Sizing Die as a Crimper

[Uncle Grinch]

Has anyone ever used a sizing die as a crimping die. I recently tried it with my 7.62x54R. After sizing belling and priming my cases, I loaded my charge and seated my 314299 boolits to the proper depth. I then crimped them and noticed a bulge on a couple of the crimps. That's when I decided to remove the neck expander from my sizing die and run my loaded round up until I felt resistance. A couple of adjustments and I had what appeared to be neck crimped rounds.

Haven't shot them yet, so no results available.

[Jim]

Bulges on a few, not all, usually indicates uneven cases lengths. If you trim all your cases, that problem will go away.

[EDG]

If the die has the right taper and diameter it works really well.
It is common for .38-55 ammo loaded for the H&R Target rifle to not fit the chamber with groove diameter bullets.
Some shooters just squeeze the loader rounds down .001 or so until they fit the chamber. This is done using the .38-55 fl sizer.

[Uncle Grinch]

Bulges on a few, not all, usually indicates uneven cases lengths. If you trim all your cases, that problem will go away.

Thanks Jim... I was aware of the cause and actually mic'd each case to check for excessive length. The brass was some that I bought here from several different sources. Some were very short, but none were too long, so I went ahead and loaded them. I'll separate them by length next time.

[DLCTEX]

I used the size die to remove the bulge from some 480 Ruger rounds I over crimped.

[DonOhio39]

No experience with rifle calibers, but I have been using an old steel 9mm size die as a taper crimp die. Bought the die set 35+ years back before carbide 9mm size dies were common. Eventually bought the carbide die and re-purposed the steel die. Works great!

Don in Ohio