Sept 21, 1999

David,

I believe you were given bad advice (except for the part "leave the room").
Some bullets are set in the shell cases more tightly than others.  You were
lucky; the "treatment" worked as planned.  But had the bullet been tighter,
the shell case would have exploded and filled the room with tiny pieces of
shrapnel.  Had you been in the room you could have been blinded or worse.

As an example of bullet tightness in a shell case: a while back I was
removing the powder from some M-1 carbine .30 caliber rounds for a display
I was putting together for the Moffett Field Museum, where I volunteer.  I
bought an inexpensive bullet-puller (about which more in a minute) and
proceeded to pull out the bullets.  This is done by heartily banging the
bullet-puller against a hard surface.  Normally six or eight blows would
suffice to coax out the bullet.  But for one round it took 35 blows.
Obviously that bullet was in there pretty darned tight!

A "bullet-puller" is a clever gadget that roughly looks about the size and
shape of a hammer, and is swung like a hammer, as implied above.  They cost
about $20.  I don't know the physics term for how it works, but here's an
analogy of what happens:

Suppose you have a bottle of ketchup with thick ketchup inside that doesn't
want to come out.  You hold the bottle tightly in one hand while forcefully
banging that hand against your other hand.  Little by little the ketchup is
forced out.  The striking force (concussion?) goes between your two hands,
and not the ketchup or bottle.  With a bullet-puller the concussion goes
between the hammer head and the surface being struck, and not the bullet or
shell case.  Hence the bullet is gradually and safely coaxed out.

-Jim Lyons
[log in to unmask]
http://www.jimlyons.com

>=========================================================

>It is hard for me to realize that it was twenty years ago when I intalled a
>30-30 bullet-and-shell into a cast Lucite sculpture. It seemed advisable,
>since the plastic would undergo intense pressure and heat during its
>formation, to remove the explosive from the shell. (I am not a gun person,
and hope I am not misusing these terms.)  On the advice of the sporting goods
>store across the street, I set the shell on the coil of an electric range,
>turned it on, and left the room. I returned after it fired, located the
>bullet, and reassembled it with its shell.
>
>David Formanek
>USS Constitution  Museum
>Cyrus E. Dallin Art Museum

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