If you were able to put a spring balance scale on the arm of your reloading press with a bullet puller what would be the force to pull the bullet from its case for a .243 and 223 ?

There's an article on the www somewhere about pulling .223 bullets from crimped & uncrimped cases.
IIRC forces varied from 40-100ft/lbs.

I did this with the .223 a little over 10 years ago, I rigged up a digital scale from my fishing tackle box to the arm of my press and the scale went to 42lbs with no crimp on the bullet seated to cannelure. Upset on the brass case was .003", I never did try it on any other calibers.

BTW, welcome to Hunting Nut.

Thanks, I suddenly found that a load used many times was showing signs of over pressure. (a bulge on base of case from the extractor pin hole had appeared!)
When pulling the rest of the batch apart some needed exceptional force to separate the case from the bullet, after inspecting the shot cases some of the necks were able to grip the bullet as if they had been resized while others just had not grip on the bullet!
The cases had always been full length resized previously and had only been reloaded with the same load around 5 five times.

Case never annealed?
Case length exceded maximum?

When you never anneal, the brass becomes harder after every shot. Harder brass means also more force needed to extract the bullet.

After every shot or full length resizing, the case becomes longer. When the length exceeds the maximum, pressure increases suddenly (because de bullet no longer can freely leave the case)

Case length was fine the cases were Lapua.
In my 308 I also have never annealed the cases (PNY and FNM) only trimmed to length when required and they have been reloaded over 15 times.
Before reloading they have been full length sized each time.
So using a collet neck die would be better from the start.

Sidenote- All things being equal case-wise, you can't increase pull with a smaller neck ID, the bullet will size the case to fit, deforming one or both.

If ya got some loads that are really clinging on w/o crimp something's up. If ya got pressure signs? Sky's the limit for reasons there. Back the load down and smoke some cases and check your throat etc. for cleanrance.
Also same type powder speeds can vary greatly by lot- if you load close to the MAX you can easily go way over unless you reverify and work up from at least a 5% reduction way off the lands.
Case head seperation/bulging/blowout means worn out case. Some guys reload hi-power cases over and over and over. I'll only do that with lower power pistol brass.

clembob wrote:

So using a collet neck die would be better from the start.

If you are using brand new cases for the first time, then do a full length resize and fire in your gun only. Then the cases will be formed to your chamber and you can use your neck only sizer. I have gone up to 3 firings on a cases before I had to do a FLR to bump the shoulder back.

So after neck resizing a .243 case with a mandrel of 6.13mm from a Lee collet neck die set what should you expect the case neck to measure?
If it did conform to that size ie smaller of greater would does this indicate a hardened case that was no longer flexible to return back to a correct size?

There are some additional items such as cleaning the inside of the neck, adding some grease (rolling a brass brush over you grease pad and then put it inside the neck) or giving a carbonpowder dipping.
And don't forget the difference between cases of different makes.

All that and maybe more also have their influence to answer your question.

There are some additional items such as cleaning the inside of the neck, adding some grease (rolling a brass brush over you grease pad and then put it inside the neck) or giving a carbonpowder dipping.
And don't forget the difference between cases of different makes.

All that and maybe more also have their influence to answer your question.

clembob wrote:

So after neck resizing a .243 case with a mandrel of 6.13mm from a Lee collet neck die set what should you expect the case neck to measure? If it did conform to that size ie smaller of greater would does this indicate a hardened case that was no longer flexible to return back to a correct size?

ID? Depends on the sprignyness of the brass.

OD? Depends on a lot of factors.

You ideally want a .001 interfearance fit when seating. This way you get a nice, even seat w/o case or jacket distortion...the "pull" force is a product of a ton of factors and is relevant only to the sum of same. Crimp add's to same- usually done for hunting/stuff fed from mags. If yer running JOTL /SS for groups you dont need crimp and bullet pull is irrelevent- allignment is way more cruicial there.

Thanks for the pointers
I was using 45 grains Vit 160 with a 100g Sierra which is just at the limit compared with the information below but mine was going at 3300.

Vihtavori V9 100 Grand Slam Speer vv160 34.4 to 39.8 2523 to 2864
Lee 2nd Edt 100 Jacketed Bullet vv160 35.9 to 42.8 2654 to 3084
Vihtavori 2006 100 SPBT Hornady vv160 40.9 to 45.4 2615 to 2904
VV160 46.3 on this site.

I'm going to restart with a new batch of brass and try Varget and VV140 maybe VV160 again, any recommendation’s on a load?

I'd recomend the START recipe in the Vit RL manual and working up slow like from there (if nec).

48grs of Retumbo gives me 2840fps behind a 105gr hornady A-Max. Your first load of Vlt 160 45gr 100gr Sierra at 3300fps is way way to fast, is the chrony set up right? I would try them loads again over the chrony. Watch out for pressure signs. I also have the VIHTAVUORI loading guide and that load with hornady is 4.3grs below max for hornady bullets.