Are these bullets crimped too much? (is there such a thing as doing so?)

[Doug.38PR]

Hello all,
I just got into reloading about a year ago. been reading, taking my time, slowly going through each step.

Here is the first batch. .38 Special, with Winchester Small Pistol primers, Speer 158 gr LRN bullets, cartridges loaded with 4.0 grains of Unique.

I crimped them by eyeballing some Buffalo Bore LHP rounds I had in my gun and a few Remington white box LRN rounds I found in my drawer.

The one on the far left are two reloads Speer LRN (left) next to two Remington factory LRN (right)

The one on the far right is the original of the batch

What do y'all think?

 

[BE Mike]

They are safe to shoot like they are, but probably don't need so much crimp for the load you are shooting. Buffalo Bore ammo is loaded to much higher pressures and velocities and might need the heavy crimp to keep the bullets in a cylinder from walking out of their cases from heavy recoil. Putting a heavy crimp on your brass, weakens it and causes it to crack prematurely at the case mouth.

 

[mtgrs737]

Your crimps look fine to me. A good crimp is needed to keep bullets from working out of the cases during firing of other cartridges in the cylinder. The crimp also helps hold on to the bullet so that pressure builds and the powder gets a good start burning. If you do as you have done and compare your crimps to the crimp the factory applies you will be just fine. The only down side to heavy crimps is that it can excellerate splitting of the case mouth due to excessive working of the brass. For consistant velocities make sure your brass is trimmed to equal lengths as the crimp die depends on this for consistant crimps.

 

[Rule3]

A little hard to tell by the pictures as not real clear but based on what I can see they look fine. Maybe a little heavy but better heavy than not enough other than wearing out the brass.

A good way to test:

Load a dummy round (no powder or primer) crimp it lightly. Measure it with your caliper. Now put the round on the bench, garage floor etc and with the heal of your had push down as hard as you can (might what to wear a glove or use a rag to avoid denting your hand) Now measure the round. Did it move, is is shorter? If not you are good to go. If the crimp is way to light you will feel the bullet move or even push it into the case.

 

[mkk41]

Your crimps look fine to me. A good crimp is needed to keep bullets from working out of the cases during firing of other cartridges in the cylinder. The crimp also helps hold on to the bullet so that pressure builds and the powder gets a good start burning. If you do as you have done and compare your crimps to the crimp the factory applies you will be just fine. The only down side to heavy crimps is that it can excellerate splitting of the case mouth due to excessive working of the brass. For consistant velocities make sure your brass is trimmed to equal lengths as the crimp die depends on this for consistant crimps.

Couldn't have said it any better.

 

[aphelion]

As somebody else mentioned, there is probably a little more crimp than is necessary for the load you are using. Heavier loads with slower burning powders generally will need more crimp (for several reasons), lighter loads with faster burning powders will generally need less. But there is more to it than that, as there usually is with reloading topics. Rather than type a couple of pages, I am inclined to suggest you read up on the topic. There are plenty of discussions about crimping in the various reloading manuals, and on line.

And yes, it is possible to overdo a crimp. You can actually reduce bullet pull by over crimping. Over crimping will deform the case mouth and push the case walls away from the bullet. All things considered, constriction of the case wall around the bullet is more important than the crimp to get adequate bullet pull. Which leads to another lengthy discussion. Then there is roll crimping vs. taper crimping. And the Lee factory crimp die is its own subject all by itself. Have fun.

 

[Titegroups]

Hard to tell from pics but it looks excessive to me. I load a lot of .38 and only use a light crimp. When I first started reloading I crimped the hell out everything and soon realized it wasn't needed with light recoil. You may want to try testing your crimps with a impact type bullet puller, the recoil of the gun and the bullet pullers will apply force in the same direction.

 

[Culina]

Its probably the right amount of crimp for an alloy J frame, too heavy for anything else though.

 

[Skip Sackett]

No, they are not crimped too much. In fact, with 4.0gr of Unique, they will work much, much, better like they are.

I had a friend that shot competition and used Unique. I asked the stupid question: "Isn't that dirty?" He came right back with: "At anything less than 4.5gr, yes, and not too accurate either."

The crimp you have put on will wear out cases faster. Work the brass, it gets brittle, shortens life. If you want to lighten up on the crimp, move up a bit in powder weight, set the bullets a tad deeper and you may be okay. Stay within published limits though.

Unique is a GREAT powder in the 45Colt if run correctly. I am "under impressed" with current data in the 38spl. Bullseye is a much better choice for "plinking" rounds in my opinion.

FWIW

 

[fredj338]

The 38sp doesn't need that much crimp to work well, even in a J-frame. Safe sure, but as SC notes, you are just wearing your brass out & in some instances, you could be swaging the bullet base smaller, never good for accuracy.

 

[Doug.38PR]

Glad to know they are safe to shoot. I'm probably not going to shoot any of them until I cook up another batch, I want to stay ahead of myself. I was thinking of going up a little on the powder.

Interesting crazy smith about 4.5. 38 Special +P Load Data - Handloads.Com There is a guy on here that shows 950 ft per second out of a 158 gr bullet using 4.5 grains of Unique .....that either says a heck of a lot about Unique or he was using a REAL long barrel...that's way beyond anything my reloading manuel says about 4.5 grains of Unique

 

[brucev]

The crimp is fine. You may wear your brass out quicker, but .38 brass is common and cheap. If this load with this crimp gives you the on target results you desire, load and crimp and fire away! Personally, I prefer a taper crimp as it makes case length less critical. That is of course just my own preference. If I were commonly shooting lead bullets at high velocity out of light-weight revolvers, I'd likely look at a roll crimp.

 

[Doug.38PR]

You know...I didn't even measure my case length, I just

1) Deprime cartridges
2) Scrub primer space with screw driver head
3) Trim brass with Lee cutter and drill bit
4) Flare
5) Deburr
6) Tumble
7) Prime cartridges
8) Measure powder using scale
9) use powder mixer for every 10 shots (remeasuring weight)
10) Load bullets/crimp
11) Have fun (I have yet to do this step)

The cartridge cases are anything from winchester to CBC to remington to federal and a few other obscure ammo makers.