I have a Redding profile crimp die for my .357 RCBS die set and just love it. It's a very tight roll crimp but irons out your case to squeeze in down a hair and does a heck of a job on bullet pull. Wish I had one for my .44mag die set but the Lee set puts a good roll crimp on my cases. It takes a little practice to get used to setting the amount of crimp with the profile because you can't see much with your eyes as it rolls under somewhat. But you can feel it in your press handle. BM

Bill

The RCBS dies were ok, they just made a lot of their expanders too large. If you chuck the expander and slowly polish it down, you can get good bullet pull. The thing is very hard so it will take a lot of work and trial and error. The Redding profile crimp die is excellent and I wouldn't be without it.
Years ago I had a special die set made for my .44's that used a collar to neck size. I had a variety of collars made and it worked very well. I used an undersize expander to put a slight flare on the mouth. It took too long to load the ammo needed for silhouette so I bought Hornady dies. Their expander is just right. I think Redding dies would be good too, I just don't have any of their revolver dies anymore. I had them in .357 super mag and .375 super mag and they worked fine. I gave them away with the guns when I sold them.

Bill, I hate to break your bubble, but the profile crimper does NOT squeeze the brass tighter on the boolit to increase case tension. If you take a sized, expanded case with NO flare and seat a bullet, then insert by hand into the Redding crimp die, it will go in all the way to the crimp shoulder. The die does not do anything but crimp. If you think a crimp will compensate for poor bullet pull, you are mistaken. If your dies are the correct dimensions for the proper bullet pull, you are doing fine. The proper expander is the key.

My bubble is ok. Sounds like the RCBS 38x357 die set that I have is not doing it's job very well. That's the reason I bought the Redding profile crimp die in the first place, because the RCBS made a crappy crimp. I may look into buying some Redding dies for the revolver. BM

BM

No, No, No. the crimp will not make up for too large of an expander! I use the Redding and it is great. But you want a TIGHT case around the bullet. More important is to have ALL the cases with the same tension on the bullet.
Now I am not saying that a loose fit won't shoot good, it does IF ALL ARE THE SAME. The problem is that it is too hard to control due to differences in brass structure and hardness. One thing to never do with revolver brass is to try to even out the brass by annealing it---BIG TROUBLE.
If you have old RCBS dies, scrap them and buy the Hornady titanium nitride dies. The dimensions are perfect.

OOPS, I see you have Redding dies. They are good. If all of your bullets feel the same when seating, no easy ones and then a hard one, you are OK. They should all feel the same when pushing in the bullets.

Wanted to follow up on some issues about bullet pull and crimping discussed in the Handgun Hunting forum under the thread ".45 Colt and black bear".



Question: What do you guys think of the Redding Profile crimp die? It is basically a taper crimp and roll crimp all "rolled" into one die. It doesn't seem to squeeze the case too much, at least not enough to deform the seated bullet, but this would seem to overcome any looseness caused by an expander plug a wee bit too large. I haven't done any formal empirical studies but it definitely seems to tighten my groups compared with using the seating die roll crimp shoulder alone.



My jacketed bullet loads most all seem to shoot round groups in the calibers I shoot - .357, .44 Mag and .45 Colt, but my recently acquired 4" M629 seems to like to shoot very narrow groups about 1" wide but about 2-2 1/2" inches vertically. Not all the time but if you look at a series of groups that trend emerges. From the discussion it seems that uneven bullet pull is the most likely culprit. BTW - been out of the .44 business for a few years, loading only .38, .357 and .45 Colt. Recently bought this .44 revolver and new dies, so this is the first firearm using this die set and I haven't measured the diameter of the expander plug. Will do so ASAP to see how much it is expanding the case.



On using a .44 expander plug for .45's, I'm guessing that's about .022" undersized or thereabouts - the plug doesn't even touch the inside of the case, it only bells the case mouth. Is that correct? If so, do you figure a guy could use a .41 expander on .44 Magnum cases for the same result? I use Redding Titanium sizer dies for all my handgun loading and they sure do squeeze the case down so I start with a nice tight fit.