Crimped enough?

Looks like plenty of crimp to me. Looks nice.

That depends on what your loading it for. With Hornady XTPs I would think your loading heavy with a magnum type powder and if that is the case, I would say no.
Walkalong has some good crimp pictures of how they are supposed to look.
Maybe he will put one of them on here.
This is how I crimp my rounds with heavy loads.
If your using H110 you want max crimp for a consistent burn
But even with 2400 I would want more crimp than that.

It all depends on what powder and recipe you have. From that angle, it looks to me like it may need to be seated a touch more.

^^^gnarly crimp

-Robb

coondogger said:

This is a 38 spl round. Low end charge; 4.6 gr of hodgdon universal. The xtps were all I could get my hands on in a 125 gr. They’re scarce around here. For that, do you think I should screw the crimp die in a little more?

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Plenty enough crimp for that. Powder is easily ignited and little risk for bullet pull. Overcrimping when not needed only overworks the brass and hardens it. Also leads to premature neck cracks/splits.

This is a 38 spl round. Low end charge; 4.6 gr of hodgdon universal. The xtps were all I could get my hands on in a 125 gr. They’re scarce around here. For that, do you think I should screw the crimp die in a little more?

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They look good for 38spl and Universal. Probably more crimp than you needed.

You ought to get on RMR's web sight or MBS bullets web sight and look at what they have to offer. Rocky Mountain Reloading has good plated bullets that will work well for you for practice and be a lot cheaper than Hornady XTPs and Missouri Bullet Company has coated bullets that a lot of people on here like and use.
Powder Valley sells Berry's plated bullets also for practice or you can buy bullets from them directly, as you can with RMR and MBC.
If your loading for self defense than I know why your using XTPs.

tightgroup tiger said:

You ought to get on RMR's web sight or MBS bullets web sight and look at what they have to offer. Rocky Mountain Reloading has good plated bullets that will work well for you for practice and be a lot cheaper than Hornady XTPs and Missouri Bullet Company has coated bullets that a lot of people on here like and use.
Powder Valley sells Berry's plated bullets also for practice or you can buy bullets from them directly, as you can with RMR and MBC.
If your loading for self defense than I know why your using XTPs.

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While good advice, I still suggest that those new to reloading stick with a good quality jacketed bullet to learn on. Quality jacketed bullets are the easiest for new reloaders to have success with and produce quality ammo with. They offer more margin of error when it comes to crimp and accuracy is not as affected by powder charge and crimp, as lead and plated, especially in magnum revolvers. The OP asking about iffin his crimp is adequate tells me he is new to reloading for .357 and his goal should be to learn technique and experience success. Looks like he has picked a good combo for that. Once one gets more experienced, saving a few pennies per projectile can be a bigger concern and more readily addressed. The OP also states the XTPs were the only one's he could get his hands on. Something many of us experienced when we first got into reloading. Many local Hardware/sporting good stores that sell reloading components only offer a narrow variety, and Hornady XTPs, in my experience, are very common to see in such.

coondogger said:

The recipe says 1.425 minimum OAL. These are 1.435, and chamber in my revolver. Whaddya think? Should I finish the batch?

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The OAL in the recipe means nothing, you should be crimping into the manufacturers supplied groove regardless of the OAL. The bullets in the first pictures should be seated deeper but the crimp looks fine.

Walkalong said:

Your first pic looks like the bullet needs to be seated a hair more to get the case mouth where it will roll into the center (deepest part) of the cannelure and crimped a hair more. Very close to great though.

tightgroup tiger's look great.

Your second pic has the bullets seated too deep.

Forget about the listed OAL. Seat the bullet so that the case mouth is rolled into the deepest part of the cannelure.

Medium Roll Crimp on a Magtech 240 gr JSP in .44 Mag.
View attachment 817660

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What he said.

Set the seating depth so the case mouth is centered in the cannelure, not to a specific OAL. The amount of crimp shown in your fist picture is enough for a 38 special but you can do a little more if you prefer.

They are not seated deep enough to hurt anything. You could knock them back out a little with a kinetic bullet puller (hammer type), if you have one, and run them through the seating die again after backing out the seating stem a little. You won't hurt the case by doing that.

I agree with Walkalong about centering in the cannelure, and the cannelure depth is pretty much the limiting factor. Trying to get a deeper crimp once the brass bottoms out will just bulge the case. The appearance of the OP's case looks like new unsized brass which usually doesn't show quite the neck tension of sized brass. One of my pet peeves is bullets with shallow cannelures of which many seem to be these days, getting a really full roll crimp wasn't an issue with the old Hornady 240 JHP's in .44 before the XTP's came on the market, If your favored bullet happens to have a shallow cannelure neck tension is your best ally, If you're not getting that you may need to find thicker brass or polish the expander down a thou or two.

PS. Coondogger and tightgroup, those look like XTP's with pretty decent cannelures, maybe I've just gotten some lot#'s with oddly shallow cannelures.

I like to seat just a fuzz past half way the cannelure before the crimp ... Crimping shortens the brass a fuzz ...so you end up slap dead in the deepest part of the cannelure( if all the brass are the same length)... Just like the right photo of a
Walkalong's crimping photos...

coondogger said:

My understanding is that OAL is important only as a minimum. As long as the cartridge exceeds the minimum OAL, there’s wiggle room and the cannelure is the most important reference point. While the two cartridges that are seated too deeply look crappy, they are still longer than the minimum OAL and therefore safe to shoot. Agree?

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Minimum OAL is important in small cartridges like 9mm because pressures can skyrocket if a bullet is seated too deep. These small cases only have a small volume of space in the case so a change of seating depth reduces a large percentage of case volume, but in a big long case like a 38 special or 357 magnum the change in volume from a small change in seating depth will have almost no affect. Don’t worry about it, just seat them in the cannelure.