I used a steel cone that is for re-starting the crimps on paper hulls - my press is an old Herters, before plastic hulls. I took the cone off the press and screwed it to the little 16 bore press I picked up at a gun show for $10.00. It's quite small and all steel - Pacific I think. I put shims underneath the wad seater station so it would stop the ram when giving the amount of crimp you see on the cases loaded with shot - they were the last ones I loaded. Probably took 10 min to load the 5 rounds - maybe less. I did weigh out the black powder charges which takes time.

If using a crimper that spins in a drill press, I'd make sure I used a thick greasy lube on the outside of the case. Adjust the 'throw' to only put in as much 'crimp' as needed. It doesn't take much and you could even use less than I did with the shot loaded cases.

A solid steel star crimper would work as well - as early metal cases sometimes had star-crimps.

As to sprue up or down - someone always asks - I then ask, how can you load the sprue down and have it actually centred? Sprue up, or file it off so then it doesn't matter.