Wondering what would happen if one was fired.

I always size the pulled bullets I buy, but am considering getting them sized but am concerned if they miss one.

After measuring a few pulled un-sized bullets I bought, I would be afraid to shoot them.
Many were out of round by +/- .004".  Not sure I would take the risk.

Double post....

Sit back and think about this for a minute. You are using a press and die to resize a pulled bullets.  The press does have leverage  but it is no place close to what you get when you fire a bullet. The bullet will swig its self in the barrel. So there is no real need to resize pulled bullets for practical use. It doesnt hurt anything by sizing them but it does very little to help with anything. Now if you are talking about cast bullets that is diffrent animal.

Bullet that is out of round will not seperate in the barrel or become lodged (if you using proper loads) not enough room in the barrel for that to happen

Pulled bullets are not known for extream accuracy but are great for fun. The truth is it doesnt matter if you hand size them or fire tgem as is the end result will be the same.
The onaly real exception would be if you can not seat or chamber the pulled bullets. Then resizing before loading would be called for.

What about the excess pressure needed to force an incorrectly sized bullet down the bore?

You also wont know if they will chamber until after they are loaded.  Then its too late & wastes a lot of time pulling them back apart.

O its gonna get sized going down the barrel. I think the main question is do you still have your face after. Dont risk it.

I size all the pulled bullets I shoot in the 50, or .223 Rem. Still the sized bullets aren't all exactly .510" and perfectly round . Mainly I'm just ironing down the marks left by the pulling machine. Many load and shoot pulled bullets and without any issues. You're not going to get a stuck bullet in the barrel, jackets coming off, or super high pressures. Like many say, the barrel is going to size down any high spots. However IF a bullet is mangled or severely mashed out of round it gets scrapped. Main reason I size pulled bullets is again to remove the pull marks so that they fit better in the neck of the case and don't swell the neck of the case and to keep the neck tension a bit better. I do recommend sizing pulled bullets but a lot of posters on the subject say they load and shoot them and without issues.

You will not get any excessive pressure with a bullet not true. The bullet alreafy get sized by the barrel and the groves are swiged in the bullet when fired. The out of round will be taken care of with no issues the same time the rifling is put on the bullet.  The only time pressure comes into play is when the bullet is to large and the bullet has to be squeeze down to bore size.

Good it seems that I'm safe if a dealer forgets to resize a bullet or two.

Thanks for the info makes me feel safer.

Logic would seem to dictate that it wouldn't be a good practice to resize a bullet at 2,700 feet per second.

Shootin un-resized surplus projectiles is insane.

Buy 1000 and I guarantee one or three of them will get stuck in the resize die.

While you're looking like a monkey trying to fuck a football trying to get it out consider if you had pulled the trigger on that odd-shaped football....

Do you really think a hand press can producer more then 5400 psi of force? The working psi of the 50 BMG is around 5400. With that kind of pressure a bullet will have no trouble getting squeezed into shape and pushed down the tube as long as the size is correct. Depending on how the bullet is pulled it could be out of round but not oversized. The biggest issue would be that it could cause chamber issues if your chamber is cut tight. But if you feel better doing it have fun it will not harm  anything.

Yes, as a matter of fact I think your average RCBS press is good for that.

Consider this: the 50BMG cartridge pressure 55 THOUSAND psi, not 55 hundred like you believe.

An order of magnatude can be a lot.  

Use a kinetic puller.

The bullets are ok.

Kinetic puller...  just had to post this.



Afraid to try it, something may break.  Already bent the handle pulling .500 S&W rounds

Not worth the risk to me-I resize them all,even the ones that I bought already sized.Never had one get stuck in the die,but have had plenty of real tight ones (ran them thru a couple times).

Maybe they will be fine if you don't,but why take the chance?

When I first started loading 50's I noticed that there was sufficient seating pressure difference in pulled bullets to cause me concern. I purchased a sizing die. After resizing/trying to resize 100 "already sized" pulls I had to cull 11 that would not go through the sizing die. After the first 2 got stuck and had to be beat out, I didn't push it with the others that felt like they wouldn't go through. I use STP for sizing. YMMV but it made a believer out of me.

I found the trick to resizing 50 BMG bullets was using a superior lube.  The only two that I've found that consistently work are Imperial sizing wax and Royal Case and die lube.  The Royal really smells great also. Both are so slick it's hard to hold onto a lubed bullet.  By the way I had a friend purchase what he thought was a 300 Blackout AR-15 only to find out after firing TWO bullets that it was a 6.8 SPC upper on the rifle.  I was surprised that he was not hurt but it sure squirted the 7.62 sized bullet down the 6.8 diameter barrel and made for some really odd looking fireformed brass.

A few thoughts and observations on oversize/out of round bullets.

P O Ackley did a lot of experimentation with shooting over sized bullets. In his book, Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders volume 2 chapter "A few causes of Blowups", he loads 8mm bullets into a 30-06 case and fires them thru a standard 30-06 barrel. He saw no signs of increased pressure compared to standard 30-06 ammo. He then loaded several 35cal 180gr bullets into a 30-06 cases using a modified 30-06 chamber 30cal barrel. Again he saw no signs of high pressure despite the very over sized bullets. All of the above used standard powder charges for the 30-06, not reduced loads.

In my own reloading of 308 I have seen very significant increases of pressure using bullets of the same weight but different profile. The  'match' type bullets with greater bearing surfaces/longer lengths will be way over pressure compared to a typical FMJ of the same weight and same powder in full power loads.. This is a common and well documented effect.

Take home message, making predictions without the experiment to back up the assertion is not very useful. Changes that are not very obvious in reloading can have significant and sometimes unexpected results.

I buy unsized 50cal pulls and resize them myself. More because I'm cheap and for hopes of increasing accuracy and ease of reloading then concerns of blowups.

Even when the bullet is oversized it doesn't drastically increase pressure. In one of Whelen's(might have been Ackley) books he talked about testing squeeze bore principals by reaming a 30-06 chamber out so it would take a 35 caliber bullet loaded in a 30-06 case so they could test how much of a pressure increase an oversized bullet would cause. He found the pressure increase was negligible.

Before there were 17 rimfires there were companies selling 17 caliber barrels with 22LR chambers that would swage down 22LR bullets when shot. If shooting oversized bullets increased pressures much those would have certainly blown the weak rimfire cases when shot.
https://gunsmagazine.com/langsfords-squeeze-bore-rimfires/
 Taper-bores are the stuff dreams are made of. Imagine firing a bullet that begins life as one caliber down a bore that progressively gets smaller and smaller in diameter. What emerges is a bullet of smaller caliber with an improved ballistic coefficient at a relatively high velocity. The late Australian gunsmith and cartridge designer, Arthur Langsford, had a better idea. Why not just dispense with the taper-bore design and simply fire a conventional .22 Long Rifle cartridge down a 17- or 20-caliber barrel and see what you get? What he got is one of the most intriguing stories in rimfire history.

ETA: Steel cores like in a lot of .50cal bullets could and most likely would cause problems.

Not sure.  
But if unsalted butter is fried, you have a pretty common southern snack.

I resized a lot of pulled bullets and that was enough to convince me to resize EVERY bullet I buy.  95% of them went through the die easy and smooth.  That last 5% took the better part of my body weight to shove through the press.  I didn't want that going through my barrel!

This guy knows what hes talking about. Have none of you guys ever recovered an intact bullet by a target before? If you have, you will see that the  bullets has marks from the rifling. Not just small marks, but actual engravings. The bore is ALREADY resizing an oversized bullets, every time you shoot.

Also, many guys buy undersized bore's to eek out a little bit more accuracy (Some believe they are more accurate or produce higher speeds)

I can't say for sure if an unsized bullet will produce more or less pressure, since sometimes the smallest thing can increase or decrease pressure. However as long as your not loading to the edge, it doesn't matter.

I resize them for better shot-to-shot consistency and because of my Match chambers with a 0.554" neck diameters and the fact that I only use 0.002" total clearance between chamber and loaded round neck diameter.