Crimp with cast boolits?

[cheese1566]

Up to now I have cast pistol rounds and have done some paper patching for rifle, otherwise pretty limited in the cast rifle category.:oops:
I was advised not to crimp my PP loads.

I am now going to develope a basic cast load for my 308WIN.
Recipe will be WW cast Lee C309-160's with a check, Lar's Red Carn, and Unique.

Do I want to crimp the boolit? Or just seat? I have a Lee FCD (and a Lee deluxe rifle die set)...

This is for my Ishapore 2A with a box magazine. I will probably load singlely and won't need a crimp, but may opt to use stripper clips to load the magazine.

[44man]

Depends on if they shoot better with or without a crimp but I don't usually crimp for a rifle unless boolits can move for some reason.
It really is up to you.

[excess650]

I don't crimp rifle rounds, and they haven't moved when feeding from the magazine in Marlin 336 30-30, 35 Remington, 700 Remington 30-06, Turk Mauser 8x57, Savage 1899 38-55, Swiss K-31 7.5x55.

I do crimp, albeit moderate, for 357 mag Marlin 1894C and 45-70 Marlin 1895S. In these rilfes (with straight cases) it makes
feeding smoother.

Make up some dummy rounds and see how they feed, and if they move. If you have enough neck tension, they won't move. I prefer to seat the bullets to long enough OAL to slightly engage the rifling.

[RU shooter]

With a milsurp rifle with its oversized chamber leave the flair on the neck ,It will help center the case.

[jlchucker]

I use a Lee Factory Crimp die on all my rifle boolits. I don't crimp with a lot of force though--for lever guns I just bump them into the crimping groove a bit. If it's a bolt gun load, I crimp just enough to equalize the force around the boolit. The latter is easy to do with the rifle version of the LFC die, since it's a collet arrangement and pushe the case mouth laterally, giving uniform force against the boolit from all sides. Although one could set the LFC die to exert enough force to create its own crimp groove, I don't do this for bolt gun loads.

[44 flattop]

My rule of thumb is to never crimp a rimless rifle case unless its a belted magnum with heavy recoil.

44

[Shiloh]

I put a slight crimp on pistol boolits. Heavy wheelgun boolits get a heavier crimp. I don't shoot heavy loads much anymore.

Rifle boolits just have the bell closed on the case mouth. No crimp to speak of.

Shiloh

[qajaq59]

I now only crimp them enough to remove the flair for my .308. I did try a crimp a long time ago, but they shot better without it in my rifle.

[runfiverun]

if i flair a rifle case i measure to make it just enough to scrape the sides of the chamber to help square things up.
i only crimp slightly for most leverguns and revolvers.
straighten cases for auto loaders.
and nothing for bolt guns.
neck tension will allow a nose rider to engage the rifling without moving the boolit.