Those look like Oregon Trail lasercast 158 SWC. I recently loaded about 300 rounds with these. Not one iota of shaved lead...unlike the wadcutters I have loaded. With the lasercast bullets I am able to seat and crimp in one step, but for the wad I reverted back to seating in one step and crimping in the next. It appears to me that the crimp causes some lead shaving, which builds in the seater plug.

On a side issue, I have the same problem with my .45 Colt bullets. I loaded one box of 250 gr RNL, seating and crimping in one step. Had to check every round for OAL, found I had to back out the seater plug about every third round. Went back to separating the steps and did not have to adjust the seater plug for the next 200 rounds.

quote:

Originally posted by xr650:
I second max.

And if you're not now, use separate seat and crimp dies.

Howdy

Ideally, you want to expand the case mouth just enough so that it forms a tiny funnel and no sharp edges are presented to the bullet as it slides into the case. You do not want to expand it too much, because the more you change the shape of the brass, the more it work hardens and this can lead to premature splitting.

Most expander plugs have two diameters, with a short length angled transition section in between. After your cases have been resized, the neck has been shrunk down slightly below nominal diameter. The narrow diameter on the expander plug expands the neck up to the proper diameter to create some neck tension on the bullet. Sliding the plug in just a little bit further brings the 'angular' section into play. This section creates a tiny funnel, or 'bell' at the case mouth. Tiny incremental changes to how much of this angled section is pressed into the case mouth controls how much 'bell' you put on the case mouth. You adjust it by threading the plug into or out of the die by tiny amounts. All you need is just enough so there is no lead shaving going on.

By the way, even though it seems that everybody these days seems to think you must seat and crimp your rounds in separate steps, I still seat and crimp almost all of my calibers in one step. That is the way the dies are designed, it just takes a little bit of extra care to set the die up to seat and crimp in one step.

The new dies that I have bought really do not have a good roll crimp, more of a taper crimp. That will also cause some debris buildup. I started seating and crimping a long time ago to prevent the lead being shaved off of the bullet.