Am I missing something?

[corbanzo]

So I just get my dies out for the first time for the .458 win mag...  Go through all the regular stuff...  seat the bullet... have one bend the case cause the RCBS case mouth opener isn't big enough (in my opinion) only one though.  The I want a crimp on there, so set the die to crimp mode, push the bullet up in there - what the hell?

It's just pushing down on the case mouth making little ripples in my brass. 

Take it out and take a look, there is a flat ridge, no curve to make a crimp - what the hell?

I guess I'm not getting a crimp, look at the instructions, tells me about how to crimp with that particular die, uhm, nope. 

OH yeah, and I had to pull out my hornady .458 lott die to seat the rest of the bullets, cause you have to push the casing too far up into the case, and hit the belt on the die. 

I'm not a big fan of RCBS right now, oh why oh why doesn't lee make .458 dies?

Oh yeah, any suggestions?

[LaOtto222]

You are talking of belling the mouth and crimping. Are you shooting cast bullets?  If you are shooting jacketed bullets do not bell the mouth, just make sure you are getting a good camphor on the mouth. I  am not sure I follow this, but it sounds like the crimp portion of the die has a square shoulder instead of being rounded. This would just push the case mouth down not roll it in on the bullet. When you say it bottoms out on the belt, do you mean before the crimp can take place? This would mean you can not crimp at all. I am not sure what you mean by bottoming out in the die. It could be you are trying to crimp too much. This will cause ripples in the case and bottom out the die. In any case if there is a problem with the die, RCBS has excellent customer service. Once you figure out what is wrong with the die, call them up, they will make it right. I think their prices are a little high, but have found they will fix anything, including my mistakes, makes you feel a whole lot better about paying a few extra bucks.

[Lawful Larry]

I agree with LaOtto about the customer service at RCBS, it is superior to most.  I had a problem with a seating die for a .38-55.  I called them and they were very gracious on the phone and apologized for the inconvenience and sent me the proper seating head.  I have had to call them on one other occasion and got the same response. 

They are number one in my book.  Give 'em a call and explain your problem and they should be able to help you, I would think to your satisfaction. 

[jhalcott]

  I USUALLY seat and crimp in 2 stages. That way ,when I crimp the bullet is as deep as it should be. Then I back off the seater stem  and run the cases thru to crimp them.  You should be barely belling the mouths of the 458 brass, Any excessive working of the brass is to be avoided. The more you work it ,the sooner it will fail!
  What seems to be happening to your brass is the bullet is not quite seated all the way.The crimp is pushing the brass AND bullet to the final depth. The 2 step approach should eliminate the problem

[stimpylu32]

corbanzo

Lets see if i can help .

1 Are you using cast or jacketed bullets ?

2 What does your case mouth mic , inside and outside after you size it ?

3 As LaOtto222 said , if you are using juaceted bullets you should not have to bell the case mouth .

4 If you need to bell just set the die to bump the top of the case then go down 1/4 turn at a time till you get only what you need to start the bullet .

Let us know how things work out .

stimpy

5 To seat and crimp in the same stroke , you will need to seat the bullet out just a tad bit to allow for the movement of the bullet and case neck as you crimp .

[corbanzo]

Yeah, after taking another look at that die, it is not set up for crimp, even though the instructions, which I'm sure are general instructions for all their dies says so.  Is it BS that they don't have specific instructions for differing dies?  Yep.

[Dusty Miller]

They'll make it good, thems good folk.

[OR-E-Gun Bill]

 

 oh why oh why doesn't lee make .458 dies?

If you are referring to the .458 Win Mag, LEE does make the Pacesetter Die Set which includes their factory crimp die.
http://www.leeprecisioncatalog.com/2007/lg_display.cfm?page_number=11

Saw it listed on Midway's site yesterday but their system is down today.

Bill

[corbanzo]

Well, I shot a few of them, with the glass on and lots of hearing protection, and the little bit of case ripple didnt seem to affect anything. 

I took those fire formed cases and ran a test back through.

laotto222 - I put a good camphor on the mouth and they went in a lot more smooth, thanks

I was using 350grn bullets, so they didnt have much distance from the tip to the crimp ridge, I took the die in both hands and cranked down on the seating cone to force it down just a little further, at the very deepest part I could get it to it seated to where I wanted the bullet.  It would be nice to have more adjustment, but it works for now.

And the bullets do hold well, so I can just forget about crimping, especially if I'm not opening the case mouth.