Hello everybody. I am reloading 308 now but seem to have trouble setting up crimping die. I am using cheapest set of Lee dies and single-stage press. I understand Lee bullet-sitting dies do crimp as well, right? When I use crimp die it appears there is no backpressure from press handle, as if there is no crimping going on. So after a bit of experimenting and following RTFM rule a few times I gave up on crimping. All seem ok, bullets sit tight and accuracy of my loads are somewhat acceptable but there are still some fliers, like one out of ten will fly a foot away from a group. Could be my accuracy control thing or is it lack of crimp?
308 - to crimp or not and how
- Thread starter 22lr
- Start date
I doubt the 1 foot flyers are a result of a lack of crimping. I'm using lee dies for reloading 308 and not crimping. I'm shooting them through a bolt action rifle, although I did swap bullets on some surplus ammo and shoot it in my m14.
I do crimp my 308 LR rounds. I did a many round test (500 if I recall correctly) many years ago, and found that using the Lee crimp die did help in the accuracy department. Having said that, I don't think your one flyer is caused by lack of crimp, if that was an issue you would have much more frequent flyers. - dan
If you have a crimp groove on whatever bullet you are using, I would suggest you start out crimping in a separate stage. IE: remove seating stem assembly, screw die down on your loaded/seated round, press ram should be fully "up", die will stop when the crimp ring in die contacts edge of case, another 1/4 turn down on die and your good to go, anymore and you can crumple brass.
Exactly. Only use roll crimp on bullets with cannalures. The Lee factory crimp die can be used on any bullet types.
I only crimp for autoloaders or hunting rounds that get handled rough. Normal bench shooting with a bolt gun I don't crimp for.
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- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
My .308 dies were competition dies which did not have a crimping groove, so I bought a Lee factory crimp die, and I have been quite happy with it. The procedure I use to crimp with a seating die is to crimp as a separate step from seating the bullet. After all my bullets are seated, I raise the seating stem to the top of its adjustment, raise the ram to the top of its travel, and turn the die down until refusal, with my finger tips. This produces uniform results with a decent crimp.
