Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Scary time at the loading bench

I have an RCBS collet puller I have used for many years on jacketed bullets but it is pretty much helpless on cast bullets, they are too slick for the collet to get hold of them so I use the RCBS inertia puller for the few occasions when I need to pull a cast bullet.

Have always used a collet pullet, just couldn't get my head wrapped around whacking on something that has a small quantity of chemical that is impact sensitive and just waiting to light off the propellent in a case with a bullet over the propellent.

I ran a test once. Pulled thinly-jacketed varmint bullets with an inertial puller, a collet-type, and also by using a pliers. Reloaded them and tested for accuracy against an un-pulled batch exactly the same. The "pliers" bullets were the most distorted.

This will surprise you. There was NO meaningful difference in accuracy or velocity. My theory is that the force of jamming the bullets into the rifling "reformed" the bullet jackets to their original form, or very nearly so.

Moral: Load 'em and shoot 'em.

Never had it happen, but picked up a 3 piece set of these "Grip-n-Pull's" last year, works pretty well and can't beat it for being easy!

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Phil

Had one go bang with a loaded .45 Colt round. Have no idea where primer went. I was in my garage banging on the pavement like an ape.

JM, you nailed it for me. I objected to the "banging like an ape" deal. Just seemed undignified.

I use a collet puller now (RCBS), but used a kinetic puller a bunch back in the day, mostly with handgun rounds. To my mind and experience the key with kinetic pullers is to hit something SOLID, like an anvil. Bullet pulls with first or second strike, and I never had a detonation.

I just mostly object to whangin' on chit when I don't need to.

Light bullets in long neck cartridges are hard to get moving with a kinetic puller. Had never heard of an explosion like this happening until this thread. I'll switch now too. Thanks for the heads up. Learned something today. Oh, and the propane torch trick is sweet too. Can't wait to try it.
Could work for testing gunpowders temp sensitivity as well.
First, get the powder can red hot, then... regain consciousness after surgery.

This afternoon I got another call from Cabelas, from a different department. I seem to have got their attention. This one said they'd had other reports of this happening and they're going to review them to decide if they should delete them from their shelves.

That will make some manufacturer happy-LOL, but they shouldn't sell them IMO.

I never used them with rifle cartridges, just pistol rounds and still had an ignition.

I ain't much on surprises of that kind.