Lee taper crimp dies

[chise]

These are basically bullet seating dies that can't seat bullets, correct? You adjust them simply by screwing them up or down and then locking them, or is there other parts you adjust?

I'm buying one of these in 9mm because my Lee carbide bullet seating die crimps so well. I wanted the same kind of crimp for the 4th hole of my turret press without having to buy another set of carbide dies just for the bullet seater. I couldn't find anywhere that just sells the bullet seating die, so I grabbed the taper crimp one.

Does anyone here use this die, how do you like it compared to the factory crimp unit?

EDIT: I refuse to seat and crimp at the same time. Maybe because I'm too incompetent to figure this out, or I'm just stubborn. All my experiments in this have resulted in crushed cartridges and little rings of lead falling out of the die.

 

[hunter64]

Yes that is how the die works. They work great and I have one for all my rifle/pistol calibers. My Garand was kind of finicky sometimes with my reloads, if I ran surplus 30-06 in her there was no problem but once in a while it would jam with my reloads. Friend of mine gave me the crimp die for 30-06 and it is excellent, puts a nice clean crimp on the case really close to what it looks like straight from the factory. I have one for every caliber that I shoot and I have had no issues what so ever with feeding or function since using the dies. Can't personally say about the 9mm because I don't shoot that caliber but I am sure they are like all the rest. There was an article in American Rifleman (IIRC) that tested the Lee Factory crimp die against all the 4 major reloading dies for accuracy and compared it to factory ammo and there was a slight increase in accuracy using the die.

 

[Z06corvette]

I'm with you, I don't like to crimp while seating the bullet. I use the Lee taper crimp die for all calibers I crimp. that being said, I don't usually crimp cartridges for my bolt guns, just semi's and anything I shoot lead bullets in because I flare the case mouth prior to seating.