BiknSwans
Member
I'm having trouble getting a good crimp using 147 grain moly coated .38 caliber bullets I bought from blackbulletsinternational.com.
I have loaded a few thousand 9 mm rounds using Precision moly coated bullets and like them very much. I used the Lee 4 die set including the Lee factor crimp die (FCD). I was very careful setting up the crimp and adjusted the crimp to get little or no damage to the coating or compression of the bullet. I like the moly coating for the usual reasons, low cost, clean dies, little or no leading. When I decided to load .38s, I wanted moly coated bullets and found them at blackbulletsinternational.com.
I bought 3000 of them, so I need to make this work. I first tried the Lee FCD .38 die set. The bullets do not have a cannelure, but there is a grease ring without any grease in it. They are round nose flat point. I'm using a pretty light load, 3.8 grains of W-231. I tried crimping just past the almost flat part and then in the flat part using several different degrees of crimping up to visibly compressing the bullet and cutting through the coating to the lead. When I loaded a revolver (S&W Model 15 K-frame, 2 inch barrel) with six rounds, shot 5, and removed and measured the OAL of the last round, the OAL always increased as the bullet is being pulled out by the recoil. Increases of .008 to .032 were measured for three different crimps. The crimp was excessive for the round whose OAL only increased .008 and I doubt it would be accurate.
When I use a bullet puller, it only takes a couple of moderate strikes to remove the .38 bullets. For the 9mm, it takes a dozen.
I had read that I would get better results using a taper crimp, so I bought a Redding .38/.357 taper crimp die. I thought I could get a tighter crimp without damaging the bullet. I haven't gone to the range to test these yet, but I can easily pull the bullets with 2 strikes, 3 for a overly crimped bullet. The bullet was reduced by .004 in diameter to .353 for the overly crimped bullet test. I don't see any significant improvement using the taper crimp die.
I can't think of anything else to try. I may just use a light to moderate crimp, practice with them and see if they actually cause any problems by getting too long.
Any suggestions?
I have loaded a few thousand 9 mm rounds using Precision moly coated bullets and like them very much. I used the Lee 4 die set including the Lee factor crimp die (FCD). I was very careful setting up the crimp and adjusted the crimp to get little or no damage to the coating or compression of the bullet. I like the moly coating for the usual reasons, low cost, clean dies, little or no leading. When I decided to load .38s, I wanted moly coated bullets and found them at blackbulletsinternational.com.
I bought 3000 of them, so I need to make this work. I first tried the Lee FCD .38 die set. The bullets do not have a cannelure, but there is a grease ring without any grease in it. They are round nose flat point. I'm using a pretty light load, 3.8 grains of W-231. I tried crimping just past the almost flat part and then in the flat part using several different degrees of crimping up to visibly compressing the bullet and cutting through the coating to the lead. When I loaded a revolver (S&W Model 15 K-frame, 2 inch barrel) with six rounds, shot 5, and removed and measured the OAL of the last round, the OAL always increased as the bullet is being pulled out by the recoil. Increases of .008 to .032 were measured for three different crimps. The crimp was excessive for the round whose OAL only increased .008 and I doubt it would be accurate.
When I use a bullet puller, it only takes a couple of moderate strikes to remove the .38 bullets. For the 9mm, it takes a dozen.
I had read that I would get better results using a taper crimp, so I bought a Redding .38/.357 taper crimp die. I thought I could get a tighter crimp without damaging the bullet. I haven't gone to the range to test these yet, but I can easily pull the bullets with 2 strikes, 3 for a overly crimped bullet. The bullet was reduced by .004 in diameter to .353 for the overly crimped bullet test. I don't see any significant improvement using the taper crimp die.
I can't think of anything else to try. I may just use a light to moderate crimp, practice with them and see if they actually cause any problems by getting too long.
Any suggestions?
