Reasons to be wary of Others reloads

I bought an older second hand Remington Model Seven .260. It came with two types of reloads 'Good' & 'Goat Shooting' and once fired cases.

These reloads that the previous owner said were 'Goat Shooting' loads were clearly rough as. I could easily see that the seating depths were up to shit by the varying amounts of cannelure ring visible above the case mouth and they measured 0.020" different on the ogive. They measured uniform on the shoulder bump. I figured good enough to foul the barrel or shoot things close. Until i noticed some of the fired cases had split necks.

I measured the case length of them, 2.035" to 2.055". Max .260 case length is 2.035" :omg: No wonder some necks were split and the primers 1/8th backed out.:x_x:

So i thought no worries really. I'll just pull the bullets and primers then anneal, resize and trim them all. :ORLY:

Attachment 192748

First failure of the Inertia Hammer - split the collet lips off. 15-25 hard hits to pull a bullet! :yuush:
No worries ill use a shell holder instead in the hammer :ORLY:

Attachment 192749

Total failure :pissed off:
Bloody round hit the underside of the roof before coming back down on the concrete...busted and dinged up the bullet and case.

Attachment 192750

Blood is drawn and i'm really pissed off now! Clipped fingers on the wooden 'shield' i had between me and the hammer cause i was afraid of discharge!

I cant throw them in the bin as they're live. Cant pull the bullets as they are stuck Fcuken tight!
Hadn't been trimmed to length! So cant even just shoot them off as they're dangerous!
Massive neck tension as they don't look crimped at all. The guy had chamfered and deburred the case mouth.


Also the powder charges in the seven i managed to pull before failure were 42.2gr-42.9gr. Listed as 40gr :sick:

Still got 14 to pull somehow!

and thats not counting the 'Good' 65 rounds...

Btw the supposed 'Good' reloads all had the primers not seated enough and i had to reseat the whole lot. They were 'bobbling' around when set on a flat surface! I could feel and see they weren't seated enough!

I wouldn't be shooting a single one!

Crazy. If you could send em to me I could put them in a collet puller. Surely that would work....

Wait till guy fawkes and chuck them in the bonfire

Pull the bullets in your press use bike tube between your vice grips to protect the projectile.

Galvanic corrosion between dissimilar materials often causes the projectiles to “ stick” in the brass over time

The trick to getting them apart is put them in a seating die and seat them 5 thou deeper

They often “ crack” quite loudly before they move

Then try the inertia hammer or cam lock puller and they will come apart easily as you have broken the corrosive “ weld “

To avoid the corrosion in the first place and to help lower ES use graphite powder in the necks and on the projectile when assembling.

Problem solved

Try seating the bullets deeper into the cases - to break the weld between the bullet and the case. Then pull them with a bullet puller.

Or 2: use your press and a side cutter as discribed above by Nor-west

Have you checked the projectiles are the correct diameter for the rifle?
Sounds like this maestro has stuffed up every other possibility so far....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Galvanic corrosion between dissimilar materials often causes the projectiles to “ stick” in the brass over time

The trick to getting them apart is put them in a seating die and seat them 5 thou deeper

They often “ crack” quite loudly before they move

Then try the inertia hammer or cam lock puller and they will come apart easily as you have broken the corrosive “ weld “

To avoid the corrosion in the first place and to help lower ES use graphite powder in the necks and on the projectile when assembling.

Problem solved

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I'll try this when i get another bullet puller.

Hopefully a local has a collet puller.

Me neither. But go buy or borrow a hornady bullet collet puller with collet to match yr calibre. These work very well an hardly mark the bullet. Otherwise if yr in a real hurry set the cartridge in the press and raise the ram till the bullet is proud of the top of the press . Then grab the bullet between the cutters of pair of pliers andower the ram slowly. Put a little more pressure on the lever once you have the pliers with bullet gripped, hard agInst the top of yr press frame. The method will work and with a little care you may find the bullets are salvagable. The prass powder and primers can be easily separated once the bullet is out; then start over. Good luck.

Happy to post you my .264 collet puller if you’d like to use it. PM me your address then send it back when you’re done. I’m away for 10 days hunting now but I’ll post it when I get home.

As mentioned above - push them in further first to dislodge them.

I replaced 750 FMJ projectiles with SP ones on a 7.62x39 back when I bought a whole case for $200....Sold the FMJ for about what I paid for the SP as well. But the trick to getting them out is definitely to give them a push in first to dislodge the grip on them.

This works when pulling fence posts as well Especially warratahs..Give them a tap or two into the ground which breaks the soils grip on the post and they lift out without trying to bring up half the paddock still attached....

Hell I don't even trust some of my own reloads let alone anyone elses :P
I have just finished pulling a bunch of old reloads as they hadn't been sized properly and 70% of them wouldn't chamber (would have really ruined that shot of a lifetime).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Galvanic corrosion between dissimilar materials often causes the projectiles to “ stick” in the brass over time

The trick to getting them apart is put them in a seating die and seat them 5 thou deeper

They often “ crack” quite loudly before they move

Then try the inertia hammer or cam lock puller and they will come apart easily as you have broken the corrosive “ weld “

To avoid the corrosion in the first place and to help lower ES use graphite powder in the necks and on the projectile when assembling.

Problem solved

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The most extreme case of this I believe was the US armies "tin can" 3006 of the late 20s. Tin was known to prevent and more importantly remove copper fouling, it is still used in artillery rounds in the charge bags. I also believe the same idea was reinvented and used in the cfe reloading powders, but I digress.
In an attempt to reduce copper fouling it was decided to tin plate the projectiles this evidently worked well initally. However on storage extreme pressure variations were found resulting in damaged rifles and individuals. It was traced back to cold soldering of the projectile to the neck, all the ammunition was withdrawn and the idea shelved.
Just an interesting historical aside to this thread.

I use the clamp section of a pipe flaring tool to grip the projectile through the loading press die hole and have disassembled many loaded rounds with ease.

Sounds like a similar story when I bought a used Model 7 in 260. Reloads were over pressure, so pulled & used powder in new cases. Reloads were sized down 308 cases with no outside neck ream, man they were tight. Some idiots out there [emoji849]

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Someone else's reloads cost me quite a bit when a gun smith had to remove the barrel to get the front half of the case out of the chamber. An over book max 308 load in a military case....

Greetings All,
I have used other peoples handlaods in the past and got away with it but no more. Occaisionally I get given the dregs of someones handload cabinet but always break then down for the components. Cases, projectiles and primers are re used but the powder gets spread under the trees. I will get to use it when it comes back as firewood.
Regards Grandpamac.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 40mm

Have you checked the projectiles are the correct diameter for the rifle?
Sounds like this maestro has stuffed up every other possibility so far....

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I took a chance and bought ~150 .303 reloads, but ended up with a collection of various .308 pulled RN projectiles after I noticed they were keyholing. At least it gave me something more to sell at the last swap meet.

All kinetic pulled. I find concrete with just thin lino over it gives best results. The lino stops the bounceback of the 'hammer' but still allows an abrupt enough stop of the hammer swing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Intrepid

Happy to post you my .264 collet puller if you’d like to use it. PM me your address then send it back when you’re done. I’m away for 10 days hunting now but I’ll post it when I get home.

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Cheers mate i'll send you a pm when i get back from my trips in April.

I tried seating them deeper yesterday morning and most did give a audible "crack". I mickey'd up the broken hammer and pulled one. It still took some serious punishment to get it out still. I bent up the case rim/head doing this so wont piss around with anymore till i borrow that puller.
Also pulled one of the "Good" rounds. It weighed and measured good. Bent up the rim on this case too and also the green tip smashed off during the pounding required.

I fired the rifle for the first time yesterday afternoon with 6 of the "good" rounds. It shot a 1.06moa 3 shot group at 114m. So reasonable, but i'll redo all the loads myself and tune them properly.

I think the rifle might have some chamber issues though. The fired case shoulders are measuring 0.010" longer than factory and also one of the new cases (Norma) had 2 splits in the neck after firing.
I can see why the guy sold it. Also the rifle had obvious issues in the stock. Binding trigger grub screw on the stock which was fighting with the recoil lug fitment and also a metal burr at the back of the tang digging in and would have been binding.
Luckily i've bought it as a project rifle to pull apart and DIY a build on my lathe.
I'm bloody glad some other unsuspecting person didnt buy it and shoot it in its purchased state!!