Crimping question for Veral

[LC Smith]

Veral,

I seem to remember you writing you do not like the Lee Factory Crimp die, especially with bullets a couple thousands over groove diameter.  What is your preferred method of crimping?  Also, where do you stand on trimming revolver cases?  Thanks!

[Veral]

   There are two types of Lee factory crimp dies.  One excellent, the other a tragedy. --  For rifle cartridges they use a collet to press the crimp in, and give very good performance, making it possible to load any bullet without a crimp groove at whatever length is needed for individual guns.  I recommend these crimp dies to most of my lever gun mold buyers.


   I hate the Lee factory crimp dies for straight wall handgun cartridges because they size the case down to factory spec, which sizes the bullet also, and leaves the cartridge with no case neck grip.  The result is disasterious ignition sometimes.  In other words, crimp a batch of rounds with oversize bullets using one of these dies and many will shoot fine but a few will have loose bullets, as some will hangfire or perhaps stick a bullet in the barrel.  I don't need any of that, and do my best to keep my customers from using them for that reason.

[mousegun]

Sent my 44Mag Factory Crimp Die back to Lee to have it opened up .002".   They no longer mash my 44Mag bullets down to .429.  They stay at .431-.432 as seated.  Doesn't "iron out" the case ripples as much now.

[Veral]

  Beautiful.  I didn't know Lee would open them up, and the carbide sizer ring is too hard for most private users to be able to do anything with it.

  Perhaps I would have done better to check with Lee to see if they offered this service than to do my best to damn the pistol factory crimp dies to hell all these years!

  If any of you have a pistol crimp die opened up, measure the diameter of a cartridge with the oversize bullet you'll be using seated and ask for that size.  The die will not size down to factory specs as Lee advertises for it, but if your chamber is large enough for the forward part of your loaded rounds, the base area of the cartridge just forward of the rim will be sized down so it will chamber and that's the primary function of these dies.

[barber]

I've been using the Lee Factory Crimp Die for a couple years, I didn't know it did that. What crimp die would you recommend?  I have the 3 die Hornady Custom Grade New Dimension die for my .44 mag and .357 mag. would that do a satisfactory job?

[Sweetwater]

Sometimes the light bulb comes on - Re: Lee Factory Crimp Die

I ran off 30 rounds today in an old model Ruger 41Mag. All rounds had been crimped with the Lee die and fired in groups of 3 over a chronograph. I was trying a range of powder charges in 0.5gr intervals, therefore the groups of 3. All 30 rounds went into a fairly neat 2" group at 50ft. Most of the groups had 2 rounds less than 15fps different and one around 50fps different. Primer evidences varied accordingly with one round showing apparently less or more pressure than the other two. I'm putting together the same batches not using the factory crimp die and see if it changes things significantly. In the bunch, I found 16gr of (mil.surp.)WC820 with the 250WFNGC at 1100fps absolutely stunning, pulling heartshaped groups with 3 rounds.

Veral - Should be back to work by the first of April - the snow is melting fast. Will be wantinq the 358 mold you built for Lloyd Smale for my 356Win. Will be in touch when appropriate.

Regards,
Sweetwater

[Veral]

Thanks Sweetwater.  The low velocity bullets had less cartridge neck grip.  Fortunately it wasn't enough less to cause a hangfire, like my experiance has given me, and why I've badmouthed the Lee factory crimp for straightwall handgun cartridges.  But praise and recommend the rifle dies.

Please let us all know what your results are when not using the factory crimp die.

  This crimping thing is really important and many special dies are sold in the attempt to perfect it.  In my experience the most damning problem we have with handgun cartridge crimps is varying case length.  I refuse to trim them  because of the time factor, and have found the best way to get perfect crimps without loosening the cases neck tension from too much crimp on the long cases, is to run the seating die in about one or even two turns beyond what would give a full crimp if the ram is run up to full stroke.  I then carefully feel the bullet seat, the crimp contact with the case mouth, and the crimp being formed.  When the crimp is complete there is a definite bump as the case mouth hits the bottom of the crimp groove.  If just enough pressure is applied to make the case mouth hit the bottom of the crimp groove we have the maximum amount of bullet grip possible, and very consistent.  This does leave a variation in overall cartridge length, exactly the difference in case length of the mixed lot of brass, but it has very little effect on velocity uniformity.  Far less than variable bullet grip.  If I'm unclear in my description of the above and why, write, anyone, and I'll try to fill in the informational cracks a bit better.

[ND Sharpshooter]

To follow up on Veral's crimping proceedure...I've been doing it that way for years but didn't dare to/care to say anything about it because the perfectionists in our "mongst" will go ballistic on it.  I, too, haven't been able to find any significant difference in accuracy, but then, I'm not into the bench rest scene at all.  MOA or better is fine for me. 

[Sweetwater]

ND Sharpshooter - Totally understand your feeling there. Sometimes we do something that 'we' like and understand, but sense that  others will think we are totally bizarre, so we keep it to ourselves. I did my revolver and levergun crimps "Veral's way" for over 30 years and finally decided I was missing something and bought my first Lee Factory Crimp Die. It was for my 356Win and I thought it was great so I bought another for the 41Mag. I liked the concept of ironing out the case (which in my case was caused more from over-crimping than anything else) after seating, for ease of chambering in the revolver, which is great in theory, but totally missed the 'change in neck tension' until I started analyzing targets and putting together the 'why and wherefore' of the patterns. I used to be an accuracy freak, but that was many years ago and I just hadn't done any attempts at real accuracy checking until recently. All I had noticed was I didn't seem to be hitting as well and blamed it on getting past that time in life when you excell in all endeavors. LOL

Veral - It will be a while before I can do phase two of my testing (ie. same loads without the Factory Crimp Die in the 41Mag) but the results will be forthcoming. Patience is a virtue. I keep learning that over and over. Having reviewed my old journal entries, it appears the commentaries alluding to 'decent load' are not nearly as frequent with the 41Mag since commencing the use of the Factory Crimp Die. I've been shirking my analyzing duties, so to speak. I'm sure Phase Two will 'iron out' the variations in velocity. Stay tuned.

Regards,
Sweetwater

[Veral]

  I must disagree with you in only one point.  We don't lose our ability to excel in all endeavors as we mature.  I just won't admit no matter how old I get.  Not in public anyhow.  Or at least not all the time!

  Thank you for the nice fill in.  I must admit that I've never been an accuracy freak in the sense of target shooting in competition, yet as I've learned more and more about firearms, my criteria for accuracy has become very demanding, because I know how easy it is to have guns that hit where I'm aiming, and I have noticed with each of the last 15 or so orbits around the sun, I find it a bit or difficult to aim exactly where I want or keep the gun point exactly there while I'm giving the trigger a jerk.  Not old age mind you.  Just maturity with ability to excel in denying it!

[mousegun]

Boy! Small world!

I've been crimping 44Mag just like that since I first got my RCBS jr. in '68 and got frustrated having to reset the seating/crimp die every time the headstamp changed or I got a new box of cases.  Just ran the die down a turn or so, set the seating depth and did the whole thing by feel on the press handle.  Worked good!  Ran the case in until it bumped against the die crimp, then worked the bullet in 'til the case mouth reached the edge of the crimp groove.  cinched the locknut down, set the crimp and wallah! Perfect crimp!  All ya hafta change is the seating stem.

Did notice once a case was reloaded six or seven times the mouth got a little wavy from sizing stretch.  Started trimming the cases recently.  Guess I'm anal.  Have been trimming the cases with cracked mouths down to 44 Special length and loading with 9gr Unique.  Zombie brass rising again!  Same die settings can work for both lengths so it saves a lot of twiddling.

Good Lord!  I just noticed I'm still using cases from '66!  I can't be that old...

[Sweetwater]

'66?   Tonight I'm playing with full length shotshells for my 41mag and in the process, I managed to split a couple necks on some old 32WinSpcl cases that I was bringing up to 40caliber. How old? The box was marked 1954 and the slashes drawn indicated reloaded 47 times. Why can't we get anything that will last?!? LOL! My Dad got our first handloading outfit, a wonderful Herter's Super 3 C press and all that goes with it, for Christmas 1957 - I was 8 years old. Guess you could say I've grown up with it. I've got some boxes marked 1951 for 257Roberts, that's the year Dad got his Remington 722. I inherited this whole mess in 1978 when Dad retired and moved West from Maine. He has my Grandfather's Pacific press, looks like an RCBS jr - lightweight but surprising what work it will do. And yes, whether we want to admit it or not, we are getting that old, one day at a time. But spring is here, the magazines are less enticing than they were in December and the bug to shoot is biting - so I'm in my gun corner excercising that old Herter's Super 3!

Regards,
Sweetwater

[Racer X]

Thanks Sweetwater.  The low velocity bullets had less cartridge neck grip.  Fortunately it wasn't enough less to cause a hangfire, like my experiance has given me, and why I've badmouthed the Lee factory crimp for straightwall handgun cartridges.  But praise and recommend the rifle dies.

Please let us all know what your results are when not using the factory crimp die.

  This crimping thing is really important and many special dies are sold in the attempt to perfect it.  In my experience the most damning problem we have with handgun cartridge crimps is varying case length.  I refuse to trim them  because of the time factor, and have found the best way to get perfect crimps without loosening the cases neck tension from too much crimp on the long cases, is to run the seating die in about one or even two turns beyond what would give a full crimp if the ram is run up to full stroke.  I then carefully feel the bullet seat, the crimp contact with the case mouth, and the crimp being formed.  When the crimp is complete there is a definite bump as the case mouth hits the bottom of the crimp groove.  If just enough pressure is applied to make the case mouth hit the bottom of the crimp groove we have the maximum amount of bullet grip possible, and very consistent.  This does leave a variation in overall cartridge length, exactly the difference in case length of the mixed lot of brass, but it has very little effect on velocity uniformity.  Far less than variable bullet grip.  If I'm unclear in my description of the above and why, write, anyone, and I'll try to fill in the informational cracks a bit better.

Are you seating and crimping in separate steps? What do you think of the Redding Profile Crimp dies?

[Sweetwater]

RacerX-
The short answer is yes and no. When you use the Lee Factory Crimp Die, you are forced to seat and crimp in two separate operations. When not using the LFCD, I seat and crimp in one operation. It (the LFCD) seems to be great in rifles and mixed reviews at this pont in revolvers. Further test results forthcoming after the tests get performed.

I've never used a Redding Profile Crimp Die, so can't offer anything there.

Regards,
Sweetwater

[Argonaut]

Have you considered a taper type crimp die.  I used a Redding  one for a Dan Wesson .445 super mag. that i used to own . I got excellent accuracy and while I did not have a chronograph then, you could call you hits on the 200 meter rams, it was that consistent. as I recall, the load was 28 grains. IMR 4227 and a cast 260 gr SEACO .429 round nose bullet

[Sweetwater]

Re: taper crimp

Somewhere in my education, I was taught a Roll crimp for Revolvers (especially heavy charges of slow powder) and Taper crimp for auTomatics. Never got involved with profile crimps and not sure where they fit into the picture.

Veral? Help?

Regards,
Sweetwater