Removing Cast Lead .45ACP Bullets using a Bullet Puller

[HammeringHank100]

I have about 300 .45ACP, 230Gr RN cast lead bullets I need to remove. Long story short. I just purchased a Dillon 650 and loaded 150 rounds of ammo. Went to my club to test my loads. My Colt Gold Cup .45ACP kept jamming. The person shooting next to me checked my ammo and said the taper crimp needed to be tighter. He gave me one of his as a reference. After loading 300 rounds, I decided to check them in my barrel. I know I know, I'm a dunce... Before I start, the crimp on the bullet is very tight. Will I be able to remove the bullets using a bullet puller on a singe stage press. I don't care about the bullets just the brass. Thanks for listening, Hank

[ku4hx]

I've pulled a few cast boolits unfortunately. Generally I have to revert to a pair of wire cutters or other pliers to grasp the bullet and use my single stage press. The brass will very likely be fine, but it will need resizing at least at the neck. I prefer to pull the depriming pin and once again full length resize them all. I've never had a problem.

What kind of "jamming"? Is your gun failing to go completely into battery? Just guessing but that's what you seem to be indicating ... cartridge not fully chambering.

If your crimp is what it should be, maybe your bullet is impinging on the rifling. Check cartridge overall length. When done, a loaded round should drop into your chamber with a satisfying "ker-plunk" and fall out on its own when the barrel is inverted. If it doesn't fall out, the likely causes are either neck diameter too large for your chamber, boolit to fat for your chamber, or boolit sticking on the rifling. Or some combination of the three. My Ruger KP-90 simply will not chamber .452" boolits reliably. .451" works fine and is quite accurate. That .001" makes a lot of difference to this gun.

You're going to be waaaaay ahead of the game if you limit test rounds to, say, 20 or so. And always check dimensions on the first round that drops into the tray and a few after that as you dial-in the die settings. All things being equal, whatever your machine is doing on the 300th round it also did on the first.

[Mossy]

One of those plastic inertia hammer-type pullers should work. The $15 Frankford Arsenal Impact Bullet Puller (Midway) works as well as any of the others for me. Just use your press's shell holder in place of the holder that comes with it. It's much faster.

[Quigley284]

+1 on the hammer. Mike

[ku4hx]

One of those plastic inertia hammer-type pullers should work. The $15 Frankford Arsenal Impact Bullet Puller (Midway) works as well as any of the others for me. Just use your press's shell holder in place of the holder that comes with it. It's much faster.

I've owned a couple and still have the second one. The way the first one held the cartridge, basically a "C" shaped washer, damaged the cases.

The Frankford one I currently have doesn't do that but dang, banging that thing on the garage floor begins to hurt my ears and sting my hands after a short while. Not to mention powder getting all over the boolit lube and that whole general powder-boolit-lube mess in the bottom of the tube. If I've got more than 1 or 2 to pull I use my puller or the pliers method. If I were in a situation like the OP and all I had was an inertial puller for ~300 rounds, I'd bury the whole lot of bad ammo entombed in concrete and consider it one of life's little lessons.

[HammeringHank100]

The bullet is crushed. The brass is crushed into the lead. Using a inertia hammer does not work.

[Bret4207]

Sounds like the perfect excuse to invest in a 45ACP revolver!

[CaptRob]

Two things ... one yeah pulling.g each boolit with the franklin sucks and does make a mess but some times you gotta do what ya gotta do... if you play your cards right you can salvage the primer and case, but I would pull the recapping pin out of a sizing/decapping die and resize after...

Two... if you can, you might be able to reset your crimp die and make a better crimp even possible change the oal a lil if needed...you may end up shaving a little lead off the boolitl but if it loads in your gun then that would be your quickest way to remove boolits from brass...keep in mind you may need to use your finger to scrape any lead shaved out the boolit and they wont be as accurate as a good load...

[stubshaft]

You don't say how much of the boolit is protruding from the case. Although with a 45 ACP it probably isn't much. i use a small pair of Vise grips and raise the ram in my Rockchucker with the cartridge in the shell holder. Grab a good bit of the boolit (usually ruins the boolit) and lower the ram to pull it out. I do not use anything in the press as the insert is hardened and I haven't so much as nicked a thread on it in all of the years I have been doing this.

[HammeringHank100]

Hey Stubshaft, Thanks for the info. I will try your method tonight.
And Thank You Guys for all your input. Hank

[Moonman]

That's why if you shoot a 45 AUTO, you should also have a 45 Revolver. The revolver will shoot mistakes and be fun too.

[pdawg_shooter]

I use an extended shell holder and a old pair of wire stripper pliers. Run the round up through the die hole. grip the lead with the "teeth" of the wire strippers and lower the press handle. DONE.

[GRUMPA]

You guys sure must not like those hammers, that's all I use and have used them on everything but a 50BMG round. I actually just broke mine just a couple of weeks ago taking apart a 11.7x51R and I guess the 405gr boolit was to much and broke the end off, good thing I had a back up.

[mdi]

About pullers;

I have an ingot of range lead about 4"x12"x1" that I use on my bench to whack on with my inertia puller; much quieter. I have a collet type puller for my .44 mistakes but it is very slow and most of the time it won't grip a lead bullet enough to pull it out. I've tried the vise-grip/pliers/dia cutter on/with my press but that often seems clumbsy and slow. I rarely have more than a half dozen to do so I usually revert to my hammer type puller and lead pad (plus lately I've been making a lot slugging slugs, lead poured into fired cases and removed with an inertia puller). I have been able to remove every bullet I've tried, even an extra heavy roll crimp on my .44 Magnum ammo. A hint I read that works well for me is use a regular shell holder with an inertia holder (mine's an RCBS). I don't have to fight that aluminum o-ring collet so it goes faster and easier...

[garym1a2]

If the boolit was too long in the case, use a press and push it in further. If the crimp is bad run it thru a lee factory crimp die. That always worked for me. With the factory crimp dice you may get some leading, but that is easier to clean than pulling 300 rounds.

[Boerrancher]

In the inertia, (Plastic hammer type) bullet I have used the regular shell holder at times and do not recommend it. Use the aluminum one that came with it. Here is the reason you shouldn't use a regular shell holder. A regular shell holder does not hold the case tightly, it has room to wiggle, and it also has a huge open area where the case is inserted, roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the case rim is not supported by anything, depending on the shell holder. If the crimp is tight and it requires multiple hard wacks you can actually damage the rim on the case. Even true rimmed cases like a 45-70 can be damaged by using a regular shell holder. The aluminum collets that come with the puller support the case all the way around, not just on the rim, but over the body portion that it comes in contact with as well. The tighter you screw the cap on, the better the collet grips the body of the case and takes less stress off of the rim. I am sure you can figure out how I discovered all of this. I destroyed a bunch of Remington (50+) 45-70 brass using a regular shell holder instead of the aluminum collet. It wasn't until They were all reloaded and I found the breach block on my sharps wouldn't close because the rims were bent. Do as you please, but the way I see it your options are the press with vicegrips, wire cutters, etc, or the inertia hammer with the aluminum collet. The best way to do this is dump powder and boolit in a cigar box and once you are done, separate the boolits from the powder.

Best wishes,

Joe

[fredj338]

I have about 300 .45ACP, 230Gr RN cast lead bullets I need to remove. Long story short. I just purchased a Dillon 650 and loaded 150 rounds of ammo. Went to my club to test my loads. My Colt Gold Cup .45ACP kept jamming. The person shooting next to me checked my ammo and said the taper crimp needed to be tighter. He gave me one of his as a reference. After loading 300 rounds, I decided to check them in my barrel. I know I know, I'm a dunce... Before I start, the crimp on the bullet is very tight. Will I be able to remove the bullets using a bullet puller on a singe stage press. I don't care about the bullets just the brass. Thanks for listening, Hank

It is the issue w/ a progressive press. YOU MUST resist the ability to load a lot of ammo & work your loads up FIRST. No more than 10rds each load. That way you don't have to pull them when they are wrong. Your load dev should START w/ a dummy round checked in your bbl. Sure, you can use a collet type puller or imapct to remove lead bullets. Work up in small patches & this won't happen.
Set your dies up correctly & YOU NEVER NEED A LFCD!

[ku4hx]

I use an extended shell holder and a old pair of wire stripper pliers. Run the round up through the die hole. grip the lead with the "teeth" of the wire strippers and lower the press handle. DONE.

+1 Quiet, fast and smooth. Once you get the cadence down spillage is a non problem and cases are damage free.

[Recluse]

For the occasional rounds where I need to pull the boolit during a reloading session, my old Quinetics puller I've had for 30 years still does the trick.

If I'm going to be pulling more than five or six rounds, out comes the Hornady cam-lock puller. Way faster, way easier on the hands, way quieter.

I've used it on jacketed projectiles and it does zero damage. Lead, on the other hand, goes back in the melting pot.

Another advantage to the Hornady is that you can dump your powder straight from the case back in your bin or container--much easier, cleaner and quicker than separating the boolit from the powder inside of the nose of the kinetic bullet puller.

:coffee:

[W.R.Buchanan]

Just run them back thru the crimp die as long as your OAL is in the ball park of 1.275 and your crimp should measure .470 at the case mouth. But I would see if they jam in the chamber with the barrel outof the gun, (See below)

Sometimes on the .45ACP when feed issues rear their ugly head just changing the OAL will fix it.

My G21SF with 200gr SWC's would jam the cartridge every single time when the nose of the bullet, and the front edge of the bullet came into contact with the top of the chamber simultainiously. At that point the cartridge's case was also in full contact with the feed ramp and the thing was jammed in tight and required barrel removal to remove. In other words there were 3 simultainious points of contact, which caused the cartridge to wedge between the two points on the bullet and the side of the case.

Just seating the bullets .030 out further fixed the problem completely. It eliminated one of the three simultainious contact points IE the case/feedramp. The cartridge would feed perfectly if only the two points on the bullet were in contact with the chamber.

I would not pull all those boolits. But I would see if they jam similar to what I described above. If they do, seat them a little deeper and then crimp to the dimension I gave you above. (.470.) OAL on this round is not carved in stone, there is some latitude, and seating .02-.03 deeper is not going to hurt anything. The crimp dia of .470 will insure that your Boolits are held in place and the case mouth will still headspace on the front of the chamber, if necessary.

Randy

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_182084f3044abc0923.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=3790)http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_182084f3044e3223b5.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=3791)

[beagle]

Take the loaded round and resize the portion holding the bullet.....yes...resize.

That squeezes the bullet down and the brass normally springs back some. Then, you can either pull them with your fingers, a small pair of pliers or an inertia puller with very little effort./beagle

[HammeringHank100]

Hey Stubshaft, Have followed your recommendation. Bullets come off like butter.
Thanks, Hank

[Cadillo]

I have about 300 .45ACP, 230Gr RN cast lead bullets I need to remove. Long story short. I just purchased a Dillon 650 and loaded 150 rounds of ammo. Went to my club to test my loads. My Colt Gold Cup .45ACP kept jamming. The person shooting next to me checked my ammo and said the taper crimp needed to be tighter. He gave me one of his as a reference. After loading 300 rounds, I decided to check them in my barrel. I know I know, I'm a dunce... Before I start, the crimp on the bullet is very tight. Will I be able to remove the bullets using a bullet puller on a singe stage press. I don't care about the bullets just the brass. Thanks for listening, Hank

If you believe the story about simply needing more crimp, why pull them. Pull your crimp die off the 650, and put it on the single stage and just adjust it to tighten the crimp. Having said that, I don't buy the light crimp theory unless it is so bad as to be easily seen as bad.

My best guess is that you have a problem with either overall length, or charge weight. If your cartridges are too long, they will drag in the magazine. I see this a lot with other shooters at the range. If they are too short, they will not feed properly from the magazine and will fail to chamber as the bullet nose binds on the barrel hood or the chamber just ahead of the hood.

Measure your overall length against a factory ball round, and use the ball round as a starting point for you OAL.

[a.squibload]

If using a hammer style puller you can save the cast boolits from damage
by stuffing cotton / dacron in the tube, or a foam earplug.
Still a mess to separate the powder from the lube.