In the old days, I had dies that actually provided a nice roll crimp on .44 and .357/.38 reloads. The new "roll crimp" dies I have from RCBS merely give a straight squeeze to the top of the brass, but do not roll the case into the crimp groove.

I had Dillon accu crimp dies but they were not roll crimp. I bought two sets of RCBS dies, don't ask me why, neither one will roll crimp like the RCBS dies I wore out. I went back to the Dillon crimp die, which seems better than the RCBS "roll crimp".

I really don't want to have to buy every brand of roll crimp die to find if at least one will actually "roll" crimp into the crimping groove.

Thanks for your assistance.

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Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

Sounds like you have a taper crimp die in the roll crimp box or you have the roll crimp die set too high.

I've used those by RCBS, Redding, Lyman, Herter's, and perhaps some others; all worked fine. Is your adjustment okay?

Redding makes a special profile crimp die for revolvers that can be adjusted to just roll over, or to roll over and then flatten brass into cannelure.

LFC will also do this, if adjusted down far enough. Am not familiar with any other regular roll crimp dies that do this.

Redding Profile Crimp dies.

You need to check your die adjustment and make sure you have a roll crimp die and not a taper. I don't see how any die from any major manufacturer will not put a satisfactory roll crimp on a case.

I have RCBS, Lee, Hornady, & Redding roll crimp dies & if you adjust them lightly you'll get a rolled crimp but if you adjust them too much it flattens out the crimp. Some dies seem to go from one extreme to another with very little change.

If all your brass aren't exactly the same length (not mine) you'll get a range of roll crimps from the same setting. You just have to find a happy medium or mess with adjustment constantly.

.

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M29? Do you feel lucky, punk?

I've had best results lately using the Lee Factory Crimp dies as noted above. ("LFC" in Post #4) Next best have been Hornady. But I crimp in a separate operation from seating, which may influence things somewhat.

My RCBS 38/357 and 44spl/mag dies are 6 years old or so and do a very nice roll crimp.

I use Hornady dies for 44/38/357 and the roll crimp is very nice. I do trim all my brass in these calibers as others have mentioned and the roll crimps are very consistent. I have found with the Hornady dies there is a very fine line between a good solid roll crimp and a buckled case. I'm talking 1/16th of a turn. Trim the brass and get it set and you're golden.

Redding makes a profile crimp die that is excellent but it's a little expensive too.
Redding Profile Crimp Die 38 Special 357 Mag

Believe it or not, Lee is now making a collect style crimp die for handgun cartridges. It's listed as a profile crimp die and is half the price of the Redding die.
Lee Collet-Style Crimp Die 38 Special 357 Mag

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

CH4D , you can order just the roll crimp die and they will roll in an old school crimp.
50 years reloading, CH4D are my favorite above every other brand .
Gary

The crimp die that I have looks like it just makes a vertical compression in the case at the crimp groove, rather than rolling the crimp inward. This has been a frustrating exercise. Oh, and no it is not a taper crimp, just square!

I will try one of the dies that have been recommended.

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Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

+1 on the Redding Profile crimp die.
They have been tested out as the best at preventing bullet creep.
I use the 44 version on just about every 44 cartridge out there when loading bullets that have a groove of any sort.
For bullets with no groove or cannelure or when loading them so the groove doesn't line up,
the LFC die works fine but the revolver ones have a carbide ring some of us don't like for oversized cast bullets.
My RCBS or Redding seat/crimp dies usually do a good job roll crimping as well but I like to do it in a separate step
with the seat dies set so they don't crimp.
Sometimes when I don't feel I need a hard crimp or am loading a solid shank bullet or a plated one
I'll use a taper crimp to basically just remove the expansion bell mouth.

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NEMO
"Everything 44"

I learned something the other day. The Lee Factory Crimp die for a pistol does a roll crimp (and a fine one too) while the Lee Factory Crimp die for rifle is a collet style. Or that's the way it was when I ordered a FCD for my 357 mag. My friends die set for a 300AAC had the collet. Both died were referred as a FCD.

Sometimes, some of us don't want a profile crimp !!! Profile crimp tends to swage down the diameter of the bullet as well as the case as it tightens.

I have 45 Colts with .454 chambers. I have .455 Webley.

My .455 bullets need to stay .455". I use a Lyman 45-70 .456 expander plug to make the .454 "NEST" for the bullet. There is a snap-back of .002", so the .456 - .002 = .454" nest

Profile crimp from Redding definitely can swage. The Lee crimper U9 for .45 colt/.455 Webley definitely swages down the bullet as well to .4525. After making a perfect .454 nest, the perfect bullet diameter is lost using a profile crimp.

My answer for this situation, is to roll crimp ONLY the mouth; unlike the profile crimp which swages along the bullet shank.


Prescut

Take the seating stem out of an RCBS seat-crimp die and it make a very good roll crimp die.

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NEMO
"Everything 44"

I'll second this comment!

I have been using the profile crimp dies since this thread began and totally unhappy with them. I just look up a couple of websites without any success and then found that RCBS advertises roll crimp dies, so am going to order a couple. Will keep you informed to see if they really roll crimp.

To those who said that the profile crimp will roll crimp, let me say that I have not been able to figure out how that is done. I only use lead bullets with a crimp groove and have not been able to get a real roll crimp, like I used to get with crimp dies.

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Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

I would try the zhornady, but trying to figure out you wear a crimp/seating die out?

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

I started with RCBS over 40 years ago and they work just fine.

I don't know where my old dies went. I either lost them in one of the several moves, or something! Several years ago, my sizing die started scratching cases, so I bought a new set. I may have give some of them away to new reloaders. Makes no difference, they are gone.

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Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

These have worked pretty good for me. Think I have five or six different sets of dies trying to mix and match for different bullets. These have been the best so far with .358" sized bullets. The Redding Profile Crimp Die, I have bought two, thinking that the first must be sized wrong. With brass within plus or minus .003", of the same headstamp, I could not reliably not swag my bullets. Either a taper crimp or swagged bullet. Bought both Lee CARBIDE Factory crimp die, and the custom COLLET crimp die. Both worked ok with an eye on brass wall thickness with a .358". Also there MAY be an issue with flexibility in Carbide sizing ring among CFC die. The second picture shows how I get repeatable settings when adjusting dies.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

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M629-4PP M686-4PP M617

What method/tools do you use to roll crimp "just the mouth"?

I have not loaded anything but lead bullets in years. I like to roll the case mouth in the crimp groove so that the mouth is below the edge of the front driving band. Makes a good looking cartridge, and works extremely well.

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Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

You use a roll crimping die. They're available separately from Lyman (directly) & RCBS. If, for what ever reason you want to do it as a separate step, you can pull the seating stem.

Uh, just re-read post #1, OP might want to contact RCBS and ask about why their current dies-or at least the one you got-performs the way it does. Proper roll crimps are very dependent upon having consistent case lengths.

I hope the OP has found a solution since he first posted about 3 1/2 years ago. Much has been said about crimping but I use a Redding taper crimp die for my 44 and 357 Magnums and cast bullets. In all the crimps I have tested using a Redding crimp die with cast bullets from 10-15 BHN, none were swaged down any more than any other crimping tool. Most (all) were the same size when I took them out as when I seated them...

I have to go along with everyone who likes RCBS, I've been using them for years and get a real good roll crimp when needed.

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Ed

I bought RCBS roll crimp dies for .44 and .357. I have tried the .44 and it is acceptable, but I have not worked with the .357 yet. I will report back on it as soon as I load some .38 or .357 ammo. Thanks to all for their comments.

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Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

I quit messing around with roll crimping years ago. If I need to keep bullet in place I work on neck tension first, and then use a Lee Factory Crimp collet second. The bullets I use in my 329pd hold still with full-house loads.

As stated above is what I've found with my RCBS dies as well.
Trim, seat, then raise the seater and get the die set up to roll in the groove.... too low... no good.
Middle to just below the top... nice roll crimp.... light or heavy is possible.
Perfection is possible when taking your time.
It took/takes me time to get it right with each bullet.... hammer bullet puller useful after dummy is perfect.
My hammer and the old Lees work the same way but then the press was invented...
or became affordable.

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Have Fun/Stay Safe

It's not just about keeping the bullet in place under extreme recoil but a light or heavy crimp allows time for proper powder burn.
Or so I'm told.
Our 3.5" and 8.375" 460s are two different Beasts.

Have read that 45ACP Bullseye shooters take the taper crimp well below that which the books list for better results.

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Have Fun/Stay Safe

Try Lyman. I like lymans roll crimp on cast bullets. I believe Brian Pearce of handloader magazine prefers Lyman for roll crimps on lead bullets but I may be wrong. I have Redding profile crimp and it is more of a taper crimp

I have found that seating and crimping at the same time requires one to do a lot of die adjustment. Once you understand what the die is doing and how to adjust it's like a major scientific discovery. It aint that easy. As a new reloader about 10 years ago I found that seating and crimping in separate operations was much easier then getting that adjustment just right. Once I had that mastered I started experimenting with seating and crimping with the same stroke. I learned how to do that but I'm not convinced it's better on some cartridges. It's really nice to be able to adjust a crimp as you load. You can't do that easily if you seat and crimp with the same stroke because the dies have to be adjusted for two operations where a crimp die only has one job.

Personally, I think the seat/crimp die was an effort to reduce the cost of a die set, not make better ammo or make it easier to reload. Lots of people have found that a progressive press with both seat die and crimp die is the perfect setup.

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That's just somebody talkin.

Agree with this. LFC, at least in my hands, puts the best crimp, so I seat with the RCBS die, then change the die and crimp.

Thread from the dead..!

Look at the overcrimp in this thread...357 how am I doing?

Less crimp will work much better.

It seems there's little uniformity with seating/crimp dies between manufacturers and, I suppose, time. I have Dillon, Lee, Hornady, Lyman, Pacific (old Hornady), RCBS, with some duplicates, just for .44 Mag, plus some more for .44 Spl. ( I don't like adjusting dies. I'd rather set each one up for a specific bullet, etc.) Most all have found a niche where they work better than the others.
The toughest match was getting "big" 0.433" cast bullets with wide front bands to go without either getting the whole case sized down/stuck or the bullet driving band damaged. That job is done with a Dillon die that has a big lower and upper (above the crimp) I.D. Had to remove the seating plug to make it work, but it's been great in that role. It did a miserable job with 0.429" bullets anyway.

BTW, the Lee FCD dies aren't all that uniform in the carbide "uniforming" ring I.D. Which has also worked out well, because of the different bullet diameters used.

I have noticed some rounds after bullet seating won't drop into my L.E. Wilson sizing gauge. They seem to have a tiny bulge that keeps them from dropping in. That uniforming ring does a great job of eliminating that bulge in the cartridge so that after applying the crimp it drops right in. Another reason I use the LFC die for crimping.

It probably doesn't help accuracy, though! It all depends on what you are trying to achieve.

In the case of .44 Magnum for shooting long range steel with older 29s (Pre-1990s, basically) I use "fat", soft, swaged lead projectiles which require almost no case neck tension, lest they get reduced in size. The bullets ideally can be seated 1/2 to all the way with thumb pressure before placing in the press.

To avoid "failure to chamber" dramas with these loads a Lee FCD is used in the first station of a Dillon 550. Crimping parts removed! Then a partial (neck?) size to just below bullet seating depth, then a custom expander plug, then a small flare. Priming, powder and initial bullet seating done off press. After doing a run that fills a mess of reloading trays the head is swapped on the Dillon for the seating and crimping dies. (In this case another Lee FCD die is used for crimping, but it has a larger carbide ring I.D., so it only bumps the flare, not the rest of the case.)

USUALLY, the initial pass through the stripped FCD die does nothing, but I did have a few problems before incorporating this step, probably from shooting ammo in different revolvers for testing. 95% of the time, though, this ammo gets used in one of three revolvers which all play well together, brass wise.

You do what you have to in order to get good results at 100yd or 200m, with "clunky old S&Ws" depending on the competition. And you have to be able to still shoot well after 35 rounds to connect with those distant Rams, either freestyle or standing. No artificial supports! I suppose I could use my Freedom Arms .41 Mag, but it's just not as satisfying.

BTW, it seems that the Lee FCD die is also particularly good at producing a uniform crimp all about the circumference of the case, probably a combination of the guiding tendency of the uniforming ring to center the cartridge and the free floating crimper. Some "old school" crimp dies are bad to crimp one side much more than the other, esp. if they have generous clearances.

That's interesting. I'd never heard of doing that until just now.