Adjusting bullet depth & crimps (taper & roll): The easiest way is to place a correct factory round into the shell holder and adjust the dies to that! But for a number of reasons, that is possible a lot of the time.
So here goes:
In a standard 3 die set, your 3rd die is both seat to length and crimp die. We will work with that, but it is much easier to do it in two separate steps.
For roll crimp; back out the seating stem & adjust crimp on an empty sized case, then estimate (guess) where the plug should be, it may take a few tries. [warning: set too short may buckle cases! it happens, just get used to it.]
For Taper crimp: reverse the process, length the crimp. There is a problem, Adjust the crimp and the depth changes! Make several (5 max) sized and seated to length dummy cases. Then back the seating plug out one half to one turn. Now start to tighten the die down until desired crimp The test is (1) all case mouth flare is removed and mouth is tight against the bullet, but when you run a finger nail over it you still feel the small edge of the mouth. (2) drop into the chamber of your gun and it doesn't fall too far! (3) take first 3 loaded rounds and fire from the magazine. (you could spend the money on a case gauge. (in 40 years of reloading, I never bothered-I think they were a solution to the problem of impatience! not a reloading problem)
Reset the seating plug wand lock in place.
An additional seating problem, after several (up to several hundred) rounds with cast bullets (or poorly coated bullets) a build up of "Gunk" on the seating stem CAN/MAY cause the bullets to be seated short on taper crimp or buckle cases in roll crimp. JUST clean the stem with Q-tips or even a pop sickle stick. L-I-L system makes this easy!
I hope you find this helpful.
Ivan
