My gut instinct, after having reloaded and pulled countless shells since I was
12, is that you may be hearing bona fide horror stories from or about people who
have reloaded their own ammo without either knowing what on earth they were
doing, or were knowingly doing so unsafely in order to push some envelope or
other. Some of these eejits create small bombs and seriously injure themselves.

But if you’re dealing with conventionally fired, factory issued ammo then I have
yet to witness or reliably hear of a genuine hazard in reusing the casings in
any craft oriented manner — so long as you personally ascertain that they have
indeed been fired, not pulled.

JL