When you pull a bullet?

[mljdeckard]

I've pulled a few but I never bothered to recycle the components.

When you pull say, a .45 bullet. Does it affect the quality of either the case or the bullet to the point where you would lose accuracy or life? Is a twice-seated bullet just fine?

What do you need to do to a case from which you pulled a bullet? Re-bell, re-charge, re-seat, re-crimp, and call it good? If you pull from a rifle case, do you just pull out the decapping pin, re-size, charge and seat?

 

[kingmt]

You need to resize both. Rifle you need the Mandela to size neck. You got all the other steps.

 

[RustyFN]

I'm sure there are many ways to go about it. What works for me is after I pull a bullet the case gets resized. If it's one case then I decap the primer and reuse it. If it's many cases then I take the decaping pin out of the sizing die. I reuse the bullet the same as a new one.

 

[targetshooter22]

For CF rifle, I pull the bullet, toss the powder, and reload it from there. No re-sizing, just new powder, and the same bullet. For pistol, same, except I need to re-bell the cartridge so the bullet goes on well.

 

[fallout mike]

As long as the brass and bullet show no deformities, I reuse them. And the powder. I usually throw the brass in with other brass waiting to be loaded and do the whole process over again.

 

[45lcshooter]

Resize the case, 9/10 a bullet won't have anything wrong with it, unless you loaded with a dimples or endings.

All pulled bullets I've shot and reloaded the cases no problems.

 

[BYJO4]

After pulling the bullet, I dump the powder back into the container, and then carefully deprime. I put the componets back in the proper boxes and then process the case from step one again.

 

[tcanthonyii]

On pistol brass I dump the powder back into the powder measure. Then just put the brass back into the powder stage on my Lee turret. It re-expands the case mouth and I go forward as usual.

 

[Trent]

I've never resized a pulled case, never had a problem. Have to bell out pistol cases again, as mentioned above, but other than that...

There's nothing you're doing to the case during the pulling to cause a change. The neck tension on bottleneck cartridges naturally snaps back once the bullet comes out.

One thing I will mention; crimped pistol bullets sometimes get discarded when I pull them. Depends on how aggressive the crimp was; if the bullet was deformed, generally it means a crimp won't hold as well again, or if the casing isn't the same exact length, you might get a bullet that moves around a bit. So if a pulled pistol bullet is dented deep enough from a previous crimp, I might toss it.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I'm sure there are many ways to go about it. What works for me is after I pull a bullet the case gets resized. If it's one case then I decap the primer and reuse it. If it's many cases then I take the decaping pin out of the sizing die. I reuse the bullet the same as a new one.

I do the same and I've never had a problem...

 

[GLOOB]

I've never resized a pulled case, never had a problem. Have to bell out pistol cases again, as mentioned above, but other than that...

There's nothing you're doing to the case during the pulling to cause a change. The neck tension on bottleneck cartridges naturally snaps back once the bullet comes out.

That all depends on what bullet was in there, and what you're replacing it with.

If you're seating the same or larger diameter bullet into the case at the same or deeper depth, then that's one thing. I would pay more attention when seating a smaller bullet and/or to a shallower seating depth.

But this is all academic. Paying attention to how the bullet seats and/or bench testing it is the last word. Every piece of brass is unique. Some of your cases will have bad neck tension, whether or not they've been pulled down or properly sized.

A few days ago I sized a bunch of 223, and I scrapped a handful that didn't feel too good while flaring. They all had the same headstamp. There was one of that particular headstamp that felt like it was borderline ok, so I let it through.

Today, I seated the batch. On round number 98, I noticed poor resistance while seating. Looked at the headstamp. It was the one I let sneak through. I have a good crimp on these rounds, so I'm not worried about setback. I'll shoot it, but it probably won't pass QC on the next go around.

 

[Jmtaul]

I modified a normal hammer to pull bullets I installed a bracke that holds the round in place and a collection bag to catch the bullet and powder.

 

[Trent]

A few days ago I sized a bunch of 223, and I scrapped a handful that didn't feel too good while flaring. They all had the same headstamp. There was one of that particular headstamp that felt like it was borderline ok, so I let it through.

Today, I seated the batch. On round number 98, I noticed poor resistance while seating. Looked at the headstamp. It was the one I let sneak through. I have a good crimp on these rounds, so I'm not worried about setback. I'll shoot it, but it probably won't pass QC on the next go around.

Is it possible that brass was thinner than the others?

I've run across (infrequently) brass that is thin, straight from the factory. I had a brand new Remington mfg. 8mm case that I chucked out of the last batch that I loaded. Straight out of the factory sealed bag, it was too thin to hold neck tension. If I had a collet sizer and the appropriate collet, I could have got the neck tension set right, but on my standard neck sizer it didn't have enough material to reduce the inside diameter of the neck down to an appropriate level of tension. The walls measured .002 thinner than those of the other casings, and the brass itself was several grains lighter than the others in the batch.

In short, it should have been a factory reject, but wasn't.

(Makes a guy wonder how much crap brass eventually makes their way through the automated systems and in to your box of "premium hunting ammo"... I'm skeptical any machine would have noticed what I caught through observation while manually sizing....)

 

[rixy308]

I pull bullets all the time. I placed a soft rubber disk in the back of the puller hammer to prevent the soft tips from deforming upon inertial hit. I reuse all components unless something has deformed. I usually take the opportunity to remeasure the powder just to make sure the weight was what I intended.