Which Inertia Bullet Puller?

After 30 years or so of heavy use I finally broke my Midway bullet puller...I guess you aren’t supposed to beat it on a steel block!

Anyway, I’m going to order a replacement since I’ve got some more mistakes to undo and thought I’d ask whether there were any real and significant differences between the half a dozen or so different models of essentially the same tool from several makers? Anybody have any particular good or bad experiences with any of them that you’d be willing to share?

As always, TIA!
Froggie

FrankfortArsenal works good for me. My second one, in fact traded the first one off to help a new caster. I guess they are about all the same.

I'm interested in responses. I recently cracked my RCBS on I bought in 1974.

I have Frankford arsenal for number of years - works fine for me. Had to open it up a little for 500 mag.


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I don't think it matters which brand you pick. It does matter how you use it. I have been beating mine against a piece of railroad track or the concrete floor for a lot of years without issues. Do not use a firm grip on the handle. Hold it with your thumb and one or two fingers loosely and swing very fast letting it bounce back. This lets it pull bullets better and won't break the puller. Holding with a firm grip tries to drive the head farther after contact when the puller head is trying to rebound.

Several companies sell a plastic one that looks like they all came from the same factory, but in different colors.

If ya go that route where they all look the same- I'd pick the cheapest one.
My 80's era RCBS was one like that lasted right up until I stepped on the plastic screw on cover piece.

use it on a lead block not steel
rcbs is good dont fall for the old wood handle that has the slide thing
most you can use a shell holder in in place of the gripper

RCBS
Lifetime warranty.

Many of them are made by quinetics. https://www.quineticscorp.com

My RCBS inertia puller finally wore out after many many years of use (aluminum collet wore out, cracks here and there) , rather than replace with another one, I opted to go with the RCBS collet die using caliber specific collets......never looked back, faster, cleaner (no dumping powder and bullets together, and most of all....easier to use.

Still using my thirty year old Quinetics, Distributed by RCBS, puller.

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I broke so many inertia pullers that I quit using them. Yeah, they work for pulling jacketed bullets in most cases, but not well for handgun ammo, and especially heavily crimped revolver ammo. I use a redneck puller that requires a cheap pair of side cutters or lineman pliers and a piece of PVC pipe. The PVC allows you to grab the boolit that would not reach through the top of the press and allow pulling. Most of the time, the boolit is ruined and remelted, but sometimes is reusable.

Attachment 258907


Here's the PVC spacer

Attachment 258908

Here's the modified lineman pliers, I used a Dremel tool to grind out the rounded gripping area

Attachment 258909

My 30 year old midway (frankford) inertia puller broke into about 5 pieces this past fall. The plastic on the handle broke off likely 15 years ago and was replaced by a piece of wood with a hole drilled in it, then split to fit over the handle before being pressed into a piece of pipe. Looking at the new frankford, lyman and rcbs, the Lyman seemed the heaviest and best made so that's what I went with. Already have a collet style puller but the inertia puller is nice to have if you only need to do a few cartridges.

If I broke mine I would get the Quinetics. My shellholders were worn out on my RCBS I replaced them with the Quinetics Uni-Chuck "Shim-Fit" its a much better way then the original RCBS

Quote:

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Originally Posted by abunaitoo

RCBS
Lifetime warranty.

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This!

I couldn’t find the collet, grandkids were messing with it and lost it. RCBS mailed me one gratis.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 454PB

I broke so many inertia pullers that I quit using them. Yeah, they work for pulling jacketed bullets in most cases, but not well for handgun ammo, and especially heavily crimped revolver ammo. I use a redneck puller that requires a cheap pair of side cutters or lineman pliers and a piece of PVC pipe. The PVC allows you to grab the boolit that would not reach through the top of the press and allow pulling. Most of the time, the boolit is ruined and remelted, but sometimes is reusable.

Attachment 258907


Here's the PVC spacer

Attachment 258908

Here's the modified lineman pliers, I used a Dremel tool to grind out the rounded gripping area

Attachment 258909

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If I were to buy another one it probably would be RCBS because of their customer service. But I prefer a collet puller and if that doesn't work I use the ole Linemans Pliers. If the cartridge is long enough to reach through the top of the press I do it that way. For shorted cartridges I use a piece of PVC as pictured. It don't have to be PVC. It can be a piece of steel pipe or even a steel or PVC pipe coupling if you don't have a piece of pipe laying around to cut up.

If you want to get fancy, FA has a new automatic inertial bullet puller. I for one, will stick with the hammer type!

https://www.frankfordarsenal.com/rel...r/1116083.html

Demo starts at 2:05 min into video
https://youtu.be/P7_TXnWnC7I

The aluminum handle on my 30+ year old Quinetics finally broke after pulling thousands of bullets over the years, so I bought a new RCBS because of their customer service.

Im still using the first one I bought, a blue midway with the aluminum insert. Gotta be 40 years old. A bud gave me half a 5 gal bucket of old 30 cal rifle that had been damaged when we were flooded by Irene. Months later I whacked all those bullets out of the corroded up brass and they didn’t want to cooperate but the puller held up fine. Those 147 gr shot some nice groups. Of course what any manufacturer sells today is not going to be as good as what they sold 40 years ago but if you buy the same brand the collets and cap will still be useful.

Update: somewhere along the line my father or I one must have bought a second blue Midway unit as I stumbled across one in the mess at the bench... Dad passed a couple of years ago and I’m still finding little surprises like this from time to time. We used to sit on a chair and pound them out on an upended, slightly extra long piece of hard firewood... this gave good results and didn’t seem to harm anything involved. BTW, does anyone remember a transparent green unit from about 30-40 years ago? We started with one of those and during the gorilla phase of our learning curve that aluminum shank of the handle took on a serious bend! ;)

Thanks to all who responded. I was/am leaning toward the Lyman for its more ergonomic handle, but since I have time to be saving my shekels now, that bench mounted thing may be in my future. It’s not often I have to pull more than a couple of rounds, but right now for instance I have a box of 20 rounds of 327 Fed Mag I loaded WAAAYY too hot,so I’ll have to set aside time to pull all of them. I remember another time we “inherited” over 200 rounds of somebody’s mistakes. Since they were half jacketed bullets in 357 brass, Dad took in on himself to pull all of them and save the components. He was retired even back then, so it kept him out of Mom’s way for a while. :)

Thanks again friends, I knew I could count on you for good suggestions. :coffeecom

Froggie

I bought my rcbs see through green all plastic puller about 1975 and it still working fine. The aluminum shell holders wipe out quickly and I went through two or three sets before going to a standard shell holder. I have no problem pulling pistol or rifle rounds. The worst are the light weight 22 cal bullets as they have the least mass. As I said earlier, how you hold it determines how long it will last and how well it will pull bullets. A friend I loaded with bent the aluminum handle on one then got a rcbs all plastic one and broke the handle on it, both in a one year period. To make one work well and last DO NOT hold the handle firmly. Hold it loosely with thumb and two fingers on the very end of the handle and swing it very fast and strike it on steel or concrete so that it rebounds freely and your hand isn't still driving forward. The harder the surface you hit the faster it will rebound if you let it and the fast retreating puller head helps to pull away from the bullet that is trying to go forward. Try this IT WORKS and you can reuse your bullets.

Those pullers that look the same are the same. What varies from time to time is the "alloy" of the plastic so some are more or less breakable than others of the same brand.

That said, the most robust inertia pullers I've tried are made by Berry's. Barry molds the handle and hammer head in one piece and that seems to spread/reduce the structural stress points for a longer lasting life.

Cabela's used to sell Berry's excellent bullet pullers, vib. tumblers, cartridge boxes and cast bullets ... don't know if they still do.

Jacketed, I use the Hornady collet puller and am able to use them again. For lead, I use an old RCBS one and after breaking several of the old aluminum collets, I switched to using shell holders. As been said several times before, it is important as to how you hold it and how you swing it. I try to use a lot of wrist action and not swing my arm. That method works pretty well. I use a steel block to hit it on. I've tried wood blocks but found that did not work well, if at all. I've had some that were stuck pretty hard, but with the right technique, they come out. Some .223 jacketed were the worst I've ever done, and actually had to re-seat the bullets a few thousanths before pulling them. This happened with the inertia puller and with the Hornady collet puller. It has never happened before or since, though.

A timely thread. I broke my RCBS puller on Friday (got a little Cavemanish). I'll try the Lyman this time around. I've broken 2 in about 25 years so I'm not too concerned about this style of puller not lasting long. Who knows how many bullets I've pulled over those years for whatever reason.

I have a Redding collet set up that I couldn't ever get to work quickly. It's in a plastic box somewhere amongst all of my stuff so I may actually lay eyes on it in 2032.