Pulling Bullets

When you make a mistake, own up, do the right thing.

I didn’t do the right thing. The right thing was to pull all the bullets for the hot loads I made. I didn’t want to because it is a bit of work, and I’m lazy. It should be safe to unload them through the R92.

Lazy, safe, reloading do not work. You have to be careful, you have to do the right thing, every time.

I have two or three powder throws. I do not use them. The consistency I was getting with them wasn’t good enough.

The two presses I have are both Lee presses. One is an OLD single stage. I like it. I don’t use it. At this point, my main complaint, using it to deprime, is no longer an issue as I use a different method. The press I do use is a Lee Turret press.

When I started using it, I used it as a turret press. Everything was all setup and I could crank out the rounds quickly and easily. First I would deprime, then clean the cases in a wet tumbler. From there, it was time to run it through the turret press.

Put the case in shell holder. Handle down to resize the case. While the handle is down, place primer in the primer cup. Handle up to insert the primer and rotate the plate to the next station. Handle down to flare the mouth, throw the powder charge. The Lee charger is semi-automatic. As the case presses into the die, it causes the charger to throw one charge. Handle up, place bullet in the case. Handle down to seat the bullet. Handle up to move to the next station. Handle down to crimp the case. Remove the cartridge, put the case in the shell holder, repeat.

Today, I use the turret press as a quick change plate. There is a universal depriming die, sizing die, mouth flare, bullet seating+crimping die. I rotate the plate to the die I want, then use it like a single stage press.

Which brings us to how I do it now. I have an automatic powder measure. You input the weight you want, press the “drop” button. The machine twists a trickle tube until the scale reads exactly the weight you wanted.

It takes just a few moments to throw the charge accurately. I have a standalone powder charger stand. I have just the base in it. This gives me a big enough target that I don’t need a funnel. I hold the case mouth against the bottom surface, pour the pan into the top and the case is charged.

The pan gets placed back on the scale for the auto-throw. Once it stabilizes, it will start throwing the next charge. While that charge is being thrown, I’m putting the case in the press, putting a bullet on and seating it along with the crimp.

Not as fast as a progressive, by far. Not as fast as just using the turret press. But it is the way I do it today.

So back to pulling bullets. I have a collet puller which hasn’t worked for me. Instead, I use an inertia puller. Put a round in the puller. Hit it on a hard surface a few times, the bullet pops out. It works, it just takes more of an effort than I like, as a lazy person.

Now that all the bullets are pulled, I can reuse the bullets and put the correct charge in place.

Thank you to everybody who told me I was being a dumb ass. I was. Your gently chiding was enough to make it clear I needed to do the right thing.

This is what I was thinking of:

Since the video, they did discover that the SLAP rounds that he was firing were not military surplus. That they were way too hot and the cause of the exploding 50 BMG rifle.