I was given a thousand rounds of hand loaded 45 Colt ammo. Loaded by someone I do not know, but who works for an ammunition supply place.

The info label typewritten on outside of box indicates that is a 250 gr bullet over 9 gr Blue dot with CCI300 large pistol primer. Also typewritten is "estimated 700 FPS"

Took a hundred of these out and ran them through my Taurus .454 casull. The first 40 sounded like .22's with no recoil. The next 60 gradually worked their way up to a more potent load, but still well under .454 loadings.

I have NO confidence in this ammo and would like to pull bullets to use free primers and casing and load them to my specs.

Issue is the first loaded crimped the lead bullets into the case, I have pounded the inertia hammer into the wood and have not be able to move the bullets. I have a Hornady cam lock bullet puller in .45 and it wont budge them either.

1. Any ideas of how to remove bullets?
2. Is there enough case volume in a .45 colt to get a double charge of blue dot?

I see 17 grains of Blue Dot over a 250 grain bullet to get 1,150 in .454 Casull, so maybe I am being over cautious.

Seat the bullet a little deeper. This will break the crimp. Then use the inertia bullet puller.


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This is what I do if I don't need to save the bullet on pistol ammo.
Take a 1" pvc pipe sleeve, remove inside collar
Place over press ram with bullet
Raise ram until just bullet is showing
Grip bullet with pliers and lower ram

Try hitting something more solid or rigid with your inertia puller. Like an anvil or the concrete floor. It makes a big difference.
Scott

When using an inertia puller, don't pound it on a table, bench, or wooden floor. Use concrete floor, patio, or very large rock.

Free things are usually worth what you paid for them!

Ivan

Did not give full info. This is a hard taper crimp that is pushed into sides of bullet, so I don't see how pushing bullet down into case is going to break that crimp?

The other hint about hitting a harder surface is also null as I hit it on the concrete floors of my garage 5 hard blows and could not move it. I have used this to pull lead bullets before and know the amount of force necessary and this is over and above that.

The bullet collet puller just smashes the lead. Would like to save the bullets as well, but I may pull a few with the pliers method described just to check case volume.

Gas checks on bottom of bullet?
Shouldn't be with only 700-800 fps.
Could explain why they are so hard to get out.


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You have no confidence because you think they are dangerous or just too weak for your liking?

If it's a safe load that you just think is too weak, I think the easiest thing to do is just fire them. I've used both the hammer type and Hornady bullet pullers and both are a lot less fun than spending time at the range. The crimp makes it even worse.

The no confidence is due to some cartridges not breaking sound barrier and some of them at (guess) .45 colt +P loads. If the 45 colt +P is all the Blue Dot powder that will fit in the case, then I could use them in my 25, just not a steady diet.

Could shoot all of them through the Taurus, but it's a lot more fun shooting an N Frame.

Will pull a bullet with the pliers method to check case volume. I don't have any experience with Blue dot volume.

You can weigh each cartridge and group them into lots.
Maybe identifying the sneeze vs +p


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One thing you may want to check for is Position Sensitivity. Some powders can be quite sensitive to the powder position in the case. Up against the back of the case by the primer can sometimes yield in increase in velocity of 300 fps or perhaps even more. Discovered that aspect of Powder Choices when I tried loading some 38 special with IMR SR7625. If I pointed the barrel up prior to firing I got 700-720 fps, if I pointed the barrel down the velocity dropped to 380-400 fps. BTW, a real head scratcher about this is the point of impact at 30 feet didn't change more than an inch or a bit less.

Anyhow, I have no idea if Blue Dot is a Position Sensitive powder but if it is that would explain the wide swings in recoil and velocity you have observed. It would also suggest that you could "shoot off" these loads by simply pointing your barrel vertically prior to each shot fire. However, some ranges may not allow you to do that so do a bit of asking before doing something like this.

I'll also point out again that I have zero experience with Blue Dot and expect that it time someone with experience with this powder may post whether it is Position Sensitive or not.

POI changes from Mouse F___ loads to plus P loads by 3" at 7 yds.

I have now shot about 200 of these and only 30 or so were the heavier loads.

Ended up cutting 3 cases with tubing cutters. Powder loads were 8.8, 9.2 and 9.0. The cut case to bottom of bullet held 24 grs powder. The cases are a mix of mostly RP, 10% starline and a few Winchester.

Weighed the cartridges, had a 4 gr max difference between RP, 2 grains diff. on starline and 2 gr. diff on Winchester.

With that small of variance, I will just weigh all of them to make sure there are no double charges or more, since the case is large enough for both.

Guess I'm going to shooting the Raging Bull a lot in the near future.

You can not. Variations in bullet weight (also case, if the brass is mixed) can easily be larger than variations in the charge.

Math is fundamental. But you're doing it wrong. Whether or not it can be overcharged doesn't matter, because your gun doesn't need a double charge to blow up. Likewise, you don't actually care whether the case has enough useful capacity to hold enough powder to blow up, because compressing the charge could cause a pressure spike.

But what the hey, let's calculate it anyways.

First, you need to know the volumetric density of Alliant Blue Dot. Multiply the charge weight in grains by the VMD, and you get the colume in cubic centimeters. You're going to use this in reverse.

Note that the actual VMD of powders can vary by as much as 16% in canister powders. I can't remember where the hell I read that.

http://leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/VMD.pdf

Next you need to know the case capacity of the .45 Colt. At a length of 1.285", we'll just go ahead and say the capacity is 2.696cc. Note that this is the overall case capacity, not the useful case capacity. We would need to know how much case volume was taken up by the bullet to know that.

So we plug that into our VMD formula: 2.696cc = .08650 * X. Then we solve for X, dividing 2.696cc by .08650.

We get 31.16 grains! Even if we lobbed off half to account for the volume occupied by the bullet (and there is no way the bullet is occupying half of the case), we still get 15 grains. Considering that the max I'm seeing on the Alliant website is under 13 grains (too lazy to go downstairs and see what my books say), I'd suggest that you can't mathematically show the ammunition to be safe.

I wouldn't shoot any unkn handloads,,even in a Taurus!

I'd pull the bullets and if damaged beyond use like it sounds they will be, at least they are scrap lead at $1/pound.
I use a sidecutter pliers or one of those simple electricians pliers with the slim side cutter on it to pull bullets. Either push the round above the press frame w/o any die in it and grab onto the bullet and then lower the ram,,or do as already mentioned if the shorter pistol round fails to peek through the press frame. A piece of pipe tubing, copper, iron, ect works fine,

If you are sure it's all the same powder, dump it all together and then load anew from it but measure your own load. Brass, primer, powder are free with a bit of work. A 1000 45cal bullets would have been quite a few pounds of scrap lead.
JMO

Some military ammo used to be sealed and this was the way to do it.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

If you have a steel vice or an anvil, try your kinetic puller on those instead of concrete. I've found I get the best reaction with my RCBS kinetic puller by hitting it on a 5" steel vice. It's much more effective for me than even using concrete as the hitting medium.

Thanks for the hint Muddocktor. That worked. I put friction tape on the steel flat of my vise and 2 to 3 solid blows pulled the bullets. got to redo the tape every 50 rds. or so. It's mind numbing work, but once I get into a grove I can do 100 in 20-30 minutes.

Once they are pulled, will load up with a better burning powder, probably Power Pistol. I'm tired of cleaning unburned blue dot off my hands after every cylinder.

Regarding post #14:
This was the result of an unknown reload.

Attached Images

Ruger2.jpg (223.2 KB, 87 views)

Finished the 1,000 bullets today. Just dumped all the blue dot into a can and used it to fertilize some rose bushes.

A couple of interesting things happened. On about 10 cases, there were 10-15 grains of rice included in the loads. Guess the guy who reloaded them used that to fill the case for the powder position sensitivity issue, however
such a small quantity of rice along with 9 gr. of blue dot barely filled half the case.

Also, since I had to really smack the inertia hammer to pull the bullets,
had quite a few hit the bottom of the hammer and come back up and slightly lodge in the now empty case. Shaved lead off of a few bullets.

Going to be using the bullets for close in target shooting, so will just have to write off some accuracy due to bullet variations / shaved sides.

Glad to be done. Had blue dot all over my garage floor for the last few weeks, as the inertia puller has gaps around the bullets that the powder always finds its way through.

1,000 free primed .45 colt cases roughly 75% new starline and the same amount of bullets. Add 10 gr power pistol (turned out the bullets were 200 gr) and I have a box of 50 loaded rounds for less than a buck fifty.

I have used an inertia type bullet puller for years. The surface you whack it against has is important. I have a big hunk of butcher block table solidly mounted as a workstation and have yet to find a cartridge that with one good whack cannot unseat the bullet. Concrete floor works great also. Frank

My "anvil" for pulling bullets is a foot of railroad rail that sits on my (concrete) basement floor. As my knees get older it becomes less fun to pull bullets, but that's also an extra incentive to avoid doing things that require pulling bullets.

I don't mind pulling smooth wall pistol bullets.

It is the cannelure, heavy crimped lead bullets in a 38 or 357
type loading that I hate to try pulling !!

True, some factory pistol loads are sealed but not my reloads.
One reason I do not worry about a small mistake, now and then.

I can't explain how or why it works , but it does. Once the crimp is broken the inertia puller will work . I pulled 1000 rounds of US Army surplus 30-06 machine gun ammo , had to remove the linked belts and all ( it was cheap), breaking that crimp first worked, no break = no pulled bullet. Trust me.
It doesn't have to be much.
Another idea that may seem strange is to take a steel sizing die (carbide might break) and size as much of the case/bullet as you can, this will squeeze the lead bullet smaller , hopefully the brass springs back just enough to break the seal.
Might be worth trying....Gary

I hope I won't be chewed out for this slightly off-topic question: has anyone ever had a primer go off when using an inertia puller? Many years ago I pulled several hundred factory .38's with no issues - but it sure makes me nervous!!

"Powder loads were 8.8, 9.2 and 9.0."
For Blue Dot, that is a very light load. Probably too light. I suspect there are propellant burning problems at such low chamber pressures resulting in considerable MV non-uniformity.

What I have used for many years as a surface to pound an inertia bullet puller on is a 5# block of lead. It gives a dead blow, no bouncing on impact.

I have not, and I've pulled more than a few mistakes. That said, I've always wondered the same thing, but I can't really say I'm nervous about it.

Never found a load that I could not pull bullets from by using vice grips to hold the bullet above the reloading press die opening, then lowering the ram. Takes about 30 seconds per cartridge. Of course, all bullets become scrap.

I use the anvil portion of my bench vice to smack the inertial puller against.

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H Richard
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The whole idea of trying to pull the remaining 900 or so bullets with an interial bullet puller just makes my elbow ache.

Have you looked at your Hornady cam-lock to see if it can be cleaned or adjusted? Even if the reloader sealed the bullets using an asphaltic sealant, the friction between the case and bullet shouldn't be so high that the bullet puller can't overcome it.

Jetman22's suggestion to seat the bullets a little deeper to break any seal might also clear the way for the Hornady puller to work.

A while back I bought a Hornady cam-lock puller used and I knew the price was right. So now, reading up on it I find that Hornady recommends NOT USING the unit for handgun ammunition. I've thought this through and I can't understand why they say that. Will someone enlighten me please?