Good Day to All:

I was messing around with my Lee Factory Crimp Die for my 9.3x74R.

I noticed a compresion ring around one of the bullets I pulled and realized I had way too much crimp on my cases.

I tried an experiment where I took a resized case and measured the inside neck (.369). Without a projectile, I ran the case up into the Lee Factory Crimp Die. I removed the case and re-measured the neck (.360).

The projectile is of course .366 and therefore I should have a factory crimp of .006.

Before conducting this experiment I had the crimp at well over .010 and it was crushing the bullet in a circular pattern around the bullet creating a canalure where there was none.

Interestingly, at 50 metres, with several different powders and loads I was getting bullets out of one barrel or the other that would have the holes overlapping one-another with two shots from each barrel; Ie, R1 and R2 would be overlapping and L1 and L2 would be overlapping.

Now to the question: For those of you who reload, do you crimp your bullets in place and if so how much of a crimp do you use and what type of crimp do you use, ie, factory crimp, taper crimp, role crimp?

As always, comments, questions and criticisms always welcome.

Kind regards,

Carpediem