everyone talks about reloading solids after firing them, but has anyone tried before?

Yes.

In fact, I went a step further.

Many years ago I shot an elephant with the Barnes Super Solid bullet in a 416 Rigby Improved.

We recovered the bullet. It was totally intact, no damage at all.

The next year, I was using a 375/404, and thought of using the same bullet to shoot another elephant.

I turned the bullet down on my lathe, and used it to kill another elephant.

Sadly, it was a side brain shot, and the bullet went completely through.

It would have been great to have found that bullet.

so in order to refire you need to work the bullet in the lathe

The original bullet was in 0.416 caliber and 400 grain weight.

I turned it down to 300 grains and 0.375 caliber.

If I wanted to use it in a 416 rifle, there would have been no need to do any work on it.

quote:

Originally posted by steel:
everyone talks about reloading solids after firing them, but has anyone tried before?

I believe when gunwriters(or hunters) speak of a solid that "was unmarked except for the rifling groves and could have been reloaded" they are speaking hypothetically.

Of course an undeformed solid could be reloaded, but why would you want to? What would the gasses do as they blew past the rifling groves in the bullet(think "cutting torch"). And how would a visibly unmarked, but slightly over-sized(deformed), bullet do to pressures as it swagged down into the rifling?

Having said that, this has been done many, many times. In one of his books Craig Boddington tells of catching a group of elephant poachers. When the went through the poachers' gear they found a "reloading kit" that included disassembled AK47 cartridges that that supplied the powder for the poachers 375. The bullets were lathe turned copper and had been pounded back into shape after being recovered from game.

So yes, it can be done. But not in my rifle.....

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:


So yes, it can be done. But not in my rifle.....

Not in mine either!! Even a "pristine looking" solid that has been fired may have enough deformation to cause an issue in your rifle.

Steel:
Folks thought I was a brick short of a load when I fired Barnes Banded Solids in my vintage Wilkes .600.

Dare I post this?

Off an on in the past 20 years I take my rifles out to shoot on a warm day in the winter. Since I don't want to walk through deep snow to the target stand I set a wood frame with the targets in front of the snow bank at the end of the driveway. I noticed the first spring after I did this the lawn was littered with jacketed and lead bullets and showed no deformity, only the rifling grooves. I reshot them. I still do this. The bullets travel 20-30 feet in the snow and slowly come to a stop. I've had no problems with this.
Be gentle, fellas.
Cal

interesting

It has been done. I believe in the testing phase of CEB Raptors. The bullet was 1st fired with the solid nose forward then loaded with the NonCon forward and fired a second time. Results were nothing shy of incredible!

quote:

Originally posted by drewhenrytnt:
It has been done. I believe in the testing phase of CEB Raptors. The bullet was 1st fired with the solid nose forward then loaded with the NonCon forward and fired a second time. Results were nothing shy of incredible!

Yes, I have reloaded several solids twice and fired them, I can see no dire consequences of doing this at all.

Drewhenry is correct. The first Raptor tests, 130 ESP .308 Raptors, I loaded 4 in 308 and 4 in 300 Winchester, fired all of them as a solid first. Recovered, recorded the data, loaded them back up again and tested them as straight NonCons. Excellent performance fired twice, both ways, same bullets.

These photos are on my photobucket, which I cannot access at this time, but they are also posted somewhere on the terminal thread way back something between 12-18 months ago or somewhere close to that.

Deformaties in recovered solids can be detected fairly easy by just looking at them. Most proper designed and constructed monos will suffer little or no deformation unless coming in contact with extremes of heavy bone, or other objects harder than the bullets themselves. With no deformaties detected I can see of no other issues shooting the solids as many times as you want, at least until you wear the driving bands off them from multiple shots! HEH..........

Michael

I was in a camp in the Selous with a couple of friends and Richard Lemmer was their P.H. One of the guys did a double tap with is .470 Searcy on a good buffalo and it turned butt-end to him and began to stagger away. Richard shot it in the right hip with his .458 Watts and anchored it before it got in the nearby river.

The bullet was found under the far shoulder and it had a very slight fish-tail on the bottom where it apparently had tumbled a bit during the last few inches of travel and had hit bone going backwards. Richard told us at supper that night (while showing us the slight deformation) that he couldn't use the bullet anymore and would retire it, but that was the third buffalo he'd shot with it.

I believe the bullet was made in South Africa and was brass????

Why?

Dave

quote:

Originally posted by nopride2:
Why?

Dave

Because.

Just because.

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:

Off an on in the past 20 years I take my rifles out to shoot on a warm day in the winter. Since I don't want to walk through deep snow to the target stand I set a wood frame with the targets in front of the snow bank at the end of the driveway. I noticed the first spring after I did this the lawn was littered with jacketed and lead bullets and showed no deformity, only the rifling grooves. I reshot them. I still do this. The bullets travel 20-30 feet in the snow and slowly come to a stop. I've had no problems with this.
Be gentle, fellas.
Cal

Last spring I was out in my yard and found a bunch of pristine 30 cal bullets just laying in the dirt. I was totally stumped until I remembered that that winter I had fired off a mag full of 308s into a snow bank to test a new M1A. They had all just cruised through the snow and then melted to the ground. I too did not want to trudge out to my full range just to function test the rifle.

quote:

Posted 18 November 2012 02:38Hide Post
Yes

My self not being an african hunter I think Saeed did this the only way safe.



Cal30

Why not.

:-)

Nitro