Pulling Bullets on 22Hornets

crow juice

Well-Known Member
I am pulling some bullets from some 22 Hornets I made a while back. The primers are failing about 1 out of 10 shots. The first 30 I did I used a Kinetic bullet puller and it took at least 3 good wacks to get the bullet out and of course the powder as well ( these loads are crimped with a Lee FCD die set at 1/2 turn). I got my RCBS Collet puller out and pulled 20 yesterday . However, this is a compressed charge and the powder is pressed in so tightly that it won't come out. I even pushed the end of a paper clip into the cake and had trouble getting it to break loose and come out. Of course i am going back to the kinetic puller but I thought you guys might be interested because I have not seen this before.

Winchester cases
Speer 45gr soft points
12.7 Grains of lil-Gun
Remington 5 1/2 primers I would not recommend these for Hornets
 
I use REM 6 1/2 primers in my Hornet, I think the 6 1/2 ‘s were made for the Hornet. When I first loaded some Hornet rounds, I had several ’fail to fire’ rounds that showed a slightly lighter strike than the others - turns out I’d been compressing the soft primers whilst seating them causing them to fail. You live and learn.

When you say your primers are failing, once you’ve stripped down the loaded cases, do the removed primers show any signs of even partial ignition?

My load is also compressed; however, when I pull a bullet the powder comes out with a little encouragement. If your powder is compressed into a “cake”, there may be some moisture or lubricant contamination in the case.
N
 
I am pulling some bullets from some 22 Hornets I made a while back. The primers are failing about 1 out of 10 shots. The first 30 I did I used a Kinetic bullet puller and it took at least 3 good wacks to get the bullet out and of course the powder as well ( these loads are crimped with a Lee FCD die set at 1/2 turn). I got my RCBS Collet puller out and pulled 20 yesterday . However, this is a compressed charge and the powder is pressed in so tightly that it won't come out. I even pushed the end of a paper clip into the cake and had trouble getting it to break loose and come out. Of course i am going back to the kinetic puller but I thought you guys might be interested because I have not seen this before.
Would it be worth trying a combination of both tools? The Collet puller for the bullet and the inertia hammer for the powder?

I found a hand held metal chump used as a dolly/anvil was very effective with the inertia hammer...much better and quieter than whacking it onto the bench.

Alan
 
The Remington primers are going off just fine but when they go off they are blowing out around the primer. In a few the firing pin punches a hole in the primers. This leaves a black ring around the primer and the bolt face. Also smoke comes out of the action. This occurs in both my TC Contender Carbine and my Savage 40 . I have subsequently gone to Remington 6 1/2's and CCI 400'S and the same load shoots well. I have about 200 of these and I want to recover the brass, bullets , and powder.
 
Regarding the tools the kenitic bullet puller is not hard to use but it is slow to use . If I'm going to chuck up the round i might as well use it to pull the bullet.Also I have about a foot of Railroad track to wack which works great.

The RCBS Collet is very handy and is much faster but in this case it doesn't have any advantage .
 
If Remingon 6.5's are letting gas pass by then the brass is scrap. Don't
even bother trying to salvage the cases. Save the bullets if you wish but junk the cases.

Try seating the bullet a little deeper before the Kenetic puller. Breaks the crimp free. ~Muir
 
If you are just going to use the inertia hammer and whack it hard.....have you heard about the trick of putting a foam ear plug in the inertia hammer as a bullet catcher so the bullet tip doesn't get damaged?

Alan
 
I am pulling some bullets from some 22 Hornets I made a while back. The primers are failing about 1 out of 10 shots. The first 30 I did I used a Kinetic bullet puller and it took at least 3 good wacks to get the bullet out and of course the powder as well ( these loads are crimped with a Lee FCD die set at 1/2 turn). I got my RCBS Collet puller out and pulled 20 yesterday . However, this is a compressed charge and the powder is pressed in so tightly that it won't come out. I even pushed the end of a paper clip into the cake and had trouble getting it to break loose and come out. Of course i am going back to the kinetic puller but I thought you guys might be interested because I have not seen this before.

Winchester cases
Speer 45gr soft points
12.7 Grains of lil-Gun
Remington 5 1/2 primers I would not recommend these for Hornets
I use CCI 400 primers
45 gr Sierra SP
However I can get 13.3 grains of lilgun in PPU cases.
I don't crimp but it still takes three whacks to pull the bullet and all the powder drops out, it doesn't cake.
 
I have a foam ear plug in my kinetic puller already it works great. I don't know who thought of it but I am sure glad they did. My bullets show no damage at all.
 
I use CCI 400 primers
45 gr Sierra SP
However I can get 13.3 grains of lilgun in PPU cases.
I don't crimp but it still takes three whacks to pull the bullet and all the powder drops out, it doesn't cake.
Well when I use the kinetic puller the powder charge comes right out.
 
Just as a follow up the best solution has been to pull the bullets with the RCBS collet puller and get the powder out with a hard wack on a hard surface with the kinetic puller . If you do this with the bullet in cas several wacks are required.
 
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