doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Advice on bullet pullers and recycling components

I've used both the RCBS collet puller and a Franklin (?) kinetic one. Much prefer the collet as it's way faster and I don't have to go outback to use it. (No workbench in the house).

Kutter - I'll have to look into the method you describe. Sounds very promising for oddball sizes if I'm trying to avoid the kinetic puller.

A very informative topic. Thanks all for sharing what you do.

Chris

I really appreciate all the input on this. In the interest of not buying another tool I tried Kutter's suggestion, and it worked well. I needed to pull only 4 out of the box of 20 I was working on. The marks on the bullets were minimal as long as I held the electrician's plier tightly so the bullet did not slip in the plier. I've attached a couple of photos showing the pliers I used and one of the pulled bullets. I also found, advertised on the internet, this puller that works on the same principle: https://grip-n-pull.com/


I also have a handful of cartridges, from when I first started reloading, where the case neck wasn't sized tightly enough and the bullet slid down into the case. For those I will buy an inertia puller. Again, thanks everyone for your help!

I had to break down a case (1,000 rds.) of 43 Spanish ammo and did it with a pair of lineman's pliers that had a hole drilled and polished to .430" (.433" bullets) in the wire cutting part of the pliers and used the same procedure as Vall, otherwise. The bullets were marked somewhat but the marks went away when I sized them to .425" for 45-70 level lead bullet loads on my .404 Jeffery.

Salvaging primers can be scary. My friend Gene was de-priming 45 ACP cases many years ago at Ft. Hood with a punch and hammer to salvage the primers when one detonated and damaged his thumb. He went to the emergency room and had it bandaged and went back home to continue the task when another one detonated. He didn't say how he explained that in the emergency room. I can understand salvaging primers but be sure they are not crimped in or take other precautions.

When I use a collet puller, I slightly close the collet and raise the cartridge until I feel the neck hit the collet and then tighten it, before pulling the bullet. Using this procedure I seldom have a bullet slip in the collet.
Mike

Using anything that strikes a primer can detonate it as strikes are made to set off primers. But slowly depriming without any strike will never set off a live primer. I've used my Pope style re-decapping tool made by Jerry Cleave for me to do thousands of live primers and never had any issues. A regular press mounted die allso deprimes without setting off live primers, but a lot slower than my Cleave tool is.

Not to pick nits but, to pick nits, being a retired electrician/electrical contractor after 45 years in the trade. Those are wire strippers, not 'electrician's pliers'.

I have often used electrical crimpers as suggested by Kutter.

Yes, they may leave marks on the bullets, but generally those pale into insignificance compared to what happens when the bullet meets the rifling.

A selection of cappers/decappers.

From what I understand, Boxer primers have only 3 components... a cup... a small amount of priming compound which is deposited as a paste... and an anvil. The very sensitive paste is dried into a so-called pellet during manufacturing.

Benchrest and competition shooters have long preferred to use hand priming tools that allow them to feel the primer bottoming out in the pocket without crushing the pellet of priming compound, which might negatively affect accuracy. For this reason, I have always used a hand priming tool to prime my rifle cases in a separate operation that takes very little time. I recently bought an RCBS Automatic Bench Priming Tool at an Auto Parts Swap Meet, of all places, and look forward to trying it out. I load for economy, but also reload for better accuracy than I can get with factory ammo. I know that primers may detonate from any sharp blow, and they also may be removed from a primed case if done gently. Then we have to consider the greater force that is needed to removed a lot of old military primers that have crimped or staked primer pockets. My biggest concern, aside from inadvertently detonating one, would be having the decapping pin push the anvil into the compound hard enough to crush it. That could lead to misfires or reduced accuracy, which may not be a real concern for casual plinking or target shooting.

Primers are still relatively cheap, especially if you stock up when they are on sale instead of waiting until anti-gun Democrats cause price spikes, shortages, and panic buying. A lot of old commercial and especially military ammo was primed with the very corrosive mercury fulminate primers too. The first SKS rifle I bought was a Yugo that looked nice outside, but had a bore that looked like a sewer pipe. It's nice to know that I could take the time to salvage and re-use old unknown primers if we were ever in some SHTF situation. But for now, I'll work on using up my considerable stockpile.

My Jerry Cleave set he made for me that will do a dozen or more different cartridges by changing shell holders, decapping rods, and priming rods for small or large primers:

Some of the old journeymen I worked with during my electrical apprenticeship taught me that T&B Sta-Kon pliers had a secondary purpose too.

They would use them to cut the valve stems off of the tires of guys who squealed to the boss, or other such offenses. They said it was important to do as a warning before puncturing sidewalls, but alway do at least two tires because nobody carries two spares. Some of these guys had more angles than a geometry teacher. Glad none of it rubbed off on me.