Press Mounted Bullet Puller

[noylj]

I have some rounds I need to disassemble. I want to save the bullets and my "hammer" always dings up the bullet base.
I am thinking about getting a collet bullet puller to mount on my little Lee Reloading Press. The Hornady, RCBS, and Forster seem to be aimed at rifle rounds, though they do make collets for pistol rounds.
For pulling 9mm and .40 bullets, how well do the various bullet pullers work for you?

 

[stevec5]

I have been using the Hornady Collet puller, It works well with no damage to the bullets. Only difficultly can sometimes be removing the bullet from the collet, it's hard to get a good grip.

 

[rcmodel]

For pistol?

Almost have to use a Hammer Bammer puller.

Most pistol rounds do not have enough full diameter bullet shank sticking out for a collet to get a grip on it.

rc

 

[dbarnhart]

I've used the RCBS collet bullet puller for pulling 45 ACP 230gr FMJRN with no problems.

 

[ny32182]

I use and like the Honady collet puller for rifle, but doubt it would work well for pistol due to the issue rcmodel mentioned.

 

[MickKennedy29]

I have used the Hornady collet puller mounted on my LnL AP for pulling 9mm bullets, and it works fine. The only problem I ran in to was finding the "sweet spot", so to speak, to make sure there was enough grip to pull the bullet without the bullet sticking in the collet. If you do find the elusive "sweet spot" you can pull the lever to catch the bullet, pull it, then release the lever and the bullet drops free.

 

[gamestalker]

I'm having difficulty understanding why your bullets are getting dinged up? I have never had bullets get dinged or in any way damaged by a kinetic puller, and I use one the least expensive one's on the market.

 

[FROGO207]

I also use the Hornaday collet type. I like the locking lever and think that it works great. I do have to agree however that the pistol bullets are sometimes difficult to pull due to the taper and not enough flat outside of the brass. If you are using the "hammer it out" puller an old foam earplug dropped in the bottom of the puller before you try to knock it out will stop most damage.

 

[higgite]

I have used the Hornady collet puller mounted on my LnL AP for pulling 9mm bullets, and it works fine. The only problem I ran in to was finding the "sweet spot", so to speak, to make sure there was enough grip to pull the bullet without the bullet sticking in the collet. If you do find the elusive "sweet spot" you can pull the lever to catch the bullet, pull it, then release the lever and the bullet drops free.

+1 for this.

 

[Snowbandit]

The collet types usually leave marks on the sides of the bullets. I have one, with a bunch of different collets, but haven't used it in so long I couldn't even tell you what kind it is.

How can the hammer type damage a bullet base?

 

[courtgreene]

I'm a huge fan of the RCBS, press mounted puller. It just makes things easy, and it's faster when pulling a lot of bullets at one session. I've used kinetic pullers as well, and they work fine, but I'd rather just use the press.

 

[Smokey Joe]

BASE damage????

Noyl J--What I can't understand is how in heck your bullets are getting their BASES damaged by the kinetic puller! They'd have to turn 180° as they fly out of the cartridge case, so as to strike the bottom of the "well" in the kinetic puller, base first.

When I first had my kinetic puller, using it to pull lead-nosed rifle bullets, the bullet noses got bashed until I put a wad of kleenex into the bottom of the puller's "well." That ended that problem. But how do the bases get damaged???

With that slight modification, my kinetic puller has served all my bullet-pulling needs for years.

 

[jcwit]

Joe, never question the experience of some users.

 

[Tom488]

I've used the Hornady puller for several different pistol rounds. I find that the trick is to adjust the collet so that the bullet JUST slides in, and the case mouth bottoms out on the face of the collet. Then add some tension to the cam lever, (there's not enough clearance to fully cam it over), and lower the press.

I did over 200 9mm rounds in about an hour with this method. Bullets looked fine, and got re-used without a problem.

 

[noylj]

I have an old RCBS kinetic bullet puller. I put a couple of cotton balls at the bottom. My bullets, lead and jacketed, still bounce up and hit the case mouth and damage the bullet.
A mark from a collet on the ogive or shoulder will have negligible affect on a bullet, but two "cuts through the base" does not an accurate bullet make.
I would like to save about 40 bullets from loads I have been saving for a few years.

 

[DM~]

Learn to hit it hard until the bullet moves a bit, then tap lighter until it comes out. I never damage a bullet useing my kinetic puller.

DM

 

[Smokey Joe]

Bouncy!!

Noyl J--OK, now I understand. And what you've said makes sense. You said,

I have an old RCBS kinetic bullet puller. I put a couple of cotton balls at the bottom. My bullets, lead and jacketed, still bounce up and hit the case mouth and damage the bullet.

What you've got is too much padding in your kinetic. Try ONE cotton ball. If they still bounce, try 1/2 a cotton ball. My very small wad of kleenex is less than half the size of a cotton ball (though of course it has been smacked by lord-knows-how-many-bullets over the years) and the bullets don't bounce. They also suffer no nose damage.

BTW, I think that DM~'s suggestion, above, is valuable also. You don't just put the round in question into the kinetic, and then whang away blindly.

I still think a kinetic is the way to go, unless you have a large number of mistakes to rectify, or mebbe bought, say, a case of military ammo and want to pull all the bullets, or some such. The 40 rounds that you mention is nowhere near a large number.

Occam's razor. Simplest solution is best solution.

 

[DANNY-L]

I voted for rcbs because that's the one I bought and haven't needed to change,I also have a kinetic I use for certain bullets.

 

[beatledog7]

I've always used a kinetic puller and have never been foiled by a round I wanted to take apart, but that "always" has been maybe ten times.

Recently I over seated a batch of .40 S&W and decided to order a collet puller to make redoing them easier. --Note: do not multitask while reloading! -- There was not a lot of bullet to get hold of, but the puller came through in spades. Got it set up in a few minutes and had 50 bullets out without losing a speck of powder from any of the cases about 20 minutes later. Kinetic puller would have taken much longer, and I might have had to re-throw a lot of charges. Bullets themselves (plated flat nose) have the slightest little indentation all the way around but are still perfectly fine for practice, which was the purpose of these loads anyway.

The RCBS collet puller is a wonderful tool. I just love it when something so simple and elegant in design works so well!

 

[1SOW]

I had to pull over 100 9mm carridges loaded too light for USPSA Production class a couple of years back.

I used an inexpensive kinetic hammer. I cut a round piece of stiff leather that fit "tightly" at the bottom of the hammer well. The bullets weren't and aren't damaged (and don't bounce) with my now occassional need to break one down.