading from testing cartridge box.

I jot every load down on a piece of paper then put a colored code next to each load line item. I then use a felt tip marker to place the corresponding color code on the head of each cartridge. Something like 50grs. Red, 51 Grs. blue etc.

Mark each powder charge on each cartridge with a Sharpie. If it doesn't clean off in the tumbler NvrDull takes it right off for the next loading. Usually it's sufficiently faded by the time it's resized and wiped off I just write the new load over it.

Actually, Steve, I'd call that a successful test, although not the one you were planning on.😂

I mark all my test rounds with a Sharpie too, but I think I'll follow Labman's lead & start using multiple colors.

I wasn't really concerned about dropping the cartridges. It was the cost of the bullets. Nosler BTs are approx. $47 per 50 up here. I had purchased 3 boxes to develop and test loads for my new book. I had to buy two more. It happens. Thankfully, not often! This is one of the groups I shot with the newly purchased bullets.

Thankfully, I've got two more range trips to go before the editing starts. This book has been an uphill climb to finish.

That's a good load, go with it...lol
I've done the same thing.

Thanks. That was a 150 gr. Nosler BT load with IMR 4064.