Can you pull crimped bullets with inertial puller?

I put down a small chunk of plywood on concrete. Ponding on tile will do a job on it quickly.

Several rapps over massively hard ones work better for me.

Good pounding :)

Enjoy,
 
The only trick is not to use it like you were pounding nails. Instead, after a hard whack, let it rebound on its own (while still hanging on of course) which adds to the inertia effect. The biggest problem with inertia pullers is usually with the lightest of bullets. A recommended pounding surface is a 4x4 block and pound in-line with the grain of the wood.
 
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The only trick is not to use it like you were pounding nails. Instead, after a hard whack, let it rebound on its own (while still hanging on of course) which adds to the inertia effect. The biggest problem with inertia pullers is usually with the lightest of bullets. A recommended pounding surface is a 4x4 block and pound in-line with the grain of the wood.
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+1, do not pound on concrete or you will shatter the puller
 
Yes, you can pull heavy roll-crimped bullets.

And, it is no fun. You gotta give 'em a pretty good whack (especially with light bullets - as already mentioned). Hope you don't have too many to pull.

do not pound on concrete or you will shatter the puller
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Never heard that one before. Neither has my 32 year-old RCBS puller. I always slam it into concrete. In fact, it's been my experience that a wood 4X4 softens the blow and renders the pulling action less effective.

Tip: Put a foam earplug in the bottom of it - to soften the bullet's landing.
 
Roger on the above. I shattered three inertia pullers by pounding them against too hard of a surface. Until finally I was instructed on how to use the thing. But the good news is that I ended up with a good supply of the three piece collet type case holders that never seem to break or get lost.
 
When the crimp is heavy you would struggle to get the bullet pulled with the Hammer type. The Die type bullet pullers are a little better for this, but then there are the occasional bullet that resist pulling with them die also. I broke my hammer after 10 years due to heavy crimps.
 
After years of frustrating results using collet type (RCBS) press mounted die pullers, I finally got a Lyman "hammer" type inertia puller.

I broke down 400 rounds of bad 7.62mm NATO using it, (foreign milsurp, definitely crimped bullets) with very little trouble. Impact surface for the puller was the top of my wood stove (no fire, middle of summer;)).

I think the most any round took was six raps. 3 or 4 was the usual. You don't have to swing it like you are chopping down trees, a few sharp snapping swings worked well for me.

.223 rounds were much tougher, because the light bullets have less inertia.

Wood, even hard wood is softer than steel/iron, and does have an effect on the efficiency of the puller (softens the impact, slightly). SOFT wood definitely softens the impact, noticeably, don't use pine, :D

It should work fine to pull your .357 loads, if you use the puller correctly.
 
I think I have the hang of it. There is definitely a technique. You gotta let it bounce a little when you wack the ground.
Still not fun.

I think I may just shoot these. I accidentally loaded 180gr XTP (357 mag) on 14 grains H110. I thought I had 158gr (noob error). Max is 13.8
I will be shooting in Ruger 77/357.
That seems fine right? Try one and if it looks ok keep going?
 
I wack away on my big iron vise.
One or two hefty ones usually does a handgun round.
Never broke a puller yet.
Ear protection is a good idea.
 
I use an ingot of lead as an anvil for my inertia puller. The lead is soft enough to quieten the whack, but not so soft as to deaden the blow. Works better, for me than the bench top (loud and stuff falls on the floor), the floor (loud and don't want to risk concrete vs plastic), or wood (some absorbs too much of the blow)...:D
 
In place of the three piece type collet case holder that comes with the inertia pullers, the RCBS type standard reloading press shell holder for the caliber can be used instead and works as well or better. The fit is perfect and you are not bothered by the three piece collet holder occasionally coming apart and requiring reassembling. With shell in the holder, insert upside down of course into the body of the puller and screw down the cap.
 
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I accidentally loaded 180gr XTP (357 mag) on 14 grains H110.
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I recently did a workup with that very bullet (Horn 180 XTP) with that very propellant (Well, it was W296 - same stuff, different label). I worked up to max 13.8 grains, shooting through a Smith 686 4" with no problems at all.

W296/H110 is very forgiving on the high side (it's a different story when downloading, but that's not my context when I say "forgiving."). It's so slow, that I think the bullet jumps crimp before the power is really burning at full song anyway. I'm not suggesting any such action, but I've often speculated that it may not even be possible to damage a gun with it.

At any rate, another suggestion - if you have more 180's on hand (or you could pull a few and re-use them) - is to do a mini-workup to the 14.0 grains. At which point, you'd know it's safe to fire off the remaining rounds.
 
Yeah.
Don't have any lead ingots.
But maybe some scuba weights on top of the big, old vise would do as well.
Thanks for the idea.
 
I whack mine on my '60s era Rock Chucker I can't even knock the paint off it lol.
And velocity is the key you don't swing hard you swing fast;)
 
"...do not pound on concrete or you will shatter the puller..." Only a cheap poorly made one. Been using a rock for eons with no fuss.
Inertia pullers need a hard surface. Stuff like plywood is too soft for the physics magic to work well. It's the sudden stop that makes the magic happen. However, if you put a death grip on the handle, it's going to break. Changes how the inertia forces get applied.
Anyway, 14.0 of H110 is only a half grain over max for a 180. Probably see that much difference between manuals. Steve's Reloading pages for example, gives 16.1 as max for a 180. His data comes from himself, not a ballistics lab.
 
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