As an RSO (Range Safety Officer) you see a lot of weird stuff. I recently saw a magazine loaded wrong on two different lanes. One the ammo was backward - thankfully it was caught before it was put in the firearm. The ammo in the other was right for the top to rounds, but everything below was vertical instead of horizontal. I’m not sure how that happened… 
Picture borrowed from Reddit.
Guilty…
On a couple different occasions where I was shooting different caliber handguns at the range…I accidently attempted to load .40S&W into .45ACP magazines…it never got past loading two rounds before I would catch the error (why isn’t this dang ammo staying in the magazine!?) but I did make the mistake.
Things that make you go…hhmmmmmmmm
Proof that Forrest was right? I’d love to see “how” that AR mag was loaded😊
Well, fortunately there’s only so many ways to screw it up.
Backwards is the most common error I’ve seen but I’ve also seen people try to load a magazine vertically.
The nice thing about it is there’s only one right way to load it for the weapon to cycle and fire.
I took my wife and her dad to the range, not alot of experience between the too. They both tried loading backwards. After that was corrected I sat back and enjoyed watching them try to load the 7th round into a 6 round magazine. They then learned what those little windows on the sides are for.
Sheepdog556 - that reminds me of when I was in the Navy, and had magazine malfunctions with a .45. The magazines had been stored, with a full 7 rounds in them for months on end. It was determined that keeping the magazine fully loaded for a long time actually weakened the spring by compressing it to the max, and the last round or two in it sometimes jammed when fired. We were advised to load the magazines with only 5 or 6 rounds instead of the full, seven rounds if we intended to store it for a long time, and to rotate magazines every so often… problem solved.
Had a .22LR mag where the follower would hang up and when it released, tended to tip the top round on it’s nose. if it hung hard when loading it, the top one could be flipped all the way up so it was point down, rim up and the other rounds below it would start to tip up also, rim up, bullet down. @Dawn I wonder if something like that’s what happened on the mag with the ammo all primer-up.
I have had .22LR mags where the ammo would drag on the tips of the bullets if they weren’t tapped to the back and start standing on their heads enough so they wouldn’t feed.
I would submit in this particular photo that the mag was less than half full and “dumped” and then was picked up to provide the photo. An M-16 mag with a weak spring when it hits a hard surface can deflect the mag follower resulting in the mess you see. The other option was a “Tap/Rack” where a round doesn’t go off so the shooter slams the bottom of the magazine with their palm and racks the slide. The result is the same, bounced rounds and the need for new magazines/springs
Cheers,
Craig6
@craig6 that description is consistent with the behavior we saw with the .22LR magazines with the sticky follower.
@Zee I don’t even know how that happens to load a magazine with ammunition backwards. What dumbo doesn’t pay attention to details like that ?!
@Robert8 - going with the uninformed, and the inattentive. I can see how it would happen if you were brand new and hadn’t been properly taught. I’ve seen new shooters try it … mostly because the people who should have been supervising them weren’t.
And I suppose if a person was loading mags with their mind on something else they might not notice… but what I don’t know is why you would actually do that. Some things deserve your attention. Because, Firearms!
Yeah That’s how people get seriously hurt. A couple maybe Three years ago there was a person (not sure man or woman) but I’m leaning towards man, new to guns. So new I’m thinking they never held a gun until that day from my recollection was at a suburban gun range here and I cannot remember details but the person died from gunshot wounds. It’s probably on the Internet somewhere.
I actually don’t think it usually causes a dangerous discharge but it depends on the gun we’re talking about. I did a quick search on what happens and here’s what I turned up. Maybe @craig6 or @James or @wildrose can comment…
I found…
Cartridges with rims won’t even enter the chamber and as long as the primer isn’t slammed against something with enough force to ignite it, nothing happens except that the slide won’t finish it’s travel forward.
Since the bullet is too narrow to be retained by the feed lips, when the backwards round is pushed forward enough by the slide that the cartridge case passes the feed lips, the round just pops up and is caught by the slide and jammed against the barrel or may be thrown free or may interfere with the empty case being extracted.
Hopefully someone can add more substance to this.
@Zee I don’t see where it could be dangerous because you couldn’t load a gun. Stupid Yes; Dumbassery Yes; Unsafe Yes; But ability to fire your gun backwards? I don’t think you could. 
All I can do is shake my head.
@Zee Your description is accurate for the vast majority of “centerfire” pistol cartridges. You might get them into the mag but feeding into the chamber is a physical impossibility. As what you found suggests most will flop out as they get closer the the ends of the feed lips on a mag. NOW, if you were REALLY trying for a Darwin Award I think you may be able to get some “Rimfire” rounds backwards into a mag and have them possibly detonate out of battery. I’m thinking of loading .22 LR into a .22 WMR mag and trying to chamber or a Short or Cap into an LR mag. Even that is sketchy but I imagine one might go off if you held your tongue juuuussssttt right.
Cheers,
Craig6
Call me a bit of a cynic, but if you’re not bright enough to load a weapon, you shouldn’t have one. I’d think such an individual to be a danger to themselves as well as anyone around if they ever managed to chamber around (Can’t you see them looking down the barrel to see if it’s loaded?)
@Dwayne… cynic 
well, you know, ignorance is fixable… and we all start somewhere. Just gotta hope someone sorts us out before we get in trouble with it 
