Pulling Bullets, there got to be a better way?

[Bruntson]

I've acquired a significant amount of reloaded 44 mag that I want disassemble. There's got to be a better way to pull the bullets than using my kinetic (hammer) bullet puller. Any suggestions?

[Hick]

It all depends on whether or not you want to save the bullets. I just use my single stage press (raise the ram until the bullet is above the top plate, grip the bullet with vise grips and lower the ram). Quick and easy but it ruins the bullets, so I toss them in the pot and remelt them. For shorter cases where I cannot raise the ram far enough to stick out the top, I put a 1 1/8 1/2" drive socket over the ram so that I only have to raise the ram a couple of inches until the bullet sticks out of the top of the socket.

[dtknowles]

Like Hick says, kind of depends on the bullets and your technique. You can buy collet bullet pullers that work like Hick's idea but less damage to the bullet but the bullet needs to have something for the collet to latch on too.

When you used the kinetic hammer puller what are you whacking against. I think a block of hardwood is best. I have pulled thousands of rounds with hammer pullers, I have broken two of them. I recover the bullets and powder and reuse them.

[trails4u]

A collet puller, set up and used properly, might save the bullets. Largely depends on how and how tightly crimped. i prefer a collet puller for speed and ease of use regardless.

[Bruntson]

I have been using a 3/8" steel plate on my concrete basement floor as the anvil. Usually 3 whacks is all it takes to unseat the bullet. But with something like over 200 cartridges to do, the process will get old very fast. I would like to save the bullets if possible. The ammo came from an estate sale so who knows how old or what quality these cartridges are. I've pulled 2 bullets and they are 250 grain lead SWC. I've must have lived a sheltered life for I have never heard of a collet puller but I will be checking it out now. Thanks!

[openbook]

I used to whack my kinetic puller against hardwood or a lead ingot. Then one day I tried it against the concrete floor and was amazed at the difference. One or two hits and they're out. Crimped or no. I was worried that I'd break the plastic puller banging it against concrete, but that hasn't been the case.

[Fitz]

If you have a press that will allow the case and bullet to protrude past the top of press you can use dog nail clippers to grab the bullet while you raise the lever to lower the ram with some presses a extended shell holder helps , and if you file or grind the sharp edge of the clippers they won't hurt the bullet.

[Bruntson]

A check on the Hornaby and RCSB collet pullers says they're not for lead bullets. The 2 presses I have are Lyman turret presses. I may have to risk carpel tunnel syndrome to extract these bullets and save those 44 mag cases.

[GhostHawk]

I use a rubber floor tile on the concrete. Softens the blow slightly, enough to not feel like I am going to break the puller.

But it still has a significant "Crack" to the impact, 2 or at most 3 good wacks and they are apart.

I have used the press trick as well with jacketed bullets. But it is hard on cast.

[remy3424]

Lead SWC...suck it up and start hammering!

[Hootmix]

About 6-8 years ago, i took a pair of those wire stripper pliers and a die grinder and enlarged the back hole (approx. to fit my .40 cal.). And like others have said put round in shell holder raise above top of press, close pliers (wire strippers) around bullet close to brass raise the handle, have pulled both cast & jacketed, i have saved & lost some. It will take some practice, to know how tight to grip the pliers.

coffee's ready, Hootmix.

[deltaenterprizes]

The Frankfort Arsenal Piledriver bullet puller is wonderful!

[Bruntson]

That's a good idea Hootmix. Unfortunately my press doesn't allow enough of the exposed bullet to be grabbed. I may have to take my neighbor, remy3424's suggestion and just hammer it out over a few weeks time.

[TNsailorman]

I first tried the press collet pullers and did not like them, too easy to damage a bullet. I then went to kinetic pullers. My pet peeve on the kinetic pullers was the collet being so tempermental. I finallly started using press shell holders to hold the cartridge. Much faster and a whole lot easier. just my experience anyway, james

[G W Wade]

I usually use the plier and press method. Really tight bullets can be loosen by running them thru your resizing die with the decapper removed. For the impact puller I remove the 3 jaws and oring and use an RCBS style shellholder in it's place. All bullets go back to remelt GW

[Bruntson]

Great tip James! Thanks

[Bmi48219]

The Frankfort Arsenal Piledriver bullet puller is wonderful!

I was looking for a quieter way to pull down ammo and watched a video about a purpose built bullet puller that mounted to a wall. Seemed to work great but it was noisier than a kinetic puller.

[Hick]

That's a good idea Hootmix. Unfortunately my press doesn't allow enough of the exposed bullet to be grabbed. I may have to take my neighbor, remy3424's suggestion and just hammer it out over a few weeks time.

for the short ones I invert a large diameter (mine is 1 1/8) 1/2 inch drive socket (as in socket wrench) over the ram. The big 1/2 inch square hole lets the case come up through the socket so I can grip the bullet.

[Bored1]

The only wall mounted one I've seen is the frankford arsenal "pile driver", looks pretty neat!



https://youtube.com/shorts/Vyrf28w4hu8?feature=share

With the radio or TV running in the background I figure this should work well. Plus easy to same the components if you want. I don't have one yet, but it's on the list for sure.

[Hannibal]

I just use wire cutters and a shell holder in my single stage press. Ruins the bullet but I never had to pull-down many so the loss was minimal. I don't like reusing bullets anyway.

[Baltimoreed]

If you use a correct shellholder in the inertia puller to hold the loaded round instead of the 3 piece coller thing that works on any sized case your job will be much easier. I also bang my inertia puller against a ball peen hammer that I also give some momentum to [one ‘hammer’ in each hand]. Seems to work better than whacking just the puller against something.

[stubshaft]

I large pliers and throw them in the pot to remelt.

[GregLaROCHE]

I used to whack my kinetic puller against hardwood or a lead ingot. Then one day I tried it against the concrete floor and was amazed at the difference. One or two hits and they're out. Crimped or no. I was worried that I'd break the plastic puller banging it against concrete, but that hasn't been the case.

I hit it against a granite stone I keep around just for that. It definitely works better on a harder surface. I always think the plastic is going to shatter, but it hasn’t yet. I tried a collet type puller and marred jacketed bullets. Never tried it on lead boolits.

[Larry Gibson]

I have been using a 3/8" steel plate on my concrete basement floor as the anvil. Usually 3 whacks is all it takes to unseat the bullet. But with something like over 200 cartridges to do, the process will get old very fast. I would like to save the bullets if possible. The ammo came from an estate sale so who knows how old or what quality these cartridges are. I've pulled 2 bullets and they are 250 grain lead SWC. I've must have lived a sheltered life for I have never heard of a collet puller but I will be checking it out now. Thanks!

You will probably find a collet bullet pullet may or may not work with cast bullets as the alloy is soft enough that the collet swages the bullet and can't get a grip in it. With cast rounds that are "old" may times the lube will stick to the case making a seal the inertia pullers require very hard multiple whacks. I've found running the cartridges through the seating die to seat the bullet just enough to break the seal makes it much easier with the inertia puller. Lot less real hard whacks that way.

[country gent]

There is a technique to using the inertia pullers. A solid base helps I use a big chunk of oak tree trunk cut to be comfortable when Im sitting. Now here is the big help when you swing the puller down do it with a weak wrist and let it bounce from the impact. This bounce increases the inertia a bunch.

When I dont want to save bullets I use a pair of side cutters on top of the press. If the round is to short then pick up a extended shell holder this raises the bullet about 1" higher

[rbuck351]

country gent is right on about the technique. I hold the handle loosely with two fingers and thumb. Then swing it very fast against a piece of RR track or concrete floor, letting it rebound rapidly. The rapid rebound changes the direction of the case very fast and helps pull the case from the boolit as the boolits inertia continues to pull the boolit from the case. This loose hold also helps prevent breaking the puller. or bending the aluminum handle if it's of that type.

Collet pullers don't work on most cast boolits and you can reuse inertia pulled boolits if you want vs pliers.

[WRideout]

FWIW: When I have had boolits that were very difficult to extract with a kinetic puller, I loosened the grip of the case neck by tapping lightly all around the circumference of the neck with a small hammer. They come out on the next try.

Wayne

[gwpercle]

Here are some "save the boolits" pulling tips .
Press snap-in Shell Holder for sure ... works best .
See if you can break / loosen the crimp ...deeper seating (may not be possible with lead SWC) or rolling neck on metal surface with metal bar pressing on neck ...may or may not work . Tapping on the neck may work better ...
Hammer puller onto large block of wood sitting on concrete ... end of a 8 X 8 post or section of tree stump . I don't know why but hammering onto wood seems to work better than hammering onto steel .

3 whacks is about as good as it gets ... fairly hard whacks work better than full blown Magilla Gorilla all out hits ... if they drop in three whacks then that's just about right on .

Don't try and do them all at once ...just do some .
In the old days (1968) I aquired 500 rounds of military aircraft belted machinegun ammo ... not only had to get them un-linked but all the bullets pulled... wanted deer hunting ammo ... most were FMJ with some tracers thrown in . I still have primed empty cases from that deal .
You can do it ... just take your time , don't rush it .
Gary

[farmerjim]

I like the Hornady cam lock puller. It is fast. I have pulled both jacketed and cast with no problem. However I have never pulled a very soft lead boolit.

[popper]

Use a short piece of PVC pipe over the ram and grab the bullet. Sometimes running through a sizing die will squish the lead enough to make it looser. Some just seat it deeper to break any hold the neck has - doesn't work for me - ruined some 308 brass.

[725]

I use a kinetic for small batches and a collet for the one's I want to save or if there is a large pile to disassemble. Almost none pulled via the collet are damaged.

[gloob]

Another +1 to countrygent's technique with a kinetic puller.

I broke two pullers while using a steel shellholder. The screw cap cracked in half both times. Not sure they wouldn't have broken, anyway. But I went back to using the lighter weight aluminum holders they come with.

[DocSavage]

I use a length of 4x4 post as an anvil for my kinetic puller works quite well

[Milky Duck]

I usually use the plier and press method. Really tight bullets can be loosen by running them thru your resizing die with the decapper removed. For the impact puller I remove the 3 jaws and oring and use an RCBS style shellholder in it's place. All bullets go back to remelt GW

duck for cover...there is certain member who shall be along telling you "you cant do that,the shells will explode"
been using the lee shell holders myself,much better than the plastic bits... have done the plire flat across top of press thing too,it works very well and damage very few...if yo uthink its going to be tight or they have been seated for a long time,seat them SLIGHTY deeper first to crack the seal.

[georgerkahn]

I've acquired a significant amount of reloaded 44 mag that I want disassemble. There's got to be a better way to pull the bullets than using my kinetic (hammer) bullet puller. Any suggestions?

I got a super-$$$-deal on a fairly large quantity of 10mm Auto, loaded by, let's just say, a fellow who was well known to not be too diligent in his loading efforts. Faced with the disassemble challenge, VERY shortly after the need to brush stuck powder off bullets in top section of my Quinetic puller -- I searched, and found the Grip N Pull. It seemed a tad costly, but... it worked/works SOOO well -- I have zero! regrets. The bullets can be reused with no marks, dents, stuck powder or other issues; powder can be easily dumped... a great tool.312317 My go-to bullet pulling tool!
geo

[Bent Ramrod]

Forster once made a little spring-steel disc with a hole in the center and radial cuts coming out of it. You put it in the die station of the Forster press and pushed a loaded round up so the fingers on the disc gripped the bullet. The downstroke pulled the loaded shell away, and the next round’s bullet would push the first one out the top of the disc before being gripped itself.

There were other devices of this sort made by now defunct or merged companies in the old days. Typically, they were in .30 caliber, for pulling down the surplus ammunition that was so cheap back then. The jacketed bullets might have a slight ring on them, but it wasn’t much worse than a cannelure, and the bullets could be used for casual shooting.

You might check with them and see if they still make this thing, in other calibers and for other presses. Otherwise, if you want the components as undamaged as possible, the Quinetics hammer is the way to go. You’re lucky in having .44 Magnum, with its heavy boolits, to take apart. Try it with military .22 Hornets or 100-year-old .25-20’s sometime.

[racepres]

I use a kinetic for small batches and a collet for the one's I want to save or if there is a large pile to disassemble. Almost none pulled via the collet are damaged.

My methods exactly.. my Forster colletts do Not seem to damage Jacketed Bullets.. I haven't even Tried Cast..

I got a super-$$$-deal on a fairly large quantity of 10mm Auto, loaded by, let's just say, a fellow who was well known to not be too diligent in his loading efforts. Faced with the disassemble challenge, VERY shortly after the need to brush stuck powder off bullets in top section of my Quinetic puller -- I searched, and found the Grip N Pull. It seemed a tad costly, but... it worked/works SOOO well -- I have zero! regrets. The bullets can be reused with no marks, dents, stuck powder or other issues; powder can be easily dumped... a great tool.312317 My go-to bullet pulling tool!
geo

I like that gizmo...gonna source one...

[country gent]

The forester super fast pullers were just that. And they worked very well with jacketed bullets. I believe they were 30 caliber. i bought a 30 caliber one years ago and made several more in 22, 6mm, and 45 calibers. They are simple to make. .060 steel spring banding or shim can be used for the jaws. Turn a body up with a recess .250 deep and a 7/8" 14 thread on the bottom. I believe the body size is 1.375. The recess in the top is 1.125 dia and .250 deep. A ring is bored to press in this recess 3/16" wide and a inside diameter of 1.000. The bottom side of the ring gets a 10*-15* angle faced on it.The jaws are the tricky as they need to be .010 longer than the center line of the recess. I turned the banding to 1.135 and drilled the hole as to caliber. Drill the hole a few thousandths under size and polish with a light radius on the edges. then split into 4 jaws. The jaws are laid in the recess and the ring pressed in angled side down.

In use pushing a round up into it the jaws lift up at an angle, being a longer center line they cant drop down so when the ram is retracted the bullet is gripped and pulled. When the next round is inserted it pushes the jaws up releasing the bullet and ejecting it and then the process repeats itself.

[porthos]

taking a little poll on inertia bullet pullers (going to buy one). what is your most favorite and least favorite?? this poll should save, me some grief

[racepres]

taking a little poll on inertia bullet pullers (going to buy one). what is your most favorite and least favorite?? this poll should save, me some grief

Waste of time and energy... the Hammer type are All The Same... just get one of 'em...

[frkelly74]

That's a good idea Hootmix. Unfortunately my press doesn't allow enough of the exposed bullet to be grabbed. I may have to take my neighbor, remy3424's suggestion and just hammer it out over a few weeks time.

Alternatively.....
Cut a piece of 1 1/2" plastic pipe and put that around the ram so that when you raise the ram the bullet sticks out above the edge of the piece of pipe. grab the bullet with wire strippers and lower the ram to pull the bullet.

[gloob]

Alternatively.....
Cut a piece of 1 1/2" plastic pipe and put that around the ram so that when you raise the ram the bullet sticks out above the edge of the piece of pipe. grab the bullet with wire strippers and lower the ram to pull the bullet.

That's pretty slick. Only problem with this method is the ram is so far from TDC when you grab the bullet from under the top of the press, you'll not get a lot of leverage.

I welded up an extension onto a Lee trimmer lock stud so it slides into the ram. It's like having a universal shellholder with just a bit more reach, so short pistol bullets just clear the top of the press.

[gloob]

duck for cover...there is certain member who shall be along telling you "you cant do that,the shells will explode"
been using the lee shell holders myself,much better than the plastic bits...

Didn't it happen to someone? A regular shellholder can't keep the case centered. It has room to slide out of the shellholder partway until the case rests against the inside of the puller. This could put a slightly high primer on the edge of the primer hole, and the account seemed credible to me.

That said, it's not something I worry about. I stopped doing it because I broke two pullers while using a press shellholder and have never done that with the aluminum one. The cartridge has room to bounce up/down a bit in a normal shellholder, transmitting some shock to the screw cap, as well as the steel holder weighing a lot more.

I can't even remember why I used the press shellholders to begin with. Maybe someone can remind me.

I remember having some issue on my first attempts with the 3 pieces of aluminum coming out of the o ring, trying to get the cases in. But I was probably using the wrong size or trying to get the case in from the wrong direction. It seems natural to try pushing the cartridge in nose-first. They've worked nothing but right, since my second day, after figuring out to push just the casehead through from the bottom.

Do some of these things come with a plastic shellholder, now?

[farmbif]

for the short ones I invert a large diameter (mine is 1 1/8) 1/2 inch drive socket (as in socket wrench) over the ram. The big 1/2 inch square hole lets the case come up through the socket so I can grip the bullet.

I like this idea with a pair of dikes to grip the bullet. it might just work for a few boxes of 9mm with round nose bullets that I want to pull apart so far I have destroyed 2 kinetic pullers and a collet puller won't hold on to the round nose bullets loaded in them.

[Bazoo]

My experience is that lead bullets are always damaged on the base when pulled with a kinetic puller, having a slightly rounded area on the base, or a ding from the case mouth.

[murf205]

I use a pair of old wire strippers. They are thin and the holes for the wire are like little teeth to grab boolits or jacketed either one. It might leave a mark on the jacketed ones but the best part is you can get a bite on the ogive with them and it will not affect the bore/groove bearing surfaces. Accuracy usually does not suffer. As for cast, it gets a great bite on them and I've never had one that I couldn't pull. Just raise the boolit above the press or spacer (pvc/or 1/2" socket), and grip with the strippers and withdraw the ram. NO NOISE AT ALL.

[murf205]

Here are some pics of this not so labor intensive operation. The SWC is a 44 Mag with a 270gr NOE and the other is a 380 with a 100 gr Berry bullet in the socket pic and I pulled that one to show the marks. That is a 1 1/2" socket.312865312866312867312868

As you can see, that Berry plated bullet is pretty soft as indicated by the crimp, which I had to apply heavily but that's another story.

[centershot]

I had about 200 rounds of .357 mag loaded up with 170 gr. TC cast boolits over 11.0
gr. of 2400. I was using them for Cowboy Lever-action Silhouette competition some years back when I had the eyes for it. They're too short to rise above the top of my press and there wasn't anything foe my collet-type puller to grip on, so I was forced to use my RCBS inertia bullet puller. Following the advice to run them through a sizer die made it relatively easy to do. Prior to sizing, I needed 15-18 whacks to get them out. After sizing, only needed 4, sometimes 5. Why not shoot them, you might ask? Well, I wanted those primed cases and all the 2400 I could salvage! Thanks for the tip guys!

[Charlie Horse]

taking a little poll on inertia bullet pullers (going to buy one). what is your most favorite and least favorite?? this poll should save, me some grief

I bought a less-expensive one off Amazon and while it works, the lack of quality is apparent. Especially in the threads. Spend a few more bucks and get a better one.

[Bmi48219]

The only wall mounted one I've seen is the frankford arsenal "pile driver", looks pretty neat!

https://youtube.com/shorts/Vyrf28w4hu8?feature=share

When they first came out they were around $65 but it looks like Midway has them now for $40.00. Never seen one myself but from the video reviews they appear to be polymer. Nevertheless, at today’s primer prices, if you can salvage 500 primers using the FA pile driver it pretty much has paid for itself.