Boolit pulling

[Holeinhide]

Hello all I have been lurking and reading all I can, as I wanted to reload some black in .45 Colt. I am looking for that old time feel from a new 1872 open top. First off I would like to run my data by you just to see if I got it right. I am loading a Lyman 452-664 lubed with Emmerits, cast from 20 to 1 in a Starline case primed with a federal 150. I dropped 40 grains of KIK 3F in a volume measure and got a average weight of 37.2 grs. This is giving me about 1/16 of an inch compression on my powder dropped from a 24 inch tube. Now for my question I messed up and seated 5 too deep can you use a standard bullet puller to remove them? I know it makes a mess when I slam a smokeless load to remove the bullet and I don't know how black will act other than flying all over. Thank you

Holeinhide.

[Mike Brooks]

You're ok, no need to pull, just shoot. I have found drop tubing un needed for pistol rounds with bp. Like you I use about 1/16"compression when I seat the bullet.

[semtav]

If you are not saving the bullets, I just use a pair of pliers on the bullet sticking thru the press and slowly pull down on the case. I've also just tapped on the standard puller til it looked like the bullet was about to come out then took it out by hand.

[country gent]

I have some of the forrester bullet pullers with the spring "teeth" screw in press put shell in ram insert to case mout or good bullet dia this pushes the teeth up on the bullet due to the slightly under sized hole. When you lower the ram the teeth cant releae and pull the bullet next boolit pushes this one out. How they would work on Lead boolits I dont know. but are the fastest puller I have used. I have made them for most of the calibers I shoot.

[John Boy]

This is giving me about 1/16 of an inch compression on my powder dropped from a 24 inch tube.
Holeinhide: Forget about using a drop tube for charging 45's. Is a total waste of time and without using one, them steel targets will never know the difference.
Historically, do you honestly believe that the ammunition vendors used a drop tube to charge the 10 - 15 thousand rounds that they produced on a daily basis? I think not and I don't also.

I load my 45's on a Dillon 550B. 32grs of FFg, seat the bullet, pull the handle and hear the 'Crunch'. Since 2001 and over 15,000 BP rounds loaded for CAS there has never been an issue loading without a drop tube or even vibrating the powder at any match

Now if you should start loading the larger 500+ gr bullets for Black Powder Cartridge Rifles and plan to shoot long distance to 1000yds - using a drop tube or vibrating the powder column is necessary to provide uniform standard deviations of average velocities for accuracy

[Holeinhide]

I went ahead and used the kinetic boolit puller and much to my surprise the powder stayed as one solid mass inside the case. The boolits were not crimped yet so it did not take a lot of force to get them moving. So the drop tube is not required that's good to know, after seeing the powder I would figure it would not matter how it started it will be the same size solid block after compression. My next question about BP .45 colt is this enough for hunting deer? I hunt with a Blackhawk now and use hot loads that I add a bit of red paint to so I don't feed them to my colt repro's. It would be great to have one load that will both hunt and shoot.

[bigted]

I have a couple inertia pullers from RCBS and Lyman but since I purchased the collet puller...that screws into my press... from RCBS ...I never looked back. it pulls the boolits with little damage and most I am able to reuse as sighters in other loads. now I never spill powder and I don't have the mess of powder mixed with the boolit and the messy lube cookie if present.

I highly recommend this collet type puller from RCBS. it works well and so far it works every time.