Removing stuck bullets from revolver barrel

[Hummer70]

A good friend brought me a Ruger Speed Six Revolver yesterday with bullets stuck in barrel. It belonged to another friend of his and he had owned it over 30 years and someone gave him some ammo and apparently one had a squib load or a polluted primer and there was a bullet stuck about 1/2" below muzzle and the last one was flush with back of barrel.


My friend had tried to get them out with brass rod that did not work so he called me and I thought about it while he was inbound and came up with another idea.

I took a piece of round stock, chucked it up in lathe and turned it down about 2 1/2 inches long to where it could be inserted into the muzzle. I left a little shoulder on it so it would stop when the shoulder contacted the muzzle. The idea was to make a drill guide that would keep the drill center of the bore as I drilled a hole in the bullets.

I cut it off leaving enough for the shoulder, faced it and inserted it in 3 jaw chuck and drilled a pilot hole and eventually drilled a hole with a # 7 drill all the way through it.

I placed the drill guide in the muzzle and the #7 drill in a battery powered drill and drilled through the first bullet.

Next I tapped the hole 1/4X20 tpi and put Ed's Red in bore.

Next I inserted 1 1/2" long 1/4X20 socket head screw into the hole and the head of the socket head in a vise and started pulling on it and it finally let go with a pop and came out.

Drilled the next bullet down and repeated the above and it came out.

Drilled the third bullet down and it was much tighter so we clamped barrel in vise padded with a thick piece of leather and tapped on the front of the revolver frame under the barrel with a plastic hammer and it came out.

By this time my #7 drill quit had reached the limit of its travel and the 1/4X20 Tap had as well.

I took the guide back to the lathe and opened the No 7 hole to 1/4" with a long drill I had just purchased at the flea market that morning with a broke off nose. I reground the point and it worked like a champ. That was a good stop, this lady was selling off stuff and she let me have six drill bits, (two extra long ones) and two Craftsman steel drill gages for $5.00. One of my better flea market finds.

Went back, clamped the barrel in the padded vise jaws and inserted guide in barrel and drilled through till the drill came out the cylinder end of the barrel. Then inserted a brass rod in barrel and tapped out the last THREE bullets. They were all jacketed HPs and all came out with jackets.

Finally I ran a patch down the barrel and it was perfect as it was protected by the drill guide I had turned for the job.

My buddy took all six bullets with him and the guide to show his friend what he had and how we did it.

If I had owned a extra long 1/4X20 tap and a extra long #7 drill bit and a piece of 1/4X20 all thread or screw five inches long I would have opted for that but fortunately the drill guide saved the day and his barrel. I have never seen a long 1/4X20 tap so I assume that is not to be.

I had seen revolvers with stuck bullets all my life but it was first one I was ever asked for help with.


In looking at the wall thickness of the drill guide with the 1/4" hole drilled through it that did not leave much wall thickness and I would not have wanted to open it further.


Total time to make guide and remove all six bullets was 90 minutes.

[arquebus357]

Wow.....good job.

Is that revolver still usable or is it toast ? I don't understand how one could do that without realizing there was a problem. Then again, if you are at an indoor range using a super good ear muffs, I guess you might not hear the the problem happening.

Note to self....take extra care when wearing ear protection.

[g.willikers]

It's hard to understand how a center fire squib load could go unnoticed, even in a crowded and noisy range.
.22s maybe, but the lack of recoil with anything stronger should have been a dead give-a-way.
Maybe if the shooter was fast shooting and pulling the trigger more rapidly than they could think, but that's never a good idea.

[F. Guffey]

It is not that I do not care but a friend ask for help with a 357 Magnum S&W Highway Patrol pistol. I checked the barrel, the first stuck bullet was not far from the muzzle and the last stuck bullet was close to the forcing cone. He had 6 stuck jacketed bullets in the barrel. I measured the forcing cone diameter and found it to be .012" oversized.

He is back in business with another barrel. And then I have a few more S&W barrels that have been rendered scrap with one bullet.

F. Guffey

[4V50 Gary]

Good rescue of that barrel.

[Hummer70]

Thanks. I was informed there are 1/4X20 taps 6" long available and #7 drills 6" long so I sent the info to my buddy and also told him to order 1/4X20 all thread rod and put them all in a box for the next time. I will make him another bore riding drill guide for the #7 drill.

Will also make a sliding weight to put on the drill rod which should be ideal for pulling bullets out down the road.

I was right proud when I looked down the barrel and there wasn't any issues.

[F. Guffey]

Will also make a sliding weight to put on the drill rod which should be ideal for pulling bullets out down the road

It sounds like you are about to invent a slide hammer, I find a slide hammer useful when I can not get behind something when trying to push it out. There are times the only way to remove something is from the front, that leaves pulling.

When pulling from the front there are time the going gets tuff, I have used heavy chains, for the lack of a better term I called them snap chains. And then a friend almost broke his leg when pulling an axel. Problem, he pulled an axel that did not require a puller.

F. Guffey

[Shimpy]

If I had owned a extra long 1/4X20 tap and a extra long #7 drill bit and a piece of 1/4X20 all thread or screw five inches long I would have opted for that but fortunately the drill guide saved the day and his barrel. I have never seen a long 1/4X20 tap so I assume that is not to be.

These extra long taps are called pulley taps and are designed for taping a hole for a set screw in the hub of a pulley. They are available in machine shop supply companies. I always order from MSC for machine shop tools.
By the way long drills are called "taper length drills" and even longer ones are called "aircraft drills" The standard drills are "jobber length" and extra short ones are "screw machine drills"

[tangolima]

Perhaps better than the sliding hammer approach, how about threading the rod and use a nut as a puller?

-TL

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

[Shimpy]

Perhaps better than the sliding hammer approach, how about threading the rod and use a nut as a puller?
-TL

That's how I'd do it.