I've never had to do this in the past, except for maybe one or two, but I now have to yank about 90 bullets that I loaded a few years back. Guess it's time to get a puller. I don't need anything fancy or expensive. Just something that gets the job done without damaging the bullet or getting powder everywhere. Which one do you guys recommend?

For that many cartridges I'd get an RCBS collet type specific to the caliber. I have a collet for every caliber I reload, fast and easy to use.

[ 06-30-2003, 07:07: Message edited by: Talking Head ]

Jethro: I'd recommend that you get a collet style puller. RCBS sells them. You buy the body that screws into your press then use the caliber specific collet. A lot better than the impact style pullers. Bear in Fairbanks

I've heard good and bad stories about the collet-style pullers. Most people say they work great but some say they leave marks on the bullets.

I tried something different. If you've ever worked with copper tubing, you are familiar with the tool used for flaring the end of the tube. It has several openings (for different size tubing) in a clamp. In use, you clamp the end of the tubing in its proper hole and then, using another tool, you flare the tubing.

I had to pull bullets from about 500 8mm cartridges. I found that one of those holes fit the 8mm bullet almost perfectly and gripped it tightly enough so I could, with the help of my loading press, pull the bullet cleanly. There was no powder spilled, no marks on the bullet and it was fairly quick. Later, I found that I could do the same thing with 30 cal bullets too.

Since then, I've gotten a Sinclair catalog. They market a device which uses a similar principle but is much simpler to use.

A kinetic puller is definetly the way to go. Much faster then a collet type. Slide the case in, give a solid wack on a hard surface, and persto bullet is pulled no damage to bullet, or lost powder.

Having used pliers, kinetic and even a lathe my vote goes to the collet type.

Oh I forgot - I once even sweated on a copper tube to a particularly stubborn so-and-so, cross-drilled the copper tube and finally got the b....d out.

There are 900 8x57 cartridges waiting for a cold and stormy night.

cheers edi

I,ve been usin' the RCBS collet puller. Set up and adjusted right it has worked flawlessly for me. I've got a kenetic puller also, but rarely use it anymore unless I've only got a few rounds to pull down. I can't agree that the kenetic style is quicker and/or easier to use. FWIW.

Collet, I can't imagine how anyone would be faster with a kinetic, even if the bullet did come out with but a single blow. There have also been the occasional rare cases of primers going off in a kinetic puller, no thanks!

I've used a kinetic puller for years with no problem. Quick and easy if you throw away the junk they give you to hold the case and just use an appropriate size shell holder under the cap instead. Why they don't advertize it to be used with shellholders is beyond me.

Never liked the idea of squeezing a delicate bullet to remove it, usually they get used again and it can't be good for accuracy in the least.

Good luck.

Brent took the words out of my mouth. Good response. If you use benchrest or varmint bullets that have fairly thin jackets, the collet WILL damage the bullet. Although those bullets may still be good enough for plinking, they're suddenly not so good anymore for top drawer accuracy.

With the kinetic bullet puller, the trick is to hit a solid surface, like the concrete floor (safety glasses are requisite). Use a few medium taps rather than one heavy blow. The powder is saved and the bullet is not damaged. If flattening a lead bullet tip is still a concern to you, you can always stuff a small piece of foam inside to provide for a soft landing, but it's not really necessary. If you have to pull a lot of bullets, three or four medium raps with the kinetic puller isn't that much slower than using a collet bullet puller, but you don't waste all those bullets.

[ 07-01-2003, 08:48: Message edited by: SST ]

I've tried both types and, for me, the collet puller wins hands-down for use on jacketed bullets. On lead I still use the kinetic puller.

I have 3:
1) RCBS collet puller
2) Hornady collet puller
3) Kinetic bullet puller

The RCBS and Hornady both have; collet, threads, taper, and handle. The Hornady has a handle/cam system and pushes the collet down into the taper instead tothe RCBS draw up into the taper.

The Hornady is slightly nicer, but nothing to write home about.

The kinetic is a pain, but when the ogive is seated to the mouth, what you gonna do?

Also, I think the kinetic may be faster for pulling one bullet.

Guys, I must be doing things wrong. When I have used my kinetic bullet puller, I sure as heck have wasted powder. Yes, most of the powder is captured in the bullet puller, but I also have bits of powder flying all over the place. Is it obvious what my goof is??

I don't know which kind of bullet puller I prefer. The kinetic one puts powder all over my bench, and the collet type marks the bullet. I suppose the conclusion is that I don't much care for pulling bullets...

- mike

mho,

When is it loosing powder, when dumping it out or rapping on it to remove the bullet?

If it's when you're dumping the bullet and powder out, I put a scale pan over the opening, holding it tight and flat, before tipping it upside down to empty it. I never loose any powder.

Like SST, I use short, and lighter taps on the concrete floor to remove the bullet. Keeps the necks from getting egg shaped and when the bullet come out I don't swing it again, takes five or six rapps on the floor and a couple lighter ones as the bullets comes loose. Takes about thirty seconds to remove and recapture the powder to the container. I don't do alot of them so it's not much of an issue with me. Using a shell holder in the kinetic puller speeds it up substantially!
Drill out the puller body at the top just a smidge, and it fits the BIG Wby cases too.

mho,

I didn't mean when the bullet was still in the case itself, I meant maybe you rapped the puller a time or two after the bullet had "already" come out.... not seeing it had come out already.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if you are swinging it several times in a row without looking at it real close each time. Powder could come back up and out in this case through a crack in the collet of shellholder, which ever you are using.

Hope you didn't think I was implying you were a complete moron, and it might be loosing powder while the bullet was still in the case...

You can get egg shaped necks if the cases axis and the enertial force are not paralell... the hammer is struck at an angle. Most people at least neck resize after pulling bullets, so it isn't much of an issue unless you just seat bullets in them again without doing so. A RO gauge will tell you if they got screwed up or not.

Go to a welding shop and buy a 18 inch long piece of flat aluminum bar stock about 2.5" wide and 0.250" to 0.500" thick. Use a holesaw (for a drill motor) and cut a hole that will be to within about 0.500" of the end and sides. Drill holes in the plate right down the middle on the end with the big hole. Now take a Skil saw and cut the plate right up the middle, dividing the holes.
There is you $5.00 bullet puller and it took you about 20 minutes to make. It will not damage your bullets, spill your powder or otherwise do harm to your cases. Extend the cartridge up through the die hole in you press, grip the bullet with one of the holes in the plate, squeeze and retract the ram.
Repeat.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. After sifting through all the "for and against" opinions, I think I'm gonna try the kinetic puller. It may take me a little longer, but I didn't like the idea that I had to buy specific collets for each caliber with the collet puller. I rarely have to pull bullets and when I do, it's usually only one or two at a time (I used pliers in the past and just tossed the damaged bullet). Anyway, having a tool that covers several calibers seems likes the best choice for me.

Roger, your homemade puller makes sense, but how do you keep the aluminum from scratching the copper jacket? Seems like this would most definitely damage the bullet.

The aluminum is much softer than the jacket.

All you guys in favor of kinetic bullet pullers have obviously never had any bullets that were "frozen" in place, which can easily happen with reloads after a few years.

Hint: I don't know how common this it, but I've run into it several times over the years, check any copper jacketed reloads that have been sitting around for 10 years or so prior to shooting them, take one and seat the bullet a bit deeper, if it "pops" when it moves or seems like it takes an unusual amount of pressure to seat it deeper, DO NOT shoot them, they will likely produce serious pressures. Now you'll know why I like collet type pullers. Don't tell me about a few lighter "taps" getting them out on concrete or anything else. More like sledgehammer blows to loosen the electo-chemical bond that has occurred.

All that said, for the guy who only pulls a "mistake" or a few experimental loads that didn't work every now and then, the kinetic pullers work fine. But if you need to pull a lot of bullets, forget it, buy a collet type.

Now that GatoGordo has raised the dreaded "cold fusion" bogy - let me come clean on why I had to sweat on a copper pipe onto the bullet. This all happened about 30 years or more back so I don't blush quite so badly when I think about it.

The man has a 0.280 Ross Rifle - he also has only one cartridge. Now being a cautious type I decide that making sure that the bullet is loose in the case is a good thing. So I did what GatoGordo advised and checked the bullet-case grip by pushing the bullet back into the case by shoving it up into the seating die.

Good press the RCBS Rockchucker - powerful too.

By the time I realised that things had gone too far I had folded the neck right down into the case. A re-entrant shoulder - mmm - no future in it I'm afraid. The bullet hadn't moved relative to the neck at all.

The geometry of everything wasn't promising - pliers didn't reach ... so I wrapped the cartridge in a wet cloth and sweated on a copper tube to the bullet. Drilled the cross-hole and slipped it back into the press.

It would have ben nice to report that the neck was pulled out back to where it had started from before the bullet came out ... no such luck - the bullet slipped out as though it was greased. Leaving me with an interesting looking case and nothing to reload.

OK - since the soldering things were all on the bench it didn't take too long to turn a piece of brass rod down to 0.288" and sweat it into the mouth of the case - cross drill it and pull the neck out of the case. As I said - RCBS make a good press.

I unsweated the brass rod, cleaned off the solder, resized the case, reloaded it and went to the range - it worked well enough to survive about 5 - 6 reloads before being pensioned off.

Always wondered what would have happened if I had just fired that cartridge instead of trying to be intelligent about things.

cheers edi

Ok Edi, I gotta ask. Why so much concern over 1 case? I'm not familiar with a Ross Rifle, but are the cases made of gold? Why not just toss it if it was already damaged and buy some new ones? I'm guessing I don't have the whole story. Or else I've found someone who likes to tinker even more than myself.

Hi Jethro - now you are talking to a resident of the premier gold producing nation in the world - gold cases are probably found as a matter of course deep down in the mines (I think the shafts are down to 10 000 feet below the surface now).

However Ross cases are not found - or at least not by this scrounger. Hell I was even prepared to pay for them - but no luck.

The books suggested using H&H brass so quite a few 7mm Rem Mags, 458, 300 H&H etc cases ended up with extreme taper. Never liked the unsupported brass just ahead of the belt. Now I use 8x68 brass and get a much better match. Mind you - at the price they run at maybe making them from gold might not be such a bad idea.

I also manage to turn 223 cases into 300 Sherwood cases - check COTW and worry!

I was hoping to take the Ross up to the Kalahari and point it at a Gemsbok but the monolithics that I ordered still haven't arrived - and we leave in three days time. Well - next year.

Why monolithics? Well I believed the literature that the Ross used 0.288" bullets. So I made a die to bump 0.284 bullets up to size. Accuracy wasn't - so I put the rifle to one side for a couple of decades.

Monolithics appear - with the promise of turning to your exact requirements. So I slugged the bore which came out at 0.291 - just goes to prove a point - never believe what you read in print.

cheers edi

I've been using the Quinetics impact puller for years and am quite fond of it. If you have a model which has the hole in the side, simply put a piece of tape over it. Your powder spillage stops. The whole set up costs about $15. and there's nothing else to buy. By all means do put a piece of cotton in the nose so your bullets don't get banged up. After a while you develop a hang for using this type of puller so it's not all that slow. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

Just to follow up, I got the RCBS kinetic puller. No real reason why except it was available at the store and has the RCBS lifetime warrantee. The bullets I needed to pull were 257 Weatherby Magnum. I was pretty discouraged at first because it was taking me 10+ whacks to get the darn bullets out. No way was I going to do this for 90 rounds. I started looking at the collet pullers, but decided to give the kinetic one more try. I eventually got it down to about 5 whacks per shell. Still more than I thought it should take. Just for grins, I tried a 300 RUM shell and the bullet popped out on 1 whack. The 257 shells were only loaded for about a year, so I'm not sure why they were much harder to dislodge. After seeing its performance on the 300, I would say it's a good tool. After nearly 100 rounds, the plastic held up fine. However, the little metal collet inside failed after about 70 rounds. The lip on the collet that holds the shell in place stripped right out, making it useless. On the recommendation of others here, I tried a shellholder and it worked perfectly. Too bad they don't recommend this in the instructions.
Overall, I'm happy with it. I don't expect to be pulling that number of bullets again, and this thing is perfect for just a few here and there. The collet they use is cheap, but I assume that most people have the shellholder for the rounds they are pulling anyway, so not a big deal. Also, you can use it on just about any caliber.

Jethro,
The lighter weight bullets will require more speed on the hammer to overcome the friction resistance on the bullet, neck tension. It's the ratio thing at work.

The lips on my dads collet broke on him too, they aren't too tough. I think I stumbled onto the shellholder thing back when I started loading for my 416WBY, the collet thing was either a big pain in the ass to get on and off the case, not to mention it fell apart all the time, or the cap just wouldn't fit over it with the larger WBY case.... I can't remember which it's been so long. Anyway, the shellholder is the way to go, no doubt. Good luck, sounds like you're off and runnin.

Just a bit of information on the side: On Midway, they state that their kinetic puller doesn't work with the WSM/WSSM family of cartridges and a couple of other calibers. It might also not work with the SAUM rounds either, haven't checked. RCBS might be the same way, haven't checked on it. Just something to keep in mind.

Midway sells a packet of three collets for their kinetic puller that fit my RCBS puller. Theirs use a rubber "O" ring instead of that damed spring! I tried the shell holder trick too, but I prefer the tight fit of the collet.

Put a foam earplug in the front of the puller to minimise damage to bullets.

Not sure if you have used the RCBS puller, but the one I just bought already has a cushion to catch the bullet and prevent damage. Maybe this was just a recent change following customer feedback, I don't know.

Gatogordo,

I, too, have tried pulling bullets from ancient loaded cartridges. If a kinetic puller isn't getting the job done, I simply seat the bullets a hair deeper and then pull the bullets with no problem. Of course, by this time, you could have just used a collet type puller. If I want to reuse the bullets, however, I'll go ahead and use this method.

I GOT A KINETIC BULLET PULLER FROM MIDWAY A FEW YRS AGO. IT WORKS FINE FOR ME BUT I ONLY PULL A MISTAKE LOADED ROUND EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE.