Taper crimp & Gold Dot hollow point

[mostlyaccurate]

I've loaded 90 grain Speer Gold Dot hollow point's for .380.  The first I loaded came out nice.  The second time around I decided to crimp a little more and had problems with distorting the bullet.  The bullet tip would close in on the cavity.  Backed off and did the seating and crimps in seperate strokes on the rest.  Am I crimping too heavy?  How do I know how much taper crimp is right?  Am I looking for the neck to just hug the bullet or do I need a small shiny spot on the end of the case?  I noticed a seater plug available by RCBS for the Gold Dot bullets.  Would that solve the problem?

[Somerled]

I usually crimp enough to get the case mouth diameter .001 or .002 under the max. diameter listed in my reloading data. One will have a lot of feeding problems when the case isn't crimped enough. However, you can do that without distorting the bullet.

Another trick is seat the bullet to the proper depth. Screw the crimp die down to where it just contacts the shoulder. Back the case out and turn the die body about 1/8 of a turn. Try that, push the case with the bullet end first against the end of your bench with just thumb pressure. See if the bullet moved inward. Keep on adding a little crimp until the bullet remains in place.

It does help to seat and crimp in different operations. Many folks use the Lee factory crimp die.

[mostlyaccurate]

thanks for the .001-.002 info and I'll try the thumb trick.  Maybe I should have gooten the Lee factory instead of the RCBS.  Many thanks