Texas Sheepdawg wrote:Pictures are up.
Shoot, you're right. They're hardly imprinted.
WRT the Taper crimp and those Magtechs. At an aggressive .475 taper crimp, one moderate and I mean moderate on concrete, strike with my inertial puller and the Magthech 230gr which is spec'd at .452, not .451. Anyway, it pulled out .1 inches with one strike. Not sure why as other .452 and some .451 bullets hold a lot tighter. In the same sitting, I crimped some smooth-sided 250gr FTX bullets to .475 and it took 8 hard strikes to pull one out. Again, not sure why the Magtechs seemed to exhibit such less neck tension. It sure is a strong argument for using a Modified Lee FCD stab crimp. Yeah, they're a bother to set up for the right location and depth, but once you get them set, you can run through your rounds rather quickly.
Holding any bullet back until the case expands and releases it is pretty beneficial with Lil Gun. More so the slower the powder it. The need to do so also increases as the weight of the bullets go down. My experience has been that when their weight goes up, their own mass contributes to the reluctance of the bullet to move forward after ignition, before it's supposed to. That sword cuts both ways though. The heavier the bullets, the greater the pulling force when they are slammed into battery. Bullets with cannelures work particularly well with the taper crimp if you seat them to the cannelure and drive the taper crimp into them.
This has all been covered repeatedly in this sub-forum. Every blessing comes at a price though. Many bullets with cannelures have their cannelure rather far forward. If you seat them to that cannelure, you typically end up with cartridges in the 2.05-2.15 inch COL regardless of bullet length. IE a lot of the bullet down in the case, competing with the powder for the available room. So, with the exception of a few bullets sporting two cannelures or in the case of the Barnes XPBs, two driving band grooves to drive the taper crimp into, you wind up loading them shorter than necessary. That equates to higher pressures and less powder capacity.
IMHO, finding the best compromise is the fun challenge of reloading for this caliber.
Hoot