Hey guys,

I was wondering how much to crimp low-powered .44 special rounds, with plain lead swc's. Is it best to just copy the crimp of a factory round?

thanks,
vanbuzen9

Reduced loads really don't require a heavy crimp like that on factory rounds. In fact, too heavy of a crimp results in lead stripping.

Sort of a trial and error process, but the best way is to crimp a few lightly, shoot and see if the unfired ones start moving forward. If not, then the crimp will be OK. If you detect bullet movement, then apply a little more crimp until they stop moving in the cylinder and one or more are fired.

vanbuzen9,
I agree with kdub that crimping is not critical with what you are doing.
I would only add that the "details" are what makes handloads better than factoy loads.
Make them as much the same as you can. if you make enough "small differences" it can add up too a " significant difference". If you make enough of those you will make a "bigger difference". Do you see where I am going?
Just "gently" fold the mouth into the grove. It will take very little force.
Cheezywan

A light crimp on low pressure loads can make a pretty big difference in the consistency of the ballistics of the load. It's worth your time to put at least a light crimp on the bullet for your .44 Spec loads.

Just informational.

When the Charter Arms bulldog first came out, they discovered something with that first light weight .44specail: factroy loads would sometimes jump the crimp and tie up the gun. Recoil was enough taht the loaded cylinder did a fair immitation of an inertia bullet puller....but round 3 or 4, would sometimes have bullet noses hanging out of the cylinder (which wouldn't let the cylinder rotate past the cylinder gap and tie the gun up). Didn't happen with the heavy guns as they didn't get the rearward recoil velocity.

So they increased crimp. Is still a problemw ith some of the Ti / UltraLite revolvers in hard kicking calibers...they normally recommend jacketed bullets due to their ability to take a hard crimp and stay put.

Besides giving some consistancy, it's also good to crimp even lite loads enough so that they do not jump crimp. You might fire that gun two or three times...relaod the fired cases...and go on to fire it another three or four times, so it's possible that some rounds would ahve to stand up to 10 "jolts".

I agree with whats been said but will add one thing, unless I missed it, and that's case length. So many people say they never trim handgun cases and that's alright as long as the cases never lengthen. But it seems to me that most cases should be the same length to give the same crimp.

Bill

I agree with whats been said but will add one thing, unless I missed it, and that's case length. So many people say they never trim handgun cases and that's alright as long as the cases never lengthen. But it seems to me that most cases should be the same length to give the same crimp. BillAbsolutely true. Revolver cases should be trimmed just for that reason. Nothing is more frustrating than to run the loading lever down to crimp and find that you've either chewed off a piece of the forward band or you're trying to create a crimp groove where there is none. Maybe those people who say they never trim handgun cases are thinking of cases for the semi-auto.

AS to trimming handgun cases...I have a ton of 45colt brass of different brands and the oal can vary by as much as .012,so I trim em all to one lenght so that the roll crimp is more uniform,and in the groove where it belongs.
My .44 specials get the same treatment,and about the same crimp as my cowboy .45 loads,just roll em into the groove.I"ve seen no improvement with hard-crimping 'em on my mile loads.