9
9.3X62AL
Guest
Bill's text on prioritization is right on point for this thread/subject. Not every detail needs to be sweated in every operation, but the savvy technician needs to know enough about his venue to be able to recognize 1st-tier priorities from the also-rans. Lacking that knowledge base/experience, learn sourcing and data from which you can make good judgements.
I have been reloading metallic caliber ammo for almost 40 years. For at least the first half of those years, I labored in the supposed darkness without a taper crimp die to my name. My 1979-purchased RCBS 45 ACP die set came with seating die cut with a roll-crimping shoulder. It has done first-rate work for many years by adjusting that crimping shoulder to just turn in the case mouth flare and a skoash more, giving a very subtle inward radius to the case mouth. Same deal with the 9mm when I started out with its RCBS die set--it came with a roll-crimp seating die, and I managed to make good ammunition with that allegedly prehistoric tooling.
Along came the 40 S&W about 1989, and at the same time a hue and cry began being raised about taper-crimping vs. roll-crimping (or absence of same) for autopistol ammunition. I thought at the time--and still to a large extent feel this way--that it was Much Ado About Nothing. I didn't get into the 40 S&W Cult until the late 1990s, and while tooling up to refill these empties I learned that RCBS only made taper-crimp seating dies--same deal with the other diemakers I called. Well, CRUD--I ordered the die set, hoping for the best.
Die instructions specified to set the tool to simultaneously seat bullets and set the "proper" taper crimp. My thoughts were that such a course of conduct would yield varying finished cartridge overall lengths and/or distended bullet noses. I wasn't disappointed. That is exactly what happened, and it continued to occur unless and until I made bullet seating and taper crimp setting into discrete die steps. This was and remains unrequired for my 9mm and 45 ACP in the roll-crimp seater dies. No mushroom clouds have appeared on my range sites, no pestilence has been loosed upon gun shops (other than naturally-occurring outbreaks of avarice), and no Inquisitions have been conducted (yet) concerning my egregious heresies described above. Cue up Savonarola.
I have been reloading metallic caliber ammo for almost 40 years. For at least the first half of those years, I labored in the supposed darkness without a taper crimp die to my name. My 1979-purchased RCBS 45 ACP die set came with seating die cut with a roll-crimping shoulder. It has done first-rate work for many years by adjusting that crimping shoulder to just turn in the case mouth flare and a skoash more, giving a very subtle inward radius to the case mouth. Same deal with the 9mm when I started out with its RCBS die set--it came with a roll-crimp seating die, and I managed to make good ammunition with that allegedly prehistoric tooling.
Along came the 40 S&W about 1989, and at the same time a hue and cry began being raised about taper-crimping vs. roll-crimping (or absence of same) for autopistol ammunition. I thought at the time--and still to a large extent feel this way--that it was Much Ado About Nothing. I didn't get into the 40 S&W Cult until the late 1990s, and while tooling up to refill these empties I learned that RCBS only made taper-crimp seating dies--same deal with the other diemakers I called. Well, CRUD--I ordered the die set, hoping for the best.
Die instructions specified to set the tool to simultaneously seat bullets and set the "proper" taper crimp. My thoughts were that such a course of conduct would yield varying finished cartridge overall lengths and/or distended bullet noses. I wasn't disappointed. That is exactly what happened, and it continued to occur unless and until I made bullet seating and taper crimp setting into discrete die steps. This was and remains unrequired for my 9mm and 45 ACP in the roll-crimp seater dies. No mushroom clouds have appeared on my range sites, no pestilence has been loosed upon gun shops (other than naturally-occurring outbreaks of avarice), and no Inquisitions have been conducted (yet) concerning my egregious heresies described above. Cue up Savonarola.