What is the larget batch of handloads that you have disassembled?

[thomas15]

We all hate to take our loads apart once we make them since the purpose of making them is to shoot not take apart. However, for many reasons we sometimes have to take them apart. It could be because we used the wrong component, the incorrect charge, or perhaps we have decided that for one reason or another they just have to come apart.

I have both an impact bullet remover and a collet puller. I actually find the impact puller to be faster but sometimes it's easier to use the collet.

For me the biggest single lot of pulls is 100 rounds 9mm. I used the impact puller, saved the bullets but disposed of the powder. I resized the cases using a resizing die that has the decapping pin removed. Then I reloaded the casings. I did the disassembly in three sittings.

Federal 9mm brass is what I use in my S&W 929 revolver. I have 500 pcs of loaded ammo that use federal brass, problem is they are loaded with CCI primers which my revolver will not touch off. I'm not one for reusing reclaimed primers but the bullets could be recycled. If I shoot the ammo as is and pick up the brass that would probably make the most sense but I still think about pulling apart all of the old ammo.

So, how big was your largest batch of pulls and for what reason did you do this?

 

[WestKentucky]

I used to buy a lot of benches as reloaders got out of the game. The last big buy I made was a young guy frustrated with trying to learn it on his own. In the mix was a large collection of improperly loaded ammo, mainly 45colt, 9mm, and 38spl. I pulled about 50 .45s, 250 or 300 9s and a hundred or so 38s. Add in the other random stuff and I was at around 500 rounds. Took a few days with the whack-a-mole rig. Drove my wife crazy with the tink-think-tink-thunk resonating through the concrete slab our house was built on.

 

[Ironicaintit]

Anybody believe in a 6th sense? I do!
I inherited a few things, and some ammo.
There was one reloaded batch of (350), 380acp. I set them aside because I just didn't like the look of them. Couldn't put my finger on it, all the exterior dimensions were spot on and consistent. I just didn't like them!

I finally took them out to the yard one day and lit one off in the Mauser HSc. The recoil and fire were ridiculous! Way beyond what even "normal" hot rounds feel like. Scared the heck outta me!

Packed them up and pulled them. Turns out, they had a 9x19 sized dose of compressed unique in them.
The Mauser is no worse for the wear.... But now if my spidey senses ever yell at me like that again, I'll dissect them for confirmation first!

And now they are rebuilt with the same bullet, to the same spec.... And wouldn't ya know, the look of them now doesn't bother me a bit.

 

[billybob44]

1585 rounds of .40 S&W..

About 5 years ago, a friend of mine who is a commercial reloader had a powder drop problem (His Fault)on his Dillon 1050. Noticed a shortage of TiteGroup in some cases, and did not know how many more there were in this 5 gallon bucket of loads.
He had this bucket in his shop a few times when I was there, and I finally ask him what he was going to do with them?? He said that he was going to pull them down--Problem was that he could not get that extra time.

The deal that we made was that I would pull them all, and he would get back 1/2 of the Berry's 180gr. projectiles. I would keep the other half of the projectiles,ALL of the CCI primed cases, and the TiteGroup powder.

Had to buy a .401" collet for my RCBS puller, but it was worthwhile to me.

Yes, it did take me about 10-12 ** 3-4 hour settings, but to me it was fine...Bill.

 

[BigBore45]

I did a couple hundred 45 acp overloaded with 800-X that I got from a guy. Took a couple hours but I did get all the components for free. Totally worth it.

 

[chas442]

Not Reloads but problem ammo. I had a bunch of Indian 308 with 90's date stamps. I was very lucky as I had a squib that left the projectile in the bore but not deep enough to chamber the next round.
I broke down every Indian 308 cartridge I had planning to equalize the powder charges and rebuild the cartridges. I started weighing each charge from samples that looked "different". I found the majority had powder charges ranging from 37 gr to 47 gr. I found some cases that less than 5 gr of powder and a couple that had no powder.
Bullets weighed either in the 149 gr range and there were a few that weighed in the 170 gr range. I also encountered bit of brass and part of a case neck inside a loaded cartridge.
I picked 40.0 gr of powder and rebuilt the cartridges that looked good enough to go into a rifle.
When it was all said and done and I had pulled down Approximately 2800 rounds. That was almost 8 years ago.
The ammo worked great in my rifle and a friends rifle. Actually shot 2 to 3 inch groups without trying very hard.
Was great blasting ammo. I don't have any left. With todays prices I should have set some aside.

 

[Starter52]

250 rounds of reloaded .41 magnums that I picked up cheap - components price - at a small gun show.
I pulled each bullet with my trusty old RCBS inertia puller, dumped the powder and saved the primed case and bullet.
I've been using those same 250 cases for twelve years now.

 

[cat_IT_guy]

Not many compared to most of you. Loaded up 50 rounds of 38 +p with 140 XTPs. After shooting a few I was so underwhelmed that I opted to pull the 40 or so remaining in favor of using the bullets in 357 loads. Cast it is, I decided, for 38.

 

[Load Master]

I disassemble all of them at the range in my gun. As far as at my bench, 4 or 5 at the max. I test all loads before making large quantities of any one recipe. Once I've tested I'll load a couple hundred at a time.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Largest lot? 24 rounds of .357 Magnum.

I loaded 30 rounds with HS-6 under a 160gr Cast bullet. I fired 6 rounds in my M686, I decided they were generating too high a pressure so I pulled the bullets, lowered the powder charge and reassembled the rounds.

I usually never load too many rounds of a new combination so if they don't work out I don't create a lot of work for myself. I will usually load between 20 to 30 rounds but no more.

 

[CZ9shooter]

600. A small coffee can full of 9mm XTP rounds. This was quite a while back, in my early days.

I had them loaded quite hot with a longer than typical OAL. I ended up selling the pistol that they were developed for. The one that replaced it would not chamber the rounds. They were waaay too long. I was not comfortable simply reducing their length.

I pulled every bullet. With a kinetic puller. Not all at once. It was more like ten seperate sittings.

These days I don't stockpile such large numbers. 200 is about it. I also like to stay closer suggested OALs most of the time.

 

[Reefinmike]

Did a thousand 380 once. I replaced my 380 pistol and my previous loads would lead up the new barrel. I dont shoot 380 much and didnt want to get stuck shooting smoky loads that lead. Pulled the alox lubed bullet, saved powder and reloaded with powder coated bullets.

To pull all that ammo i simply removed the decap pin and ran the rounds through the sizing die. This did two things- it resized the brass to be loaded again and it swaged the bullet down enough that it could be pulled out by hand. The process was very fast and took a little over an hour to pull all thousand rounds. Bullets were thrown in the scrap bucket to become new bullets again.

 

[greyling22]

300ish 44mags that I loaded with too soft a lead bullet. They chrony'd fine, so I made several, but they sprayed all over the place.

 

[dh1633pm]

A friend of mine purchased a couple thousand rounds of 308 and 30-06 that was from a retail store that had been involved in a flood. I helped him with a couple hundred 30-06 rounds. The powder was all stuck inside the case. Made for good brass and bullets. Otherwise a lot of work.

 

[Walkalong]

A couple hundred corroded surplus .308. Salvaged the bullets and years later shot them in 300 BLK.

 

[lpsharp88]

Luckily the most I've had to do was around 10 10mm rounds. I feel bad for those of you who have done hundreds at once

 

[entropy]

About 300 rounds of .38. I have a batch of 150 of .38 sitting waiting, but they are someone else's reloads, not mine.

 

[RussellC]

You guys are more patient than I! Still have 50 .45 rounds Mistakenly loaded a grain short.

Only other experience was when I first started reloading. At the range first 50 fired fine. Second box of 50 I hit a squib load. Pulled about 40, they all had powder in them, of course!

 

[papaairbear]

350 9mm using both a kinetic and then a collet puller because I felt the bullets were seated too deep for the powder charge.

 

[375supermag]

Hi...
I had to tear down about 100 .357Mag reloads that I loaded onmy Lee 1000 many years ago. The powder measure on that press didn't dump consistent charges...I found that out after loading 250 rounds. I had a match that required 50 rounds a few days later and got a squib load half way through the match.
I took the Lee 1000 off the bench after tracing the problem back to the powder measure and replaced it with an RCBS RockChucker and Little Dandy powder measure.
This was the second issue I had with the Lee 1000...the first was an alarming tendency to feed primers upside down or sideways.
I decided two issues were more problems than I wanted to deal with.
The RCBS equipment I replaced it with hss never misfed a primer or dropped a squib load.
The only rounds I have torn down in the intervening 3 or 4 decades have been small quantities of test loads that just didn't perform as expected.

 

[max it]

HI Ya, Russell,
one grain short in .45acp? I load 4grains of anything for competiton shoots; less recoil. what is short to you?

p.s. I have mis loaded lots of .38special; hard to see inside as we go along. I took apart 200 once as I suspected either double load or not at all. I did it with a shell holder in a single stage press fitted with a piece of white plastic pipe coupling and a pair of pliers. it leaves me the case with primer and the powder intact.
much obliged, Max

 

[9mmepiphany]

Just around 1200 .38Spl a little while back.

I had an impact puller, but that was tedious enough when only pulling < 10 bullets, plus the powder gets everywhere. The most time consuming part wasn't the "wacking", but fitting the rims into first the collets and then into the shellholder.

Got a Hornady Collet Bullet Puller and made short work of the batch. Pulling about 100 every 10 mins, which included pouring all the powder back into the bottle (none wasted), dropping the primed case into a bin, and the bullet into another bin

 

[Dog Soldier]

I loaded some .22 CFM/.22 Remington Jets for my old S&W Mdl. 53 last week. I tested them at home in a water trap before going out to aggravate the local residents of the Prairie Dog town.
Now if you don't know the .22 Jet is the most low down mean cartridge you can own. The Jet is a .357 Mag. necked down to .222. It is very difficult to load without setback or cases that stick in the chambers. That said, it is deadly accurate running at 2,000 fps with a .22 Winchester rimfire 40 grs. HP bullet. The Mdl. 53 is equipped with a set of adapters for shooting the .22 rimfire ammo.
Well the damn thing stuck the first 6 rounds tighter than a fat girls girdle. I decided I was not going to pull 44 rounds. So I sat down under a scrub Aspen and fired and cussed shooting them up one round at a time. Problem not solved but the brass was saved.

 

[Bart B.]

I was once issued three boxes of 7.62 NATO M118 ammo whose bullets and powder were removed then reported to be replaced with 44 grains of IMR4320 and a Sierra HPMK. Had to load 42 of them in a Garand to shoot 2 slighters and 20 record shots in a 1000 yard match. Three others on the team shot the same ammo lot but all their loaded rounds fired.

At home, I pulled bullets from all the dud rounds to find out they had no powder in them. About half of the remaining 18 unfired rounds weighed about 44 grains less than the others.

Having removed a few thousand bullets and powder charges from both service and match 7.62 ammo then replaced those with different ones, they all had powder in them.

 

[Nature Boy]

There was a guy posting here awhile back that bought a scad of loaded rounds in a estate sale and began what seemed like a lifetime endeavor to pull them all. In the last post I remember reading he had worn out 3 or 4 hammers pounding out all this ammo and still had a mountain in front of him