Hammer type bullet pullers?

If you have any shank to grab onto a collet puller would be great. The hammers are about the same I have a green rcbs.

Check out the Frankford arsenal puller, can't remember the name at the moment. Think that maybe the best for you.

I would’t recommend the Frankfort Arsenal one. End cap busted after a few uses. I think because I used a shell holder instead of the 3 jaw collet.

I'd do the pulling outside. You'll have fine grains spilling out the collet of the impact puller. Will be a slow process. I believe most of the impact pullers are made by the Quinetics Corp. RCBS is as good as the rest.

The frankford works fine but the 3 little pieces collet with an o-ring around it assembly is tedious and time consuming to fiddle with when removing cases. I read above that it may break but I'm going to try using a shell holder - good idea

My Frankfort Arsenal puller has helped me reclaim components from occasional oopsies for several years. The little collet system isn’t the easiest device to use when your puller first gets to you, but with experience it becomes easier.

I had a green RCBS puller, but it cracked after a few years at the handle/head junction. The FA has a metal handle and plastic head.

Stay safe.

It usually takes me three whacks with the hammer type to separate a 9mm cartridge. In your case, that would be 3,000 whacks if you whack like me.

The sore arm(s) that 9mmepiphany alluded to is a good probability. I'm guessing you are in your eighties based on your post. You might want to spread the hammering out over weeks or months, purchase one of the above more body friendly tools or pick-up the phone and call family over for a "whack the mole party." I am not trying to be glib about this but clearly remember what I felt like after doing only fifty cartridges. I ached later for two days and I was only 64 at the time.

I have a Lyman but the hammers all pretty much work the same and work well. Good luck!

I'm in agreement with @9mmepiphany . The collet style would be less wear on you also.

But if you go with the kinetic style, I'd go with the RCBS over the Franklin Arsenal. I have both, and the RCBS requires less whacks. And I also use a 4' long 4x4 that allows me not to have to stoop so much. Standing up on end, on the concrete floor, 3 good whacks for a well seated 158 gr. SWC.

first try at answer Deleted.

I realized that you are pulling lead instead of jacketed bullets. Wadcutters? Nothing sticking out the front? Tough situation. The kinetic puller needs to whack on a very solid surface to work well. Think something like an anvil setting on a good bench at a comfortable height.

Just thinking out loud here. Can you weight them all and pull a significant number of the heavier ones to check? Then decide whether to pull them all or not? I am not sure but I think 5.3 grains would show up based on loaded cartridges I have weighed.

I’ve tried the hammer type pullers on a few rounds of 45acp and it worked ok with the heavy 230 grain bullets. Still took a few whacks to come apart. With 115 grain 9mm bullets it took several more whacks. Doing 1000 rounds with that method is just out of the question in my opinion. You could buy one and try it they are cheap enough.
Maybe start by weighing all the rounds and comparing the data by head stamp. Figure out what the max and min weight should be based on the upper and lower spec range of the components. Hopefully after that exercise there would be a limited number of rounds that you would be unsure of.

Not a fan of inertia pullers, if it is a cast bullet, I grab them with vice grips on the down stroke of your press, then throw them back in the pot. If it has a jacket, then it is the collet puller for me. I think beating out 100 rounds would be tedious, a thousand would be torture.

Tough spot but from all the post, weighting might be the best option. Although time consuming, less physically. You can weight 1 one, pull it to check and X by 3-4 and weight 3-4 at a time. It could go a little faster.

A Collet style will not work on LSWC bullets.

Hammer away, they are all the same, RCBS is as good or better than any of them.

Get a short piece of 4x4 and hit on it length wise.

That way you can sit, and tap away, (it's all in the wrist and it is tap tap, it works on the up swing Have a bucket to dump everything in, you can pick the bullets out later
Do a batch a day, it will take a while for 1k!!

FWIW, The Hornady red hammer puller works good and has been durable after a several hundred rounds. As Rule3 said, it’s probably the same as all the others.

Any hammer style puller with the following upgrade:
https://www.quineticscorp.com/products/uni-chuck-shim-fit-combo
I find it really does reduce the number of whacks required to free the bullet.

A collet type is easier on bullet, but expensive. To add more calibers (not cartridges) one must obtain the specific collet for the caliber. The 'hammer type" is more universal and less costly but is slower.
I use a hammer type. I keep telling myself I don't need a collet type. But I seem to be cheap - no, thrifty in some matters.
Put a old ear plug in the bottom of the puller to save damage to the bullet. Some folks use other things, but the bare bottom of the puller will flatten the bullet to some degree.
Have a container for the powder. You may want to reuse it (presuming you know what powder is used). If nothing else, put it in a cardboard container to fling on the garden. Don't let it fall on the floor, it is a mess to clean and is a fire hazard.
Do not pound the device on a concrete floor. That's a way to shatter the body of the unit. I have a sawed off bit of 4x4 to use. It is hard enough to remove the bullets and soft enough to save the body.
There are several units on the market. Most of them seem to come from the same source. Make sure whichever one you select, it will serve for all case head sizes (not hard to do). Be ready to buy another one down the road, they do break in time. Sort of like a car.

The RCBS comes with a cushion inside.

Once upon a time, I found myself with a lot of bullets to pull. Some the Hornady collet would grab, fine. The ones that it wouldn't had to be hammered out to salvage the brass and some of the bullets.
I learned that you don't have to do them all at once. Whack a dozen or a score or a box every time you go by the reloading bench, then do something else.

Jim Watson said:

Once upon a time, I found myself with a lot of bullets to pull. Some the Hornady collet would grab, fine. The ones that it wouldn't had to be hammered out to salvage the brass and some of the bullets.
I learned that you don't have to do them all at once. Whack a dozen or a score or a box every time you go by the reloading bench, then do something else.

Click to expand...

Okay...got myself into some kind of loop here.

Anyhow....make sure you wack a piece of wood like the instructions say to do, if you are wacking a concrete floor, you will break the plastic head eventually.

I also pour the bullet and powder through a funnel after pulling. The powder goes through and the bullet stays. Easy to separate that way.

I have the Frankfort Arsenal and RCBS pullers. The RCBS is the better of the 2 IMO. I have a block of wood i strike on. It's all in the wrist action when pulling bullets.

I didn't see it mentioned but if you do go with a hammer style inertia puller (and they're pretty much all the same) get some cut off pieces of scrap lumber to hit it on. A saw anvil above, but that will kill one in short order hitting something real hard. If you take say a 1' section of 2x8 or 2x10 board, hit the hammer on the end grain. Pulls as fast (2-3 strikes normally) and the puller lasts longer before breaking. If you can find local, buy 2 and return 1 if you don't need it. 1,000 off one is a lot so real good chance it won't do the whole lot.