Setting up dies

[HunterCO]

The only thing I have to say is your going shooting and I am not. :cry:

Have some fun for me. :mrgreen:

[Colorado Osprey]

we call that a kaboom below is an example, I would never fire a round when I question if I made a mistake reloading it. my, or the life of others around me are not worth it. you will figure it out it just takes time and practice.
http://www.lesjones.com/www/images/posts/kaboom2.jpg

Come on Osprey don't tell the guy he can blow his gun up because he didn't crimp the round enough. If you don't know what your talking about don't give advice. :roll:

Huh? that was car-15....not me

There are plenty of rounds I don't crimp...like just about any jacketed bullet without a canalure....heck even a bunch that do.

I do agree with the statement

"I would never fire a round when I question if I made a mistake reloading it.

[Hoser]

Get a separate crimp die...

If you try to crimp *and* seat at the same time, a couple things happen. The bullet is being pushed down while the case is getting crimped. No matter how you do it, there at the end, the case is fully crimped and the bullet still has a touch to go. Sometimes the bottom of the case gets belled out if you have too much crimp. Or, you shave some copper off the bullet and these little rings of copper rolling around the inside of your pistol.

Add in variations in case length and you can get a lot of crimp, just enough, or not enough.

I like to crimp until I just leave a faint ring on a pulled bullet and I cant push the bullet any deeper with firm thumb pressure. Too much crimp and accuracy falls off, bigtime.

A good wag for 45ACP and 10mm is an OAL of 1.250 and 9x19 and 40 is 1.130.

I dont crimp rifle ammo, at all.

I tried the Lee FCD, but took them off my 1050s and 550s cause it made them too jerky and much less smooth. I case-pro all my brass and use an EGW undersize die, so I am not really worried about fat cases anymore.

Even if you are using carbide dies, use case lube like Hornady One Shot. Your shoulder will thank you.

Go slow and step away when you get confused or frustrated. I have been reloading since I was 12 or 13, and I still learn stuff.

[car-15]

hunterco, all I'm saying is if you start making mistakes and still shooting questionable reloads, where does it stop? its human nature to test the envelope. I would rather someone showed me the extreme consequences now, rather than having to post the results of my surgery later. or worse having my wife post my death on here for you guys to feel sorry for me. hunterco I have pmed you on arf.com to no avail for trying to jump on me for no reason (I can find the link if needed) and watched you jump on people here, what is your problem? with mod status you should be taking care of problems not creating them. sorry to hijack this post, but since this gentelman's problem has been taken care of, and with no results from my pm, I belive it's time. if I'm in the wrong here I will gladly delete my membership and move on. some people dont know everything (myself included) that is why there is no stupid question.(expecially when reloading) but when someone asks a question and gets an answer that dont agree with another's and we jump on them, that is a perfect way to chase away new, as well as older members. my rant is over and I will jump down of my soapbox now.

[HunterCO]

Osprey my bad I was tired and it was late I appologize. ops:

Car-15 I was not jumping on you and didn't mean any offense. Scott is a newbie when it comes to loading and does not need false info that is all I was getting at. He came over to my house saturday night and he loaded 100 rnds.

I agree that if there is any doubt as to a load I would not shoot it either. He asked if he could hurt his gun by not useing enough crimp and you said he could blow his gun up. That is false no need to scare the guy like that. I am not trying to run anybody off you included but do not want to see a new guy to reloading scared away either.

[Hoser]

Not enough crimp can be bad if it leads to bullet set-back...

[KarlPMann]

VERY TRUE! All aspects of hand loading are important for one reason or another. Learn slowly, and be careful. Karl.

[Scott]

Thanks for all the info and advice guys.

I made 20 rounds on Sunday night and shot all 20 of them off on Monday. I didn't blow a gun up :P I was actually pretty proud of myself that all 20 (save one) fired fine and I couldn't tell any difference between them and the WWB rounds I brought as well.

Tim, all 100 rounds that I made at your house went fine. I had one round that I made that didn't fire. The firing pin made contact with the primer, it just didn't go bang..... I assume it was a faulty primer.

Thanks again to everyone, I'm sure I'll have a lot more questions.

[Scott]

Not enough crimp can be bad if it leads to bullet set-back...

What is bullet set-back?

[HunterCO]

Not enough crimp can be bad if it leads to bullet set-back...

What is bullet set-back?

Remember how I explained to you why I use ballistic tip bullets in my high powers. Well if the crimp was to light it could push the bullet back into the case farther.

You do not have to worry about that with the .45 you are loading. There is plenty of press even without a crimp.

What powder and charge did you use? I am going to guess the same as what we used at my house.