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!

Bronco what rifle were you trying to load? and if your bullets came back to you at 453, what were they when you sent them out?

Yeah I am on the confused side myself. Which rifle? I'm sure the bullets were .458-.460 when you sent them out (common sizes of bullets for .45/70 loads) so sizing a hard cast down to .451 would be a pretty rough task with just single stage bullet sizer.

Im glad you got it out safely. I feel your pain. Once at a range I got to talking while loading and actually loaded a bullet on a bullet. My brother recommended kroil down the barrel and from the breech too. My mag 3 powder turned harder then the bullets. My bullet puller jag pulled them right out. Good luck

Ha-ha Bronko. I'm smarter than you. When I did that I stopped banging on the short starter when the bullet was only two inches below the muzzle. So I didn't need to buy a long drill bit. Learned a lesson though, that's for sure. Got it out the same way you did.

Glad you were successful. That's one of those nightmares where you keep mumbling to yourself... STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. At least I did.

Sorry I guess I did miss that part. I was going to see if I could size them down from .458 to .451" or .452" to use in my .45 Hawken Green Mtn barrel.
Anyone want to buy a bunch of 405 gr, .458 hard cast lead bullets?!?!?

You were fortunate to get all back to normal. A friend of mine once was shooting roundball out of his .50 caliber CVA Hawken rifle. Well he grabbed ball from the wrong supply he had. He also shot .54 caliber out of a Lyman rifle. Long story short, he some how got that .54 caliber .530 down under the muzzle in that .50 caliber rifle.

When he finally called me and asked what he should do I told him to take it to a gun smith. Well instead he tried to drill it out. But he was not a perfect 90º goin going in. He got the ball cut enough to bring it out in pieces, but when I checked the bore, it had a huge gouge down along the side of the barrel about three inches down.

I suggested he cut the barrel down three inches and then cone the end. But he's still been shooting that .50 with a messed up muzzle. So you were real lucky. Or a good driller.

When I drilled out a jammed hard cast conical I used a 7/32" bit. I left the front inch of the bit exposed, but wrapped the shank behind that inch with duct tape, using as many wraps as was necessary to bring that part of the bit up to bore diameter. It kept the bit centered in the bore.

Well Semi, we have all always said you're smarter than the average chimp when it comes to tinkerin

Thats the beauty of this forum. You can learn an awful lot from other peoples experiences.