Shockbottle case gauge

Sasquatch

Sasquatch

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I've had two matches where a bad round cost me a few seconds (and one time a reshoot). Thing is, I check each round with a case gauge when I load. So, they certainly fit the chamber, but I must be going too fast to have seen the bad primer.

Several people recommended the Shockbottle case gauge which does 100 rounds at time. They claim it is far easier to spot bad rounds because you look at 100 at a time, and it's faster because you're not manipulating each one.

My problem is that it's over $100. https://dawsonprecision.com/shockbottle-case-gauges/

Any personal experience (or a better price?) with it?
 
I finally bought one after my son suffered the same issues. We also checked every round that he shot in competition, but the problem is that is a pain in the tail for practice, so I would label the taxes practice and competition. The problem comes when you have left over rounds from practice or just grab boxes of ammo on the way out of the door. With the Shockbottle, it is no big deal to recheck 100 rounds. In fact, my son now rechecks everything on the way to the matches.

Also invest in the turn try. That makes it all the more easy to get the job done quickly. it is expensive, but cuts checking time to less than 2-3 min./100.

I purchased mine from Banks Bullets and the flip tray from BenStorger.com. All of the prices are very close when I looked.
 
Man, I feel like it is the single most important piece of reloading gear I have. Worth every penny!
Bad rounds jump out at you like a sore thumb.
Can't remember last round failure I had at a match.
 
I pre sort and police my brass pretty well so I have maybe 2-3 every 200 rounds that I cast into the practice rejects. They eyeball me from the corner of the bench, angry that I was able to catch them before they take me from second from last place to firmly in last place!
 
I'm another case gauge fanboy. I never had issues when I was shooting .45, but with 9mm and the variety of bad chambers causing deformed rounds, I was having 3 - 4 'issues' per match. Now I gauge and I have not had an issue since. I also reload on a 550 and spun the resize dies down till my reloads look like brass coke bottles, that helps too! The rejects now are almost all fat, all the way to the case head.
 
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I had issues too and started prepping my 9mm brass by sizing, de-capping and checking with the case gauge before loading. I wind up tossing 5%+ of range pickup cases before I even waste components on them. I check again after loading and only have to scrap another 1% typically, and I’m 100% at the firing line this way so far.

I’m doing all this with a single gauge and it’s easy enough that I don’t feel the need to drop $100 on a hi-cap one. Mine came in a kit from Miday with 6 pistol calibers.
 
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I picked one up during the black friday sales. On Stoeger's podcast shortly thereafter he mentioned blems but I never looked for them.

Good tool. A mountain of rounds that I reject at the gauge will chamber fine, but I need practice ammo too so I scrutinize more than I need to. Truly bad rounds for my guns are very obvious. Looking at 100 primer seating depth is pretty easy to judge as well.

I took a tip from Mike Overlay and set the gauge down to pop the rounds up and marker swipe them once the gauge is full of passes. No worries of mixing them that way.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk
 
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I put all my loaded rounds into a plastic cartridge holder that comes in factory boxes whenever I take them out of the hopper on the loading machine. They are in the holder bullet-down so I can inspect the primers to make sure none are too high or are in wrong. I put the loaded rounds into baggies after I check them. I do plunk a few in a barrel or in a gauge to check to see whether my dies are still set properly.
 
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