A couple of evenings ago I sat on the porch in the shady breeze, watching the hummingbirds squabble while I cleaned primer pockets and seated primers in two hundred sized and tumbled pistol cases…
Pleasant and comfortable way to end the day.
This morning I took a more third-world approach to (trying to) pull some cast bullets from some loads that hadn’t worked out so well, and…
…gave up after about 25 rounds. Pulling jacketed bullets is simple enough; cast bullets range anywhere from annoyingly difficult to effectively impossible. Screw it, those loads can’t hit diddly but they’ll do for holster drills. And they’re an excuse to shoot up a whole load of ammo in one session, which I’m normally loath to do because of the expense.
I seriously want to build myself a motorized primer pocket brush. Doing it by hand on hundreds of cases gets real tedious and my arthritis doesn’t help.
Lube?
Pistol cases use carbide dies, which don’t need no steenking lube.
Metallurgy be a mystery.
I don’t reload, but I am curious. Would it be an easier job if you had been using semi-jacketed bullets instead of the cast bullets and if you had used lube, would that have helped?
Oh, BULLET lube! My apologies. Yeah, the bullets are lubed. Unfortunately they’re also crimped into the case slightly. And yeah, jacketed bullets are easier and more pleasant to work with in every phase of the process but they’re also much more expensive. When I can acquire bullets at all I prefer to buy them by 500 or 1000 just so I’m not constantly running out and so only cast bullets are feasible.
I guess the crimp would make it a pain to remove the cast bullets.
Last question. Have you ever thought about casting your own bullets? I think you could do this and, with a bit of tin added for hardness, these lead cast bullets should do nicely and cost less than buying the lead hard cast bullets.
I cast lead ball for my .50 Leman flintlock and from my experience I know it ain’t that hard to do. I use salvaged lead wheel weights that I get from a friend who runs a tire shop.