What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

Just wondering if there is a reason beyond tube fed shells and if so - how to do it?

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

I don' t crimp any brass as it is not required outside of tubular magazines.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

Gotta do it for those magnum revolver cartridges.

I also get better accuracy out of my 300 ultra mag when I crimp the cartridges. It allows the presure to build up before the bullet moves.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

I was referring to rifle cartridges only as handgun cartridges may require crimping.The bullet manufacturers recomend that you don' t crimp bullets without a cannelure and none of the bullets that I use have them.As to accuracy I would check with the benchrest crowd but I believe that they do not crimp.Crimping may help if you have inadequate neck tension but that is another issue altogether.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

Some benchrest shooters do lightly crimp ther bullets to obtain consistant pressures, or by seating the bullet to contact the rifling. It is said that crimping does not hurt accuracy if it is done right, and it may help it. I don' t crimp if I don' t have to. One can buy a tool called the Corbin HCT-1 for handloaders to add their own knurled type cannelure it can also be used to cannelure the case. It cannnot be used on solid bullets. Good luck.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

I crimp everything except BP cartridges which I load with the bullet against the rifling.
I have not had a firearm yet that it has not improved it' s accuracy.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

I have found that a light crimp from a Lee Factory Crimp die alleviates vertical stringing I' ve seen from inconsistant pressures. The only way to make a crimp work for you is to make sure the case necks are of consistant thickness and the cases are all trimmed to the exact same length.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

i say try it a couple different ways when testing loads. my 357mag doesnt like it when i crimp my 180gr XTPs of 15gr of lil' gun. uncrimped gives 1.1" groups at 25 and crimps opens it up to 3" . so you might one to try it both ways

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

Not much!! I never crimp anything except revolver ammo. You can accomplish the same thing by adjusting the neck tension on the seated bullets by varying the ID of a resized case, and avoid the chance of deforming the bullets or buckling a case by crimping.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

Varying the ID of the case. how do ya do that eld?

I found crimping some bullets like A-frames to really help things.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

Exempting revolver cartridges.....the only thing I' d crimp is ammo for tubular rifles. One might make the argument that you should also crimp ammo for dangerous game.........big bears, elephant, Rhino etc.....

I' ve never hunted them , but I' d surely use hand loads and they' d be the best I could make..........and yes...crimped.

Other than that.....it' s a waste of time in my book.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

Big Country, I misspoke. You vary (reduce, usually) the I.D. of the case NECK ONLY. You do this by using a smaller expander button. As an example: I once tried this with a .450 Alaskan M71 Win. I used .452 expander plug from a .45 ACP die to size the mouth afer running it through the .450 AK FL die, from which I had removed the expander stem. I belled the mouth of the case slightly with the .452 pistol die expander, so the bullet could be started without damade to the case mouth. Using Speer 400 grain bullets powered by 64 grains of 4064, I fired four rounds leaving two other rounds in the magazine while shooting. There was absolutely NO movement of the bullets into or out of the case neck, despite having had NO CRIMP. The powder charge was big enough to keep the bullets out of the case, but the bullets didn' t move at all during this test.

Actually, a lot of dies that are used for crimping will cause the case neck to EXPAND AWAY from the bullet shank when the crimp is applied. However, I think (not sure) that the Lee" Factory Crimp" dies are an exception to this.

RE: What do you think about crimping bullets?
 

eld, I see. I was thinking the other day. the expander ball is one of the most critical peices of equipment on reloading dies. How much do most of us worry about the expander ball? I used to not.

You probably right about neck tension decreasing some with most dies when crimping. But for the fact when I load 44 mags without crimping, my bullets move. Or my 40cal or 357 mag. If I do crimp, I mean hard, no movment. I am a fan of the factory crimp die as you mentioned over this. Just something to think about. I say its a trade off. Might losen neck tension at the top of the neck, but still the crimp increases the overall tension. Maybe