Finally got a cannalure tool now a couple ?s

[BT Sniper]

Well I may have said I would never be able to afford any Corbin stuff but I saved up and spent the whole $139 for one of his cannalure hand tools. A simple design and makes a nice crimp grove on a bullet. Nothing that could not be figured out on our own I'm sure. I must say it puts the finishing touch on the bullets made from cartridge brass. I'll get some pics up later.

So now a couple ?s for the many out there smarter then I. The crimp wheel has a high and low side either by design or accident. I'm sure the wheel it's self is a perfect round just the way it secures to the tool. Is this the way it should be? If I only made one rotation of the bullet there would be an uneven depth in the crimp grove. It does say to give the handel 3 rotations and as such the bullet will make even more rotations eventualy evening out the depth of the grove. Any thoughts?

Next ?, it is possible for me to increase the diameter of the bullet by a few thousands in the small area just around the crimp grove. How do I get around this. I could be just setting the depth to deep or ....... ? I did take a closer look at a few Hornady XTP .430 bullets I have and figured out they put the grove just ahead of the tangent or junction of the curve of the nose and the straight sides of the bullet. Back of grove measures .430 while front measures .425 allowing for the curve of the nose to continue from there. I guess it is like everything else in this hobby, tryle and error. But some thoughts from those of you out there on applying crimp groves would be helpful. Does the CH tool have a wheel with a high and low side design too? I suppose a call to Dave Corbin himself would probably answer most of my ?s but thought I would see what you guys have to say.

Thanks,

BT

[ReloaderFred]

I have the C-H cannelure tool, and there isn't any variation in the knurling tool. It's pretty perfectly round.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Leadsmith]

The cannalure tool displaces metal to make the groove, therefore the bullet diameter will always be larger next to the groove. I have used this feature with muzzle loading bullets to make a tighter fit in the barrel when required. If you can’t stand the increase in diameter, run the bullet back into the die to iron the side down again. This will decrease the cannalure depth but you’ll still have some groove. For a non-jacketed bullet lube it first then size it again.

The tool itself should be perfectly concentric to keep the groove a constant depth, but a slight variation won't show when you spin it several times.


Bob

[Lead pot]

Corbin puts a slight taper on the wheel so the wheel or bullet don't drift on the first turn.

One thing to think about is, you cant compress lead, it gets displaced.
When you put that groove in you push the lead the deeper the groove the more you will raise the lead.

[BT Sniper]

Phineas is correct with his way of putting on a crimp grove. Thanks for posting that by the way. I made about 125 bullets last night for a customer. Really impressed with how they turned out. So I took the complete bullet and tried to apply the crimp as the last step. Well.... as before it increased the size of the bullet by .001. My 44 cals are coming out at .430 allready, I do not want one that is .431 so I will keep them and make some new all over again.

I did try appling a cannalure grove (at the end of the night) after core seating and it worked perfectly.

Just another learning experience I guess but still was a bit disapointing that this expensive tool still has a flaw in it's design.

[SWANEEDB]

When I get my swaging dies and get this project started I'm thinking of doing a cannalure to the jackets before I seat the core, I've got the CH tool. Picked up some 9mm CCI blazer aluminum cases, not enough to amount sending so will see on this end how they turn out, they weigh approx 22 gr's as apposed to brass @ 62 grs. Also BT, what do you think about how long should the 9mm case be? Would like your input, trying to get my duckies in a row so when I get my dies I'll have some ?'s answered.