Question on reloading workflow

[BE Mike]

Sound advice. What kind of dies do you use for roll crimp and taper crimp? what's the advantages of both?

.357 mag. and .38 SPL jacketed bullets usually have a crimping groove in the bullet. Some lead bullets also have crimping grooves. The roll crimp die is for crimping into these grooves. The biggest benefit, is it keeps the bullet in place in the cylinder of a revolver, so the bullet doesn't jump out of the case in the cylinder during recoil. It also allows the slower burning powders for magnum loads to get a complete burn. Any decent brand of crimping die works well. I mostly use Dillon now, but have used Lyman, RCBS and Lee. When crimping separately, the crimping die is the last die used in the manufacturing process. Many dies come with a combination seating/ crimping die. I find it much more difficult to get them adjusted as a combination. Doing the crimp process separately allows me to get a much more precise crimp without pulling out my hair adjusting it. All of my auto loads get a taper crimp. It's really the only way to fly when loading ammo for most common auto calibers, i.e. .45 ACP, 9mm, .40 S&W, etc. You'll soon find out that loading lead bullets and coated lead bullets are a lot cheaper than copper jacketed or plated and you can get great accuracy for range shooting sessions. Many semi auto bullets don't have crimping grooves, so you must figure out just how deep you want to seat them in the case. You can sometimes find the Cartridge Overall Length (COAL) in a loading manual or listed by the manufacturer (you can call bullet manufacturers to get COAL data too! One important thing to remember is that they must be seated deeply enough to feed through your magazines. The taper crimp must be firm enough to keep the bullets from pushing back into the case. A bullet pushed back into the cartridge case will cause pressures to rise and if discharged can get to dangerous levels.

 

[Creedmoor]

.357 mag. and .38 SPL jacketed bullets usually have a crimping groove in the bullet. Some lead bullets also have crimping grooves. The roll crimp die is for crimping into these grooves. The biggest benefit, is it keeps the bullet in place in the cylinder of a revolver, so the bullet doesn't jump out of the case in the cylinder during recoil. It also allows the slower burning powders for magnum loads to get a complete burn. Any decent brand of crimping die works well. I mostly use Dillon now, but have used Lyman, RCBS and Lee. When crimping separately, the crimping die is the last die used in the manufacturing process. Many dies come with a combination seating/ crimping die. I find it much more difficult to get them adjusted as a combination. Doing the crimp process separately allows me to get a much more precise crimp without pulling out my hair adjusting it. All of my auto loads get a taper crimp. It's really the only way to fly when loading ammo for most common auto calibers, i.e. .45 ACP, 9mm, .40 S&W, etc. You'll soon find out that loading lead bullets and coated lead bullets are a lot cheaper than copper jacketed or plated and you can get great accuracy for range shooting sessions. Many semi auto bullets don't have crimping grooves, so you must figure out just how deep you want to seat them in the case. You can sometimes find the Cartridge Overall Length (COAL) in a loading manual or listed by the manufacturer (you can call bullet manufacturers to get COAL data too! One important thing to remember is that they must be seated deeply enough to feed through your magazines. The taper crimp must be firm enough to keep the bullets from pushing back into the case. A bullet pushed back into the cartridge case will cause pressures to rise and if discharged can get to dangerous levels.

If you look at company's like Rocky Mountain, you can buy jacketed for about 5 bucks more a thousand than coated or plated bullets.
Good Post!!!

 

[Brian's Surplus]

If you as a new small reloader if you find a bunch or have a pistol that does this Lee offers a cheap option with a push through die that will get ride of the smile with you press for $20.00

Lee Precision, Inc.. Bulge Buster Kit

Lee Bulge Buster Kit and appropriate Lee Factory Crimp assures your mixed brass is bulge free. This push through die adapter will quickly remove the annoying bulge rings that shell holder constrained dies simply can't reach.

leeprecision.com

I sell these for $16.83 + tax.

 

[Creedmoor]

I sell these for $16.83 + tax.

You now have to much free time on your hands my friend.

Tell your Dad I said hello,
Oh, super interesting book, even I can understand it. Thanks

 

[Whip_McCord]

I found an interesting article about 45 ACP case life. It proves a long "known" supposition, that 45 cases shrink after repeated loadings. It also disproves some other things and shows where the shrinkage occurs. Primer pockets get shallower, too. Pretty interesting.

http://vintagepistols.com/massreloading/loading45ACP.html

Nope, my 38 wadcutters are loaded for a few old Gold Cups and S&W mod 52 automatics.
38 Special Bullseye pistols. And yea, Imagine feeding a wad cutter reliably in a automatic, they are anal with what works in them.
They get a taper crimp and then they get gauged.
Heres a pic of the Colt Magazine, lol

View attachment 308325

I'm a revolver guy much of the time, but I do have a S&W 52-2. Very nice pistols. Very accurate and very nice trigger. I started shooting a S&W 625 in bullseye several years ago, even at Camp Perry. It just works better for me.

 

[Whip_McCord]

I have a 38 that I bought for the ol lady to use when I was gone on the road a lot. This gun is too small for my hands, so I don't enjoy firing it. I also have a short barrel 357 that's mainly used as a pocket gun. The main calibers I use often are 9, 40 and 45. All Mag fed. Thanks for your info, but is there anything you can do if the brass is too short?

At some point it will be too short to load in a semi-auto. You would need to throw them out. Like the article states; the primer pockets get shorter too. That would be worse that the short cases. Brass does not last forever, but it can last a long time.

 

[BE Mike]

At some point it will be too short to load in a semi-auto. You would need to throw them out. Like the article states; the primer pockets get shorter too. That would be worse that the short cases. Brass does not last forever, but it can last a long time.

I've never thrown brass in the recycle pile for being too short to load. Some bullseye pistol match shooters have loaded their cases so many times that the headstamp is no longer there! Of course they are loading them to lower velocities and pressures than, say IPSC shooters, etc. The bullseye pistol shooters are looking for velocities in the 760 fps range for .45 ACP with a 200 or 185 grain bullet.

 

[Creedmoor]

I found an interesting article about 45 ACP case life. It proves a long "known" supposition, that 45 cases shrink after repeated loadings. It also disproves some other things and shows where the shrinkage occurs. Primer pockets get shallower, too. Pretty interesting.

http://vintagepistols.com/massreloading/loading45ACP.html

I'm a revolver guy much of the time, but I do have a S&W 52-2. Very nice pistols. Very accurate and very nice trigger. I started shooting a S&W 625 in bullseye several years ago, even at Camp Perry. It just works better for me.

It will take me days to move past I switched from a 52 to a revolver. lol
I've never been a big 45 acp shooter in my life other than with 50 yd bullseye shooting. I love reading that kind of stuff. It will be interesting to read this and go back and measure old Match brass that I have had 35-40 years and newer brass.

Thanks, I will read it this weekend.

 

[Whip_McCord]

I've never thrown brass in the recycle pile for being too short to load. Some bullseye pistol match shooters have loaded their cases so many times that the headstamp is no longer there! Of course they are loading them to lower velocities and pressures than, say IPSC shooters, etc. The bullseye pistol shooters are looking for velocities in the 760 fps range for .45 ACP with a 200 or 185 grain bullet.

I've never had brass be too short either. The main issue is splitting at the mouth, although I've had much more of that in 38 special revolver brass than 45ACP. The roll crimp will works the brass much more than taper crimp.

 

[Whip_McCord]

It will take me days to move past I switched from a 52 to a revolver. lol
I've never been a big 45 acp shooter in my life other than with 50 yd bullseye shooting. I love reading that kind of stuff. It will be interesting to read this and go back and measure old Match brass that I have had 35-40 years and newer brass.

Thanks, I will read it this weekend.

On 45 day at Camp Perry I would always get more than a few referees checking out my revolver saying "Is that a 45?". You don't see many revolvers on the line at Perry any more except for Distiinguished Revolver and the Harry Reeves matches.

I was never a great bullseye shooter, but I did have a great slow-fire match a few years ago. I shot a 97-3x with my 625. On that same target everyone was making a fuss about an army guy that just shot 98 slow-fire. My buddy went over to him and said that ain't $h!t, my buddy just shot a 97 with a revolver. They told him no way, until he showed them my target. That was fun.

 

[Creedmoor]

I've never had brass be too short either. The main issue is splitting at the mouth, although I've had much more of that in 38 special revolver brass than 45ACP. The roll crimp will works the brass much more than taper crimp.

I don't recall splitting any 45 acp in all my years of loading. Now 38 Special for range fun and practice, thats a different story. For shooting for quality of a match I use nothing but Win factory wad cutter brass that has either the crimp where the bottom of the bullet will set or no brass crimp at all. Long ago a man that used to do the show circuit would buy all the 38 brass from the Illinois State Prison system when the did there yearly quals. I bought a few buckets of it from him.
For play and practice, we shoot crap brass, plain brass, nickel brass it just gets loaded. I find neck and body splits all the time. Some of the nickel brass the nickel is see through or mostly gone with being shot and sized so many times.
I bought about a half a 55 gallon drum of pistol brass from a guy up in Battle Creek a few years ago. Another member here that was selling LE range brass bought the other half. He called me a few weeks later and said all of the brass he had loaded split when he shot it. It was from the 1970's maybe, from an indoor range and it has almost no 9mm 40 or 223 in what we bought.
I want to say its 38 S&W, 38 spec, 357, 41, 44 and 45 auto brass.
With him telling me that its been sitting in bags on the shops shelving.

 

[loudgroove]

At some point it will be too short to load in a semi-auto. You would need to throw them out. Like the article states; the primer pockets get shorter too. That would be worse that the short cases. Brass does not last forever, but it can last a long time.

Thanks for article. Will read tonight.

 

[Creedmoor]

I found an interesting article about 45 ACP case life. It proves a long "known" supposition, that 45 cases shrink after repeated loadings. It also disproves some other things and shows where the shrinkage occurs. Primer pockets get shallower, too. Pretty interesting.

http://vintagepistols.com/massreloading/loading45ACP.html

I'm a revolver guy much of the time, but I do have a S&W 52-2. Very nice pistols. Very accurate and very nice trigger. I started shooting a S&W 625 in bullseye several years ago, even at Camp Perry. It just works better for me.

It would be interesting to do that test with different powders, like Bullseye and Unique and see what happens. I'm not a big fan of TiteGroup, I played with it years ago and I just didnt like some of its features. And I will say that it works well for others.
I would like to see it done with different brass, Starline is good brass, but what I have bought in large rifle brass its really "Hard" brass right out of the factory.
I'm interested with ACP brass I though had the same web as 308 and 06 brass.
I will be on the lookout now to see if WE are having that with what we load and shoot.
I would want to believe with getting the beginning of high primers I would have seen them with me gauging everything we load.
Now I don't know for sure

Great Post, you made me go hummmmmm. further investigation is needed.

 

[BE Mike]

On 45 day at Camp Perry I would always get more than a few referees checking out my revolver saying "Is that a 45?". You don't see many revolvers on the line at Perry any more except for Distiinguished Revolver and the Harry Reeves matches.

I was never a great bullseye shooter, but I did have a great slow-fire match a few years ago. I shot a 97-3x with my 625. On that same target everyone was making a fuss about an army guy that just shot 98 slow-fire. My buddy went over to him and said that ain't $h!t, my buddy just shot a 97 with a revolver. They told him no way, until he showed them my target. That was fun.

High 90's at 50 yards, one-handed without a rest, bullseye style, is some very good shooting! These days, anything over 10 yards scares the pants off most pistol trigger pullers!

 

[loudgroove]

I found an interesting article about 45 ACP case life. It proves a long "known" supposition, that 45 cases shrink after repeated loadings. It also disproves some other things and shows where the shrinkage occurs. Primer pockets get shallower, too. Pretty interesting.

http://vintagepistols.com/massreloading/loading45ACP.html

I'm a revolver guy much of the time, but I do have a S&W 52-2. Very nice pistols. Very accurate and very nice trigger. I started shooting a S&W 625 in bullseye several years ago, even at Camp Perry. It just works better for me.

great read and interesting.

 

[loudgroove]

Does anyone have a recommended step and or suggestions for finding the free bore size for a handgun? including tolerances for oal when sizing a reload?

 

[t-squared]

I made these using a dremel tool with the little cut-off wheel thingy. Simply insert the bullet way over the needed length then gently push the case into the chamber until it bottoms on the case rim. Gently remove the case and measure the "max"oal for that bullet/gun combo. Keep a chart for future reference.
Another kinda cool thing they can show you is the difference in case volume different bullets can use. For example, the 9mm case on the far left shows the base of 2 different bullet's depth inside the case using the same OAL.

 

[Whip_McCord]

Does anyone have a recommended step and or suggestions for finding the free bore size for a handgun? including tolerances for oal when sizing a reload?

While this may be useful in bottleneck cartridges, I don't think it has much use in handguns. Unless you are shooting a single-shot pistol like a T/C Contender, your OAL in a handgun is limited by either the magazine or cylinder.

In a revolver, the cylinder is not the only limitation. You should also use the crimp grove of the bullet, which really limits your OAL. There are a few very heavy revolver bullets with two crimp groves; one for standard length cylinders and one for longer cylinders like those on Ruger Redhawks and Super Redhawks (there may be others). I have used a few bullets like those and choose the longer OAL when possible.

In a semi-auto your main limitation is the magazine. Once that is taken into account, the bullet design is also a limitation. There is only so much of the bullet’s surface that will allow a proper crimp. Then proper feeding comes into play. Too long or too short OAL may cause feeding issues in a semi-auto.

In my 42+ years of handloading (25 metallic cartridges & 2 shotgun gauges) I have never thought about this aspect of loading handguns. I have only experimented with OAL in my 45ACP bullseye pistols. Those are shot at 50 yards, so you need to wring out all the accuracy you can. If your goal is to get the most accuracy out of your handguns, experimenting with different powders and different weights would yield the best results. Good luck.

 

[loudgroove]

While this may be useful in bottleneck cartridges, I don't think it has much use in handguns. Unless you are shooting a single-shot pistol like a T/C Contender, your OAL in a handgun is limited by either the magazine or cylinder.

In a revolver, the cylinder is not the only limitation. You should also use the crimp grove of the bullet, which really limits your OAL. There are a few very heavy revolver bullets with two crimp groves; one for standard length cylinders and one for longer cylinders like those on Ruger Redhawks and Super Redhawks (there may be others). I have used a few bullets like those and choose the longer OAL when possible.

In a semi-auto your main limitation is the magazine. Once that is taken into account, the bullet design is also a limitation. There is only so much of the bullet’s surface that will allow a proper crimp. Then proper feeding comes into play. Too long or too short OAL may cause feeding issues in a semi-auto.

In my 42+ years of handloading (25 metallic cartridges & 2 shotgun gauges) I have never thought about this aspect of loading handguns. I have only experimented with OAL in my 45ACP bullseye pistols. Those are shot at 50 yards, so you need to wring out all the accuracy you can. If your goal is to get the most accuracy out of your handguns, experimenting with different powders and different weights would yield the best results. Good luck.

ok thanks. This is why I like to keep a conversation going. To make sure I stay on the right track. Now that I am thinking about it. I either didn't catch what type of firearm I was reading about, or the firearm type wasn't stated. What I was reading about was making a custom round for a particular gun. And it was talking about having the bullet almost touching the rifling. And the measurement tools I found online was either for a bolt or lever action. This explains a lot.

Right now I am trying to restrict myself to specifically a 9 mm. My thinking is if I can get the basics down on the one I have fired most of my life. This should build a strong foundation to build on. Instead of falling down rabbit holes like I seem to do often (squirl). lol Or sometimes I try to make things more complected than they should and over look something simple. Thanks for keeping me on track. Didn't think about the mag restrictions either.

 

[BE Mike]

Whip_McCord has it right. Not all rifle reloading tips transfer to pistol. The most important component of loading accurate rounds for pistol shooting is the quality of the bullet and then finding out what powder combo works best with it. I always "stole" proven reliable and accurate pistol loads from other generous reloaders. One other thing to consider is what each shooter's idea of accuracy is. Most folks can pretty much throw together safe loads that will function in their handguns and be satisfied that they shoot into one hole at 10 yards, while competitive shooters, especially bullseye pistol shooters would, only be somewhat happy with loads that will function reliably and shoot under 3" ten shot groups at 50 yards.