This is a long one so grab a drink.
I had purchase a large box of 405 gr hard cast bullets for my .45-70 Marlin Cowboy but it did not shoot them very well. One our fellow members offered to try and size some down for me. So I sent him some. He sent them back resized along with 1/2 dozen each of two different weight bullets he shot. He warned me that mine were hard to run through his die and they came out a bit larger. (.453" I believe) I told him I would shoot his first and if they loaded easy I would then try mine.
Well both his bullets were too loose in my barrel. I could thumb start them and when I seated them on the charge I could feel them chattering down the bore skipping across the rifling.
Soooooo I'll try my resized bullets. I dumped the 80 grs of Pyrodex down the bore and had to use my my short starter to get the bullet in. It took a couple smart smacks. Then the long end of the short starter and after about an inch past the muzzle I had a pretty good idea I was in trouble. I knew there was no way I could get my bullet puller into that bullet. So I smacked it as far down as it would go with the short starter figuring the rifling may cut into it enough to get it down. WRONG try as I might with the ramrod, there was no way that bullet was budging. Oh BTW, when you only have about 5" of bore to work with and you're slamming the ramrod up and down and you pull up too far and come down outside the barrel - the steel front sight does a very good job of taking a nice chunk of skin and meat off your pinky!
So here I am - a hot charge in the bore and a bullet stuck up at the muzzle and a profusely bleeding right pinky, I packed up everything thinking how I was going to get that bullet out without making a trip to the gunsmith. Brainstorm - I went to the hardware store and bought a 1/4"x6" lag bolt and a super long 3/16" drill bit. I got home and disassembled the Hawken. Took out the nipple and clean out screw and flushed as much gun oil in there as it would hold. I let it sit for about 15 mins then put the barrel muzzle up in my wood vise. I dumped about a tablespoon of liquid wrench down the muzzle. Being home alone I called my cousin and told him if I didn't call back in 15 mins to come check on me - safety first you know!
Well I centered the drill bit as best I could on the bullet and proceeded to drill it staying arm's length from the muzzle. Drilling about 1/4" at a time and removing the bit to clean out the flutes. I got the bit all the way through the bullet with no incident and now the liquid wrench I'm sure was down on the powder pretty much killing it if the oil didn't already. So now I carefully screwed the lag bolt through the drilled hole. I screwed it in until I had about 1/8"-3/16" of clearance between the bolt head and the muzzle. I rotated the barrel in the vise parallel to the floor put a pair of diagonal cutters behind the bolt head, grabbed the rubber mallet, crossed my fingers and started rapping the dikes. Low and behold and by the grace of God I was able to knock the bullet out without incident. And the bit/bolt went almost dead center in the bullet so I didn't scratch the bore.
Oh but what a time cleaning all that oiled up powder out of the breech! Flush, swab, flush, swab...etc. Then a hot water wash and rinse, alcohol wipe and dry and oiled then back up on the rack.
Oh yeah - I called my cousin back and told him all was well!