45 Colt Loading - My Retro Way

by Charles, Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 08:48 (4305 days ago) @ rob

On any set of dies, you should not get lead shaving during the seating and crimping phase. If you do, either the case mouth bell isn't large enough or the crimp is being applied too soon. Here is how I set things up;

1. With a cast bullet that has a large crimp groove like a Keith design, you can seat and crimp in one operation. If there is a small or no crimp groove, then you must seat and crimp in seperate operations.

2. Take a sized but unbelled case, place it in the shell holder and lift the press ram to it's highest postion.

3. Run the die down on the case until it stops. Just use finger pressure, don't horse it down. That will be when the case mouth contacts the crimp ring in the die. Tighten the lock ring by hand.

4. With the seating stem up in the die, turn it down until a bullet is seated about mid-point in the crimp groove and then turn it back up a few turns.

5. Turn the whole die into the press about 1/8 to 1/4 turn until you have the right crimp and again turn the lock ring down to lock the die. I do this in small stages watching the crimp as I go as not to over crimp. If you can't catch a finger nail on the case mouth, that is enough crimp. Don't over do it. To much crimp won't blow out and can shave lead from a soft bullet as it exits the case. If you still have some crimp on fired cases, that is the message you have too much crimp for that load and are doing damage to your bullets.

6. Now, turn the steating stem down on the loaded and crimped round until it contacts the top of the bullet and lock the stem.

7. You will now have a propertly adjusted seating and crimping die for the bullet in use. There will be no lead shaving unless you have a small or no crimp groove and the last bit of seating is done with the bullet being shoved through the crimp. If that is the case, as stated, the cure is to seat and crimp and seperate operations. I keep spare seating dies to use in such an instance.

It is important the the seating stem have some kind of reasonable fit for the bullet, so the bullet won't rock or be canted in the seating process. You want the bullet to go into the case straight.

I prefer the M die two step expander simply because you can set the bullet in the top step and it will stay there in the loading block. I can then pick them up and run them through the seating die. With a bell, you have to place the bullet on top of the case mouth each time you insert a charged case into the die. But, either type die works just fine for producing good loaded rounds.

The recent "cowboy" dies have slightly larger expanders for use with cast bullet. But older dies work just as well. Most of today's shooters don't realize that jacketed hangun bullets are recent things in handgun reloading. When I started reloading in 1958, the only jacketed handgun bullets made were for autopistols (9mm, 45 ACP, 32 ACP etc.) and metal piercing for the 357 mag rounds. Everything else came from the factory with lead bullets. It wasn't until the early 60's that jacketed handgun bullets started to appear. The early ones did not expand worth a hoot, but they kept at it until they did.