A couple years back I bought 4,000 "pulled" 55 grain FMJBTs a few years back. I started counting them into 100 bullet baggies for storage and found I had a mix of 55 and 62 grain bullets. No problem, they were really cheap even a couple of years ago.
When I started reloading them I put my "good" glasses on and found that many of them looked like garbage (garbage is being kind, many were scratched, gouged, some are even oval rather than round.) I wasn't real happy about it but its been a couple of years so no use trying to remember who I bought them from or complaining. I started reloading them for plinking ammo (brass/powder/primer specifics are not included because they aren't the purpose of the post).
Yesterday I finally shot some of them (55 grain) in my newly built AR while sighting it in. Once I got it on paper I shot nine groups with those ugly damaged bullets. Five were three shot groups. Two were five shot groups. One was a seven shot group. One was a two shot group.
Of the 3 shot groups - 3 were smaller than a dime (all holes covered, not just center to center)
Of the 5 shot groups - both were smaller than a dime (all holes covered, not just center to center)
The seven shot group - I goofed up, only 6 of the holes were covered by the dime, one was a little high/left
The two shot group was with the BUIS and I stopped when I saw it was way low and right and then couldn't adust the front sight and stopped shooting.
So really ugly damaged bullets will shoot nice groups at 25 meters. Perfect for AQTs and 1" squares or even dispatching varmints up close. I may get to shoot some of them at longer ranges next month.
I bought a bunch of the ss109 62 grn steel core penetrating bullets and they had pull marks on them too some worse than others. They had been resized though so they were round at least. They shoot great and I then ordered 10,000 more just to keep around. I gave less than $60 a k for them. I consider them a great buy and they do perform well even out to 500 yards. Even though there is a wild flier every now and then for some unknown reason.
The idea of pulled bullets being any good is beyond some fellows reach.. I have used pulled 147 grn fmjbt US made for years with great results. I even sorted them by weight loaded them by lot-- and shot good groups at 600yds in Racine Wi. Cost effective and good enough to shoot under 4moa.. BUT don`t tell any one shh--- the price will go up.. Pappy