To Crimp Or Not To Crimp

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Moparman485

Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Aug 26, 2015
Messages
5,771
Reaction score
1,233
Location
Oklahoma
For 223, some times, I taper crimp

For every other rifle caliber I use a Lee factory crimp die. I prefer taper to roll crimp (more forgiving) but on non-precision cambers where you don’t need to trim the cases each time, a taper crimp can still cause a slight bulge or roll due to long brass. The Lee FCD is immune to the issues

for pistol, I now use and absolutely sweat by the Lee carbide factory crimp die (thanks to the help of some other members!). Gives you a consistent crimp and helps size off any slight bumps or bulges you might get while seating. It’s very handy.
 
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
13,357
Reaction score
21,547
Location
yukon ok
I shoot cast in my pistols 98% of the time and I do not crimp any of them.
40, 45, 357, 38 and 9mm now.
I tried crimping rifles and found no accuracy.
I suppose if you are in the habit of mixing different head stamp cases and your seating pressures are all over the map a crimp
may help in the accuracy department.

If I crimp my cast lead bullets it will size them smaller before they enter the chamber and I get leading and accuracy suffers.
I do not shoot super hard lead bullets.
My hardest is straight clip on wheel weights.
Most of my lead bullets are 50/50 mix of wheel weight and pure soft lead and then powder coated.

I have never had a powder coated or greased lead bullet experience setback.
Well except for the 1911 45 when the bullet enters the chamber it is at a severe upward angle and the nose of the bullet hits the chamber and sets it back lead or jacketed even crimped I get setback by just a hair.

My Hi-Point pistols do not have that steep entry that buggers the nose and pushes the bullet back into the case.
 
Joined
Apr 11, 2022
Messages
1,744
Reaction score
4,202
Location
Oklahoma
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For .357 and .44 I crimp hot loads, don’t usually crimp low velocity lead plinkers though

Usually don’t crimp bolt gun stuff

Always crimp for the tube fed lever guns(45/70)

For ARs I usually use the lee FCD and crimp, that way I don’t worry about bullet setbacks during rapid fire

Just depends on the application really
 

KurtM

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Jan 29, 2009
Messages
2,528
Reaction score
3,094
Location
Edmond
I'm pretty sure that I don't crimp anything rifle wise except 458 SOCOM, literally and figuratively 10s of thousands of 223 and 308s in gas guns. Maybe I'm lucky but I have never had extreme set back.....ooops I just lied!!! I did crimp 45-90 in my 86!
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom