Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Broke two bullet pullers last night

Most of the time there is no mark at all but I start out with very little tension and just add enough to do the job. Even on the really soft bullets without much sticking up to grab, sure a collet puller might leave a pretty good ring dent but I guarantee you that bullet's BC will not be affected nor will it affect accuracy or the performance on game. At least nothing I can see on paper. I have tested it every which way during 40 years of having to pull bullets during load development and never once has accuracy been affected.

I even super tightened it just short of bending the handle on a batch of 20 bullets that had 43 grains of H380 which is way too much for a 22-250 when it's over 100 degrees out. and sure it left a huge ring on the soft little .224 Hornady 50 grain SPSX still found the ground squirrels every time to 300 yards. That or that barrel being over 8000 rounds has so much experience it just tells the bullets where to go.

I will say the best way to wreck a bullet is using a pair of side cutters and squashing the bullet way out of shape. I assume that will affect accuracy and performance a little bit.

I got a hammer puller for Christmas once. I tried it a few times and since I like to use my puller to push the bullets right back in once the powder is corrected I didn't have any use for it so I gave to to the neighbor kids to smash potatoe bugs with it. If a guy is determined to use those I recommend buying them buy the dozen.

My RCBS is kind of cool because I can adjust the tension and once you collect all the collets you can pull from 17 through 50 cal. A lot of collets will do several calibers close in diameter. A 270 will do 6.5 and 7mm if you want to. 30 cal will grab 8mm. Over the years I finally have collected them all just because.