Inertia bullet puller mishap

[muleman69]

Seen guys use the hammer pullers years ago, never went for the whacking on a hard surface with a loaded round. I only use a Collet die!

Joe Salt

I have never felt good about hammering on a live round , I have a RCBS and it has always been a pain to keep the round in the shell holder with out it flying off . I gave up on it and use my collet, much easier and safer

 

[JohnKielly]

Haven't read the whole thread, but did anybody question how snug or not the primer pocket was?

 

[Ksmirk]

Primer clearly wasn't a dud, why wouldn't the powder have ignited? You must be able to supply Pictures right?

Just curious, I have never seen an ignited primer without a mark on the primer.. It would be cool to see the pictures..


Ray

I have the case but the primer took off and I've yet to run across it as I'd like to see it as well!

Kirk

 

[Ksmirk]

Haven't read the whole thread, but did anybody question how snug or not the primer pocket was?

Yes it was a loose primer pocket that I missed.

 

[Ksmirk]

Well I found the primer, verified that the primer pocket was very loose as the .210 pin had some wiggle :-O I'm going to go with as finicky as I am I just flat out missed this one! got a rather impressive reminder that I must have gotten a bit lack with my loading process or a bonehead moment.

 

[divingin]

The bullet in this case was very hard to remove. I must have done 10 or 12 hits and the bullet while moving still hadn't fully released. With another hit there was a small flash more like a spark and a small pop.

I use the kinetic puller for my pistol stuff (lead bullets, either full or semi-wadcutters - no way to use anything else, as far as I know.) I've never had a problem (and some of those lead pills take a dozen or more very firm whacks to convince them to come free.) I do, however always use a, 8" x 8" piece of endgrain lumber to smack it on, rather than concrete or metal.

An acquaintance of mine had a primer detonate using a kinetic puller just a few months ago. Don't remember details about what he was doing.

 

[alinwa]

This morning while pulling bullets from some .223 rounds with an inertia bullet puller (hammer type), I had a primer ignite. The primer fortunately did not ignite the powder charge but was ejected from the cartridge/puller with sufficient force to deflect off of the ceiling and strike the far side of my garage area 20 feet away.

Lesson: even though remote, it can happen, and I will be converting to a different method of pulling live rounds.

StemCell I just want to say Thank You for posting this.

Very Good Post.

I know a bunch of folks are gonna' wonder "so why's ol' anilwa resurrecting the op and flogging that horse??"

It's because I appreciate sincere, concise reports of findings...... reports devoid of speculative innernet banter. And by the end of a thread it's easy to forget where it all started so this is my "btt"



I ain't neiyther dis'ing nor joining the banter..... it's all good...... just my thanks

(well, unless you just made this all up just to start an argument..... LOL )

 

[Texas10]

Never say never when it comes to explosives, especially contact explosives. I've read several accounts about a pan full of primers going off in a hand loading tray simply by giggling to get all of them oriented correctly.

I have and frequently use a plastic inertia puller. Never had a problem, but did once catch myself about to slam it onto the garage floor while turned upside down

I also use pliers and the press to pull bullets I don't intend to keep. No doubt it's much safer but I do lose the bullet. Maybe a collet puller is in my future.

 

[PDS]

I do, however always use a, 8" x 8" piece of endgrain lumber to smack it on, rather than concrete or metal.

You may have something there,I was hitting the anvil part of my bench vise. But I still think the main problem was the not fully seated primer.

 

[alinwa]

Never say never when it comes to explosives, especially contact explosives. ....

Contact explosives......

Ohhh Yeahhh

Yer taking me down memory lane here.

Our house is a mile from the pavement. We Blow Chit UP.

My kid is an engineer for Lockheed Martin and has been a pyro since age 10.

And still has all his eyes and ears and fingers.... Safety Geek. He had to cut the bottom off his first rubber mad scientist apron cuz he kep' tripping over it... and his faceshield came clear down to his nipples.... but Holee Hoppin' Catfish some a' the stuff he cooked up!

Acetone peroxide

Nitrogen triiodide

Ammonium triiodide (TRULY spooky stuff)

Picric acid

Flash

I mean he brought it to a whole new level for me..... I growed up cooking BP, he was getting nitro headaches before puberty...


Soooo proud a' that kid

 

[Sniper338]

Ive ended up breaking every plastic hammer type inertia puller Id had. I need to buy something more better.... totally irrelevant to the OP i know.

 

[Pwc]

I'm sorry, but did Stemcell ever arrive at an answer for his problem? If so I missed it. All the other 'pops' were interesting, but only one had a loose pocket, that I saw.

Was Stemcell's load a reduced load? The powder would have been at the bottom of the cartridge next to the bullet away from the flash hole. Even in this condition, I don't see how the primer could not have set off the load unless the full 'flash' didn't occur until the primer was clear of the pocket.

Did you check the powder to see if any cleaning media (walnut)? That might have been missed and would block the flash hole and may have prestressed the primer on seating.

Did you recover the primer? Any marks? The anvil would be missing in any case...

 

[alinwa]

I'm sorry, but did Stemcell ever arrive at an answer for his problem? If so I missed it. All the other 'pops' were interesting, but only one had a loose pocket, that I saw.

Was Stemcell's load a reduced load? The powder would have been at the bottom of the cartridge next to the bullet away from the flash hole. Even in this condition, I don't see how the primer could not have set off the load unless the full 'flash' didn't occur until the primer was clear of the pocket.

.......

It's not unusual that the powder didn't burn. In fact it would be very unusual if it did. Smokeless powder loads aren't "set off" nor do they fume like gasoline they're just a bunch of little match sticks with an oxidizer and upon ignition they burn perty fast, and FASTER as pressure rises. FASTER under containment....This attribute is specifically very different than that of black powder. The burning process is called deflagration and is the same thing that goes on inside your car motor except for the fuming part......UN-contained, powder just burns like a sparkler, it doesn't even produce enough lift to scatter the pile when you light it and if it's being shaken or spread about it just acts like chicken feed.

I've cooked off a lot of loads and never seen one produce enough energy to kill a field grasshopper. Although my cousin did once get a primer stuck into her leg, kinda' like the op's found in the sheetrock. She hadda' flick it out. (It WAS NOT one I cooked off)

 

[ricco1949]

Years ago, I had a primer go off, a 210M in a swaged military .308 case, I left it in the ceiling above my reloading bench as a conversation piece. As I remember, the bullets were seated tight, my Dad's old Herters die, I was whacking it fairly hard against the top of my reloading press to dislodge the bullets as I had done many times before, then BANG, the primer went straight up and stuck in the drywall of the ceiling. I'm certain that there was more than .002" neck tension, and since that day I tap lightly, using just enough force to unseat the bullet with about six impacts. I was amazed the the powder didn't ignite. But, I'm pretty sure some pee came out. ;D

LMAO Had to drive this old thread for this post.