Pulling bullets and compressed powder really hard to remove

[Eric Musgrove]

So I hit pressure early and had to pull some bullets with 6.5 StaBall powder, all of them were like this and basically had to dig the powder out with the wooden end of a swab, it reminded me of solid rocket fuel. I have never seen this before but never loaded compressed loads with ball powder. Not all of these should have been close to compressed according to Hodgdon data. Its probably hard to see in the pictures but the powder is even tight against the angle of the neck. The ones on the side the powder is not loose it has taken that shape. It took about 5 min per case to remove the powder. It seems ok now but I am considering tossing it in the grass. These were new cases and no lube was inside the case. Anyone deal with this before?

 

[Eric H]

Never ever seen that before.

 

[Eric H]

Put it in the gun and fire it.

 

[Pdyson]

Over the years I've seen them stick together almost every time. More often than not, I have to dig out compressed powder when pulling bullets with extruded powders as well. I hate the sound and feel of the crunch. So I avoid loads with a (c) next to the load data.

 

[Eric Musgrove]

Put it in the gun and fire it.

I will send them to you, and you shot them.

 

[Eric H]

What caliber?

 

[Eric Musgrove]

What caliber?

7mm-08

 

[Eric H]

7mm-08

Sorry, don't have that caliber gun. Soak them in case cleaner.

 

[waspocrew]

Leverevolution did that to me in my 6 ARC as well. Just had to scrape it out a bit and it came right out.

 

[digger11]

Set them in your tumbler after you empty it,,,touch the switch,,done deal.
A little liquifaction

 

[MagnumManiac]

760 does that in 375 Weatherby, 458 Lott & 416RM.

Cheers.

 

[DUCKMAN11]

Unloaded some 6.5max ammo with N570 and had to use a brazing filler rod to dig it out. It didn't look to be a compressed load of 62gr but I could be. I didn't load the ammo and bought it in a barrel/die/ammo package off here. After the barrel not even being close to what it was sold as "20% thread engagement on a tikka action" I didn't trust the ammo.

 

[birddog 68]

I've had my best results with ball powder when it was slightly compressed.
6.5 staball works good in my 6.5 cm but my 7-08 hates it.

 

[crkckr]

Do you have any idea how old the reloads are? I would guess that the longer they've been together, the tighter the powder grains fit together. I haven't had to pull bullets on too many of my own loads but I've pulled factory loads that had various things wrong with them. Once a buddy gave me 80 rounds of Winchester factory 7.62 x 39mm. They weren't compressed loads but many of them had absorbed a good deal of water. The outside of the cases were pristine but inside... what a mess! Bullets corroded and 'welded' to the case, powder clumped up. I found (I thought) a solution in that if I could shake the case and hear the powder it was a good round that would fire. Turns out that was only half right. Half of these were FMJ and half soft points, same weight bullets but they had used different powders! The soft points were all ok but used a very fine grained, light grey powder (like AA#2) while the FMJ's used a dark powder (like W748). Most of the FMJ's had this water damage, yet the boxes were in perfect shape. The ammo was a couple of years old, had never sat on the bottom of a lake but had been stored in a basement in an open cardboard box with a bunch of fish tanks! Opps! Like the compressed loads, the powder had to be excavated out due to the water damage. None of the cases were badly damaged but some of the bullets were badly corroded on the base. Weird stuff! They were also very hard to pull, even after seating the bullets deeper. Everything got used except the primers and powder, so it wasn't a total loss.
Cheers,
crkckr