Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Swapping bullets in factory loaded ammo

First thing, I am not a reloader and know nothing about it so bare with me.

With the ammo situation we are in, and not being able to easily find any variety you'd like to have, I have loaded up on some factory soft point stuff that I'd like replace with a ttsx. Its 270 win ammo that I would like to try the ttsx on wt deer instead of fed fusion and other 130gr soft point type bullets. I have a friend or 2 that does some reloading and I'm curious if its "easy enough" to pull bullets and place a new one in.

Well yes and no. Easy to pull the bullets and stuff a new in.and re crimp or not.
BUT, you could get into dangerous pressures, terrible accuracy. And the fact you will never be able to duplicate that load without repeating the whole buy factory and break it down fiasco.
Now if you are just thinking of dumping the factory bullets and the factory powder, and having your buddy reload using new powder you are going way around the bush to get what you want.
Give me your address and i will send you a bunch of 270 brass you can have your buddy reload for you.

Just a bit of real advice though. Dont shoot someone elses reloads.

Thanks for the advise deerstalker. This is a very trusted person btw. I have several boxes of factory ammo(all the same) that I would like pulled and replaced with ttsx bullets.

The easiest answer is no.

Yes, I think this can be done safely.

Most of the time when you “pull) bullets the case mouth won’t hold a new bullet without resizing . Some you can push a new bullet in wth your fingers . I’ve experienced this pulling load development bullets . I usually load five increased powder charge . Different bullets create different pressure . I wouldn’t recommend . If you look at loading data such as Hodgdon you will see what I mean for any given caliber . Good luck with your loading

The fusion is a dang good bullet for deer, why go through the grief of pulling and maybe not achieving the desired results. I doubt Georgia deer take much more to kill than Texas deer. I was delighted to find factory overruns in 120 grain 257 caliber persuasion for my 257 Weatherby, I think they will do fine and should do even better in the 270 Win. That is a good load why mess with near perfection?

uuuuhhhhh.........I would be really, really leery of swapping bullets into an unknown powder--especially so going from jacketed bullets to monos. And as DBoston says, that's a lot of messing around to remove a perfectly adequate deer bullet for another. It's kind've a sideways move.

Swapping bullets out of factory ammo is best done when using two bullets of similar construction if the same weight. If swapping to a bullet of drastically different construction, it's best to drop down in bullet weight. Barnes are a lot longer for the same weight than Fusions, and that may be a factor. The two bullets develop pressure at least somewhat differently, because it takes more pressure to engrave a pure copper bullet in the lands than it does an electroplate-jacketed bullet. So the pressure curve will be different. How much so is difficult to say. Maybe Federal loads the Fusions to a lesser velocity specification because they are fairly soft, so it wouldn't be dangerous to swap bullets. Maybe they load them to the top end of MAP, and swapping could be dangerous.

In short, too many variables to say, and I wouldn't recommend it for those reasons. That's why we handloaders load a charge ladder when seeking to find the appropriate charge for a given bullet in a given chamber and case. A potential bomb a handful of inches from your head is not something to randomly tamper with.

A question: what do you imagine you will get out of Barnes bullets that you won't get out of the Fusions? What is the ammo for?

The reality is that yes, its possible...but if you have to ask if its possible, you shouldn't be doing it.

This has got to be the dumbest thing I've heard since a neighbor tried to get me to vote for commie joe.

BP...

I most strongly disagree. The powder charge from the factory load with a standard cup and core bullet may be too hot a load for a TSX or TTSX bullet. Body parts are hard to replace.
Paul B.

Ask your buddy that reloads. If he is a competent hand loader, he will most likely give you a good answer.. If he is a good buddy, he won't approach your question like we will, sometimes. I have a buddy that I handload for his rifles and he asks me just about every time why I have to "develop a load". He sees it as a waste of bullets and money. I actually had to take him to the range and walk him through what I was doing and why I did it. Showed him the group sizes of differing charge weights for the same bullet. I think after that, he got the picture of what was really going on... Especially when I asked him, "so what do you want? This ammo to shoot 5/8" 5 shot groups, or do you want the load that is shooting 1 3/4" 5 shot groups"... Sometimes its hard to explain to a non handloader the reasons why we handloaders do what we do, but there is a reason we work up safe accurate loads. There's a reason bullet and powder manufactures have load data for the cartridges we load for. Pulling a bullet and placing a totally different bullet on top of the existing powder charge can be asking for trouble..

Wouldn't be prudent.

do not do it

Thanks for the advice. I wont be trying to swap.

Smart.

Unlikely, I've [bleep] the same powder charge behind a TSX, TTSX and Nosler BT, AB
Nowhere near enough differences to blow up a rifle of modern construction in good condition.

Are you in the habit of using (or recommending the use of) an unknown quantity of an unknown powder when loading ammo?

I agree with jwp...there is little to zero chance of anything dangerous happening. It's a bad idea for several reasons, but blowing the gun up ain't one of them.