Disassemble cartridges with excessive crimp?

[hogstad7]

I bought a used gun and the seller gave me the rest of his handloaded cartridges for the gun.
I want to disassemble the cartridges and load them again with my own powder.
But the crimp is so hard.
Have tried kinetic bullet hammer and regular pliers with no luck.
The caliber i 357max with 180gr Remington SJHP.

Any advice?

[petroid]

You would need a collet bullet puller and it will still take some work. You might try setting your seating die to push the bullet a little deeper which may break the crimp and make kinetic pulling possible. Worth a try on one or two

[hogstad7]

I have not a colletdie, and can't justify buying one right now just to salvage some components. If nothing works I will store the ammo until a colletdie fins his way into my house..
I will try the seating die trick. Thx!

[Bayou52]

As an aside, I would never fire a handload loaded by anyone other than myself............

Just me.......

Bayou52

[hogstad7]

@Bayou52: Me neither, thats why I want to disassemble.

@Petroid: Bulletseating-trick mashed the lead-nose before seating it a little deeper. Made it a little easier to pull the bullet, and I was able to save the case on the two I tried. But the lead-core was knocked out of the jacket when I used the kinetic bullet hammer.

[mdi]

Well, sounds like you'll have to sacrifice the bullets. No big deal, they were free. I have run into similar problems and once resorted to using vice-grips; run cartridge up through the top of my press and grip the bullet with vice-grips (a collet style bullet puller wouldn't grip tight enough to pull), and lower the ram. Bullets are then junk, but I had some good primed brass.

[MattOrgan]

As mdi says using your press works great. I use a big pair of side cutters when the cartridge is long enough to clear the top of the die hole. Bite into the bullet with the cutters and pull the case off. Keeping the pliers flat on top of the press eliminates the chance of damaging your threads. If the cartridge is too short and you don't have an extended shell holder I've used the vise grip method yo reach down into the die hole to grab the bullet. Be cautious about the threads. The .357 Max should be long enough to grab the bullet with the pliers flat. The bullets are not a total loss, they can be melted to retrieve the lead and the jackets can be sold or traded for lead at the scrap yard. I just spent a week disassembling almost 2,000 rounds of reloaded .44 Magnum I purchased at a yard sale and was afraid to shoot. An inertia puller wouldn't budge the bullets and neither would my collet puller. Out came my pliers and it was a workout. All the lead from the bullets are now cast into 950 250 gr SWC, the powder is fertilizing my lawn, the cases re-sized and belled with the primers intact. Worth the $35.00 I paid for this junk and I haven't sold the jackets yet. Good luck.

[DeanWinchester]

Set up your seating die and seat the bullet deeper. That should break the crimp enough to allow your kinetic hammer to work.

[hogstad7]

The press and side cutter trick worked! [smilie=w:
Ruined the first 5 bullets, but got the teqnique right pretty quick and salvaged the rest of the bullets and all of the brass. Appreciate the help guys.

[petroid]

The press and side cutter trick worked! [smilie=w:
Ruined the first 5 bullets, but got the teqnique right pretty quick and salvaged the rest of the bullets and all of the brass. Appreciate the help guys.

Glad to hear that method worked. I guess the seating deeper method only works on fmj or possibly flat nose