Veral refers to it as the ultimate "soft target" bullet for an autoloader. I've posted that pic many times in many places, and often have people tell me they ordered a mould like it, just because of my pic. I'd like to take it deer or pig hunting sometime, loaded rather warmly.
I use a 225 rnfp to pretty closely mimic that picture.
that picture told the whole story.
the bullet shoulder being so low will allow all kinds of trouble.
the P-90 has a return spring with about 430 lbs of forward force.
I seat so the shoulder is right at even with the case mouth but you can feel it has a slight 'ramp' which protects the case mouth.
yessir the o.a.l thing crops up from time to time.
once you find the one that works it just seems to work.
I don't change the seat die stem between the lyman 200gr swc the 225 rnfp I use and the 230gr rn I use.
I had to just barely move it out for the H&G 68 mold I had before I realized the lyman would work just as well and at the same oal as the other 2 molds I had.
Set an H&G 68 to 1.250, tighten up the taper crimp, if you keep getting jams like that
one in the picture. You ARE taper crimping with a separate
die, right? And NOT a current Hornady TC die, a Lee or an older RCBS.
Thanks for the input Bill. I haven't been crimping separately. I could, but I would be using an older RCBS. What problems have you encountered with them?
Some situations require a tigher TC than, .469. When reliability was far more
critical than the slight potential risk to accuracy, in seriousl IPSC competition, I normally
ran at .466.
right.
I was just giving him a number that generally works so he had something to start with.
we can say firm, flat, slight taper, or whatever,,,, but a number is transferable.
I still only go to .468" or so, max. I don't compete anymore. When I did I roll crimped them in a separate step with the long-discontinued RCBS roll crimp die. A 1911 doesn't headspace on the case mouth so it doesn't matter for that application.
The Lee taper crimp die is another good option as we found out recently. The new RCBS and Redding both have the incorrect angle on them.
Or set the calipers to a measurement and lock them in place. Will the crimp enter the calipers or not? That is how I prefer to measure taper crimp. I view it more as a go/no go than as an absolute measure.
that works too.
I usually kind of walk them down the case from the back and watch for the number just before it drops off to bullet diameter.
then set the calipers to that number and come back in from the front and see where it hits on the case.
it isn't super scientific, but it's how I do it and it works for me.
In my NRA Metallic Cartridge Reloading course, I teach that with autoloader ammo, bullet seating and crimping should be done separately. You're asking a lot of autoloader ammo (in comparison to revolver ammo), and seating while you're crimping is just asking for trouble. Just MHO.
If you attempt to seat and taper crimp at the same time you're trying to push the bullet deeper and deeper through an opening that gets smaller and smaller as you go. The seating operation and the crimping operation are actually competing for the same small piece of real estate. The result is a damaged bullet. You can seat and roll crimp cartridges for revolvers at the same time because revolver bullets have a nice, wide crimping groove.