New Loaded Cartridge Guage

I some how managed to reload for 40 years without a loaded cartridge guage. I used the old 'use the pistol barrel (disassembled) and drop the rounds in to check' method for my to set up my dies. This worked for a lot of years and guns but recently a friend tried to use some of my 9mm ammo in his Glock and it did not chamber. Needing some other stuff anyway, I added a guage block to my next order of 'stuff' and proceeded to check a bunch of my 9mm loads when it arrived. Sure enough, what had been sized enough to work in my old S&W would not drop into the guage. A slight adjustment in the sizing die and everything seems good to go.
Never one to let success stop me from looking for trouble, the guage covers 4 calibers so I eyed the couple hundred recently 'prepped' pieces of 45acp brass on the bench. Sure enough most of them did not fit, there was only a few thousandths clearance between the shell holder and 45 sizing die but after taking that out all the cases fit the guage easily. I was almost done resizing the whole batch (I still use a single stage press not a progressive) when it occurred to me that I would now need to bell them all again. At which point it became apparent WHY they did not fit the guage to begin with. (Insert Homer Simpson slapping head "DOH" emoticon here!)
Sometimes it is best NOT to assume that you were/are/did wrong and think the process through before trying to correct a 'problem'.
No real moral or advice here, figured I could at least supply a laugh at my expense.

Bruce

If a slightly sized case works in your gun, you may lose accuracy by sizing it further. This seems very true with .45 Auto and .38 Special.
A reloader loads for his gun(s) and not for a friends.
After 40 years, I still don't have a case gage and see no reason to get one. All my rounds work in all guns and they aren't fired in any other guns.

I found if you have issues with 9mm, you can run them thru a 9mm Makarov sizing die and they work fine.

For 9x19, if you have the Lee Bulge Buster kit, get a 9mm MAK FCD and run your 9x19 and 9x21 cases through it.