OT? - pulling bullets

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

Back around 1977 or so I loaded a large quantity of .223 ammo as part of my "end of the world as we know it" stash. Being a less experienced reloader at the time, I didn't have any way to measure the shoulder set back, so I just resized them to where they worked through my Mini-14 & everything was fine. A few years ago I bought an AR-15 & discovered that either my Mini had a generous chamber or the AR has a tight one (or maybe both). All the ammo I had previously loaded would not function reliably in the AR, sometimes getting stuck in the chamber with the bolt just short of closing. When that happened I often had to use a rubber mallet & a block of wood against the charging handle to extract the case. Not good! I discovered that the shoulder on all those rounds needed to be set back several thousandths to take them back to factory specs. At first I hoped that I could just take the expander ball out of the sizer die & run the loaded rounds through. That worked on some, but quite a few ended up looking like a Weatherby case, with a "radiused" shoulder, so I resigned myself to having to pull all the bullets, dump the powder, and resize the case without the decapper assembly, then reassemble. Like most onerous tasks, I put if off for quite awhile, but last night I finally got going on it. I pulled about 50 rounds that were loaded with 55 gr. FMJ boat tail (military bullets). Fortunately, having learned from bitter experience, I decided to reload those & make sure everything worked before I pulled all of them. To make a long story short, the pulled bullets (pulled with a collet) would not stay in the case - turn them upside down & the bullets fall out. Took me awhile - and some blue language - before I discovered that the pulled bullets only measured about .219 on the shank between the cannelure and the edge just ahead of the start of the boat tail. Never-loaded bullets that I still had left over measure the correct .224. Other ammo that was loaded with a no-longer made Nosler 55 gr. soft-point boat tail, when pulled, showed the bullets were still measuring the correct diameter. The FMJ's have an exposed lead base, while the soft point have a jacket over the base. I'm theorizing that pulling the bullet through the case neck is allowing the lead core to be swaged toward the exposed base on the FMJ's, while the jacket on the base of the SP's is preventing this. Anybody have any thoughts on this, especially as to any way to avoid this "swaging" on the remaining bullets? The good news (if you can call it that) is that I only have about 500 rounds loaded with the FMJ's as opposed to over 3,000 with the SP's but I'd still like to salvage the rest of the FMJ's if I could. By the way, the rounds were not crimped, the bullets are just held in place by neck tension (in case anyone was going to suggest seating then deeper to break the crimp before pulling.) Brass is G.I. if that matters. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

[win38-55]

Have you tried pulling them with a kenetic style hammer puller yet, to see if that makes any difference ?
Or possibly when you made these bullets, when you were seating them it was shaving the sides of the bullet down.
I don't really know the total answer to your question. Hopefully someone else might be able to help.

[Thunder50]

Get a dremel tool and some cut-off blades or someone with a metal lathe and some carbide bits and buy a set of cheap Lee 223 dies and cut off the top of the sizing die. You want to cut off the neck area to the point where you can put a loaded round in from the top and the neck will clear. Then you can resize the ammo, from the shoulder down, to where it will chamber in your AR and you won't touch the neck.

Its a pain, but it works. Had to do that with another caliber, luckily, I had an extra size die for it.

[Leverdude]

Are the ones you found to be undersized the ones you tried to resize while loaded? That will definately size them down since the sizer die is squeezing the neck with a bullet in it.
Pulling them from the brass wont reduce their diameter, if that happened bullets would always be undersized.

[Larsen E. Whipsnade]

First, I want to apologize for the double post. I don't know how that happened. And thanks to all that replied (to both posts!)

Thunder50, on my original post, w30wcf suggested essentially the same thing, using a 6mm TCU die. I'm going to try that as soon as I can order one. Great idea that I would never have thought of.

Leverdude, yes, same rounds, and that's a much better explanation. I couldn't see either how pulling them from the case would squeeze them down. I should've realized sizing them with the bullet in would do that (feeling kinda dumb now )

Although I don't post often, I read the forum a lot and am always amazed at the great pool of knowledge on just about any subject that comes up. Thanks everyone!

[w30wcf]

Larsen,

My apologies. I should have said the 6x45 (6mm/223) rather than the 6mmTCU. The 6x45 (6mm/223) would be the correct one. The 6mmTCU is a uses a blown out .223 case.

Here's a 6mm/223 sizing die
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?p ... ber=231152

w30wcf