barnfrog
Member
I have pulled jacketed rifle bullets and re-used them with no significant change in performance. It didn't appear that there was much if any change to bullet dimensions, although I did not actually measure. But I have about 40 .357 Hornady 158-grain XTP HPs that I pulled with my RCBS collet style puller and the diameter of the bullet in front of the cannelure has been reduced and the bullet length has increased. I guess for higher end bullets like this I will opt for the kinetic puller in the future.
Just eyeballing where the ogive starts, I'd estimate that somewhere between 10% and 20% of the bullet's bearing surface is in front of the cannelure, and thus the total bearing surface of the bullet has been effectively reduced by that amount. I'm a little weak on internal ballistics so I don't now if that change will have much effect on trajectory and accuracy, as opposed to changes in neck tension, powder charge, crimp, etc. Assuming I wish to take the time to measure each bullet and adjust my seating die to make sure the bullet bases are the same distance from the case head as the safe load I've worked up, and check to make sure the nose of the bullets thus seated don't protrude beyond the front of my revolver's cylinder, is the deformation of the bullet nose likely to create much discernable difference in performance? For use as practice rounds I think they would be fine since I probably can't shoot the difference. How about shooting them over my chronograph? Is it likely that velocity will be affected much by the reduced bearing surface? I'm too cheap to throw them out.
Just eyeballing where the ogive starts, I'd estimate that somewhere between 10% and 20% of the bullet's bearing surface is in front of the cannelure, and thus the total bearing surface of the bullet has been effectively reduced by that amount. I'm a little weak on internal ballistics so I don't now if that change will have much effect on trajectory and accuracy, as opposed to changes in neck tension, powder charge, crimp, etc. Assuming I wish to take the time to measure each bullet and adjust my seating die to make sure the bullet bases are the same distance from the case head as the safe load I've worked up, and check to make sure the nose of the bullets thus seated don't protrude beyond the front of my revolver's cylinder, is the deformation of the bullet nose likely to create much discernable difference in performance? For use as practice rounds I think they would be fine since I probably can't shoot the difference. How about shooting them over my chronograph? Is it likely that velocity will be affected much by the reduced bearing surface? I'm too cheap to throw them out.
