I finally took the time to pull one of the bullets in an attempt to respond to some of the theories and questions that had been asked in this thread. I only pulled one bullet but it seemed representative of the batch.
In the first picture you can see one of the cartridges as I found them (this one is developing some corrosion on the nickel plate). I attempted to pull bullet with my collet puller but the fingers could not hold the bullet jacket tight enough to pull the bullet from the case, possibly due to the black sealing compound. I did not try to “bump” the bullet down with a seating die to break the seal and crimp because I thought that would just push the slug back into the jacket.
Next I tried the old hammer-type inertia puller. After a few whacks on a lead bar the bullet came free. The spherical ball powder seems normal as does the base of the bullet. No corrosion noted inside the cartridge case or on the bullet base.
I’m starting to think like "Topsarge" that there is some characteristic in the lead and the jacket that slowly pushed the two metals apart. But why then were these similar cartridges stored only about 2 feet away in their factory box in good shape? Enquiring minds want to know!
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