Odd idea

[Poodleshooter]

Has anyone tried pulling the bullets from Wolf or Barnaul, and then altering the powder charge and or bullet? I'm thinking that the key issue in reloading steel is resizing, so why not skip it by using regular Wolf or Barnaul ammo as "primed brass"? I haven't analyzed the cost yet, but I'm sure that loaded Wolf is cheaper than buying brass and priming it. You'd really see cost savings when using a 125gr bullet and the existing powder charge.

[JamesB]

I've been thinking about that myself. You can buy Wolf by the case for less than you can get cases for and you wouldn't have to search for them to reload. I would even consider keeping the same powder charge if the bullet weight was the same. You would just have to be able to open the case neck up enough to get your new bullet in and then re-crimp the neck onto the new bullet.

I'm pretty sure I've seen posts on this before but I've tried to search for them before and haven't found any.

I was going to try it with good American soft points but since Barnaul soft point is so cheap I thought I'd try a box of that first.

[Poodleshooter]

Yeah, I figure Barnaul soft point is cheaper, but will it expand reliably? I just got a huge can of miltary pulldown powder and am thinking about loading using the wolf cases. Heck, it would just be interesting to see what the powder and bullets in their look like! I'll post it if I try it. I remember someone else posting about this, but without a search feature...... :confused:

[RogerL]

I do that with the 8mm Mauser and the Russian 7.62-54R. With the 39, I have alot of winchester brass so I don't. with the 8mm turkish ammo, I use 150gr soft points and the military powder at 47 grs(the avg weight from pulled rounds is 48.3)
I was thinking about trying that with the 5.45mm and reloading the resized 60gr Nolser partitions.
RogerL

[JA]

I bought my first SKS in 1983 when the only ammo besides collector stuff was Chinese steel core. This was great ammo for hunting squirrels. It put nice neat .30 cal holes right through them. Looked like they had been shot with a lazer beam when you held them up to a light.
In the mid and late 80's there was no soft point ammo made so I pulled the bullets on the Chinese steel core and loaded Hornady .311" bullets. Hornady first run of 7.62x39mm bullets were .311" and all runs after that were .310". Just left the powder in the cases and seated/crimped them in the canalure. It worked great and it shot to the same point of impact as the steel core bullets. Since then I have loaded about 600 rounds of soft point ammo by pulling the bullets on Chinese,E.German,and Yugo ammo. Loaded this ammo for myself and friends to hunt deer with. When the Chinese started loading soft point ammo in the early 90's it was not cost effective to load soft point so I started buying it.
My first reloads using boxer primed PMC once fired brass and Remington primers resulted in slam fires. Switching to Winchester primers stopped the slam fire problem.

[Poodleshooter]

Originally posted by JA:
<STRONG>My first reloads using boxer primed PMC once fired brass and Remington primers resulted in slam fires. Switching to Winchester primers stopped the slam fire problem.</STRONG>
Yeah, stick to CCI #34 and #41-those have the milspec hardness primer cup. It's depressing not to be able to reload as cheaply as I can buy :(

[Yukon Moose Cholak]

CCI #34 and #41 are great primer cups.