Buying partial boxes of bullets

I had an interesting experience today with some bullets I bought from a member on another forum. They were two partial boxes of bullets that were part of a much larger bunch that I bought from this person. Only 42 bullets in one box, and 11 in the other. I was mostly interested in the other bullets being sold, but he wanted to sell them as one lot. Both boxes were supposedly Berger 60 gr MEF, one box moly coated and the other not. Since I don't shoot Bergers I was just going to use them as foulers. (Ain't that a hoot, shooting Bergers as foulers?) So I made him a bit of a lowball offer, discounting the Bergers quite a bit, and he accepted. When they arrived I tucked them away for later.

The box of 42 were the moly-coated bullets, and today I finally got around to cleaning the moly off with Barkeeper's Friend. As I was spreading them out on a towel to dry I noticed that most of them are tipped, but a handful aren't. Not knowing anything about Berger bullets, I thought maybe the tips had gotten knocked off a few. Looking in the box of 11, I noticed they were all untipped. So I weighed the untipped bullets that I had cleaned, in order to compare their weight to the tipped ones, and the untipped all weighed 60 grains. I weighed the 11 uncoated bullets from the other box, and they also weighed 60 grains. Then I weighed the tipped bullets I had cleaned and was extremely surprised to find they weighed 85 grains.

Now, someone who's been reloading longer than I might have noticed the difference without even weighing them. And had I looked closer I might have noticed the difference in length. But I'm glad I did finally notice the difference, because otherwise I might have loaded those thinking they were 60-grain bullets. A quick look in my Lyman 50th edition indicates starting loads for a 60-grain bullet are at or near max for an 85-grainer with the same powder. Probably not a catastrophe if I was working up and watching for pressure signs, but a bit too close for comfort in my book.

Do I think I got taken? No, since I can still use them for the same purpose I was going to and I didn't pay a lot for them in the first place. Do I think the seller intentionally deceived me? No, I try to think the best of people until they prove me wrong. I'm thinking he put some leftover bullets in the box and neglected to re-label it, and after they sat on a shelf long enough he just forgot what was actually in it.

So I'll be a little more cautious when using bullets from partial boxes I buy from others from now on. It's easy enough to weigh a few when I receive them. And I'll probably try to avoid buying single partial boxes, opting instead to buy a partial only if it's accompanied by a sealed box of the same bullet.

Anyway, thought I'd share in hopes it might help others avoid mishaps.

buck460XVR said:

But, unless they are exactly what I use anyways, or something I think I might want to use in the future, The time, powder and primers it takes to develop a load for a box of 11 oddball bullets, or even 42, just ain't worth it. Maybe to foul the barrel......

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Exactly my thinking. When I calculated what I was willing to pay for the whole lot he was selling, I assigned a value of $0.00 to these. Cleaned off the moly and will use them as foulers.

I sometimes do a sort of half-baked load development with partials, if there's more than, say 50 bullets. It isn't really load development but more like rough precision assessment. Pick an appropriate powder for the caliber and bullet weight and load up a handful with a starting load of powder. Whatever size group I get with them from a rest determines how far away I can place my gong and reasonably expect to hit it with those loads if I'm shooting well. Saves powder and primers instead of doing full load dev, but still makes use of the bullets for what I consider to be productive trigger time.