I have been reading and searching the forums for the past couple of weeks trying to learn as much as I can, and I have learned a great bit from everything here. But I do have a few questions now regarding my own personal setup.

I have the RCBS Rock Chucker kit and RCBS .270 dies, it's the 2 die setup. I have been doing some dry runs without any powder just to get the feel. I think I have the case sizing down but when it comes to bullet seating I have a few concerns.

Do I crimp or not? The bullets I use to shoot from the factory had a crimp but the dies say you can seat with crimping. Kind of confused on what would be better and safer. When does a person need to crimp?

If I seat a bullet than remove it from the case, can I use that bullet again? Or is it better to discard it?

When I seated the bullet I was getting little shavings where the bullet was being pressed into the case. Not much at all but they were there. Is that normal?

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give as much detail as I could.

Any advice would be greatly appreciate too.

Chris

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ZM

Sounds like you need to deburr the inside and the outside of your case mouth. You should have a deburr tool with your kit. Turn the cutter "just' enough to take off the sharp edge of the brass.Do not cut so much as to create a "knife" edge. Sounds like you're new to reloading? Case length is critical for safety. Measure all your cases and trim the length to the recommended length. You can reuse the bullets you pull if they are not deformed. Crimping is generally recommended for pumps, semi-autos, and lever actions.

To adjust you dies for not crimping: Put a sized and trimmed to length case in the shellholder and raise the ram. Back out the bullet seater stem at the top of your die several turns. Screw the die into the press until you "feel" it hit the case and won't turn any farther by hand. Back the die out of the press about 1 full turn so that it no longer touches the case. Put in proper amount of powder, put bullet in the case mouth and raise the ram. Screw in the bullet seater stem and keep raising and lowering the ram and turning in the stem till you get the bullet seated to the proper depth. Lock down the seater stem lock nut and load all your cases.

For crimping: you can crimp and seat the bullet in one step or you can seat all your bullets then crimp them later in another step. I recommend crimping all your loaded rounds later in a separate step. Most factory rounds are crimped as they don't know what kind of gun you're using. To adjust your die to crimp, load all your rounds. Loosen the die lock nut and the seater stem lock nut. Back the seater stem out from your die several turns so it will be a good distance away from your seated bullet. With a loaded round at the top, screw in the die body till it touches the case. Lower the ram. Screw the die body in a tiny amount (1/16-1/8 of a turn). Raise the ram and lower and check the crimp. Try to duplicate a factory crimp and it'll be about right. Clear as mud??

I over twenty years of reloading I have never crimped and have yet to see a need for it other than maybe rifles with tubular magazines or extreme recoiling rifles.In the 270 it is not necessary.

Stubblejumper is exactly right! You do NOT need to crimp a .270. There are precious FEW cartridges that actually require crimping, most are automatics.

And to take this a step further, improper crimping is one of the fastest ways you can get into trouble with your reloading. You can jack pressures thru the roof as well as set the shoulder back and create excessive headspace. (Both very dangerous)

If you think you just have to crimp, get a Lee Factory Crimp die. Very inexpensive, simple to use and much easier to avoid the above mentioned bugaboos.

Just back your bullet seating die up about 1/4 of an inch above the ram in your press when it is extended all the way up and then adjust your seating depth with the seating screw in the top of the die until it seats a bullet to the depth you desire.

I just loaded 4 boxes of 270 yesterday...all uncrimped. My 270 could care less for a crimp.

Enjoy your equipment and new hobby. Pay attention and double check what you are doing with your powders and you'll live to be an old fart like me.

Whether or not to crimp is controversial: Some shooters never do it, and others claim that crimping with the Lee Factory Crimp Die increases accuracy. If you go to Saeed's FAQ pages where he reports on this question, you will see that he did tests that seem to indicate that crimping did increase accuracy (by a small but measurable amount) for most of the calibers and loads he tried.

My advice would be that you not crimp for awhile until you master the other steps in reloading and become confident in your loading skills. Then if you want to do tests to see whether crimping gives you better results, you can do so; you will already have results against which you can compare.

Good point LE270 about not backing the die up so far. The more support of case and bullet for seating alignment the better.

Thanks guys!

Printed it out and set it on my bench for reference.

Ok great, I think I have a better idea of what it takes to crimp and why.

Thanks again everyone!

I'll let you know how it goes, need to pick up some powder this week.