OK so it is my first time reloading by myself. One of my friends showed me how and I am up to seating/crimping. Now my question is I have 2 plugs that go into the die. One is marked 38 Cal WC and the other is marked 38 RN. is the one marked RN for the roll crimp?? The WC seems to have a bowl depression and the RN has a flat depression. Also, I have read and heard that i should roll crimp it, is that correct??
thanks

The seating plug is what pushes the bullet into the case. Use the plug that matches your bullet nose the closest. The flat plug or wad cutter (wc) plug will probably be your best bet unless you are loading round nose (RN) lead bullets.
The seating/crimping die body controls the crimp. I don't know what brand of dies you have, but most seating/crimping dies roll crimp for revolver rounds & taper crimp for semiauto rounds. What kind of press are you using? If it's a single stage (loads one at a time), then you may want to seat all of your bullets at one time then adjust your die & crimp all of them.
Put an empty case in the press. Raise the case all the way up & screw the seating crimping die into the press until you feel it stop against the case. Lock the die in place & then take a primed/powder filled case & put it in the press, there should be a slight bell to the case mouth taht allows a bullet to just set on top. Run the case up into the die & screw the plug down a bit at a time until the bullet seats to the crimp groove or cannelure (groove around the bullet). After you have all bullets seated, back the plug out & put a round back in the press. Unlock the die ring & turn the die down 1/4 turn & run the case up. You should feel a slight pressure, remove th round & the case mouth should have "rolled" into the groove. You don't needmuch crimp, so go slow if you go past 1/4 turn.
That's kind of a nutshell expaination. You should get a reloading book or two & read up on handgun reloading before you go too far & get into trouble. Continue to ask questions too.

thanks for your response, Thats what I was doing with my friend, I just didn't see 2 different plugs. Now I have another question. I weighed out the charge I wanted and reweighed 5 or 6 times to verify that it was the same. I started charging my rounds and after I had done 10 I decided to dump out a round and make sure it was still the same. it wasn't, so then I dropped a charge into my scale and it was. So, when I dumped the charge from the case to the shell did some get left in the shell? I can see some bits in there ?? I did dump all my cases into the scale and they were all reading consistent. about .5 less if I was to dropp the charge directly to the scale. Was I doing it right ?? should I not dump the charge out of the shell to verify??

Depending on the powder thrower, the type of powder and the operators variations, there is usually some difference in charge weights.

Appart from powder bridgeing and getting held up in the measure, the difference is usually of no consequence. Usually a glance in the charged case to make sure it looks about right is enough.
Your right though a couple/few grains can settle into the primer but can usually be tapped out.

It sounds to me you may have a different speed or technique between the scale pan and direct into the cases. No big deal.

OK, one last dumb question. The powder thrower I have is the Lee (most basic, red "hopper") It seems to drop ALOT of powder out of the side. I put a rag underneath and after 80 charges, I picked up 38gs....is this normal?? or is this because it is new??

That was quick. Why arn't we out shooting.
I have hayfever.

Um, yes somewhere here in the last day or so people were talking about the Lee measures, and the gist of it was to read the directions, and apparently there is a screw to adjust to tighten something up for fine powder or to loosen for the course stuff.
I've never used one. The post about it may be called something like "Lee Powder measure" or something.

OK now for the question about crimping...I have it set to where the bullet gets seated and crimped at the same time. when the bullet comes out there is a very thin shaving, like a ring that comes off the brass. Is that to much of a crimp?? how can you tell

Probably not too much crimp. When you set the die to seat & crimp at the same time, the bullet is something like 3/4 seated when the die starts the crimp. This shaves a bit of the bullets material off. That's why I suggested you seat all of your rounds first, then reset your die & crimp. The shaving won't really hurt anything but accuracy could suffer a bit.
Remember all you are trying to do when crimping is turn the case mouth back into the bullets crimp groove. Yous hould barely see the diff. between a crimp & straight case.
As far as your Lee pm, I haven't used one but the important thing about any pm is to throw the charge the same way every time. If you tap the handle on the up stroke, then do it every time. I use an older RCBS & tap the handle on the up & down stroke, every time. This makes it more consistant. If you are dumping your case back in the pan to weigh it, tap the case to make sure all of the powder comes out.

As fredj338 said, but I think my crimp is more sudden. You might try backing off the die a bit increase the seat stem down the same amount.

You can fiddle with it gradually and just recrimp a bit each go.

My test for crimp is when I can't twist the bullet in the case.
And of course the bullet shouldn't move forward
under recoil.
And you shouldn't feel too much pressure on the press handle, as it has quite a bit of leverage.

For crimping I like the Lee Factory Crimp Die......excellent job.....cost about $10.00.

quote:

Originally posted by Caleb:
thanks for your response, Thats what I was doing with my friend, I just didn't see 2 different plugs. Now I have another question. I weighed out the charge I wanted and reweighed 5 or 6 times to verify that it was the same. I started charging my rounds and after I had done 10 I decided to dump out a round and make sure it was still the same. it wasn't, so then I dropped a charge into my scale and it was. So, when I dumped the charge from the case to the shell did some get left in the shell? I can see some bits in there ?? I did dump all my cases into the scale and they were all reading consistent. about .5 less if I was to dropp the charge directly to the scale. Was I doing it right ?? should I not dump the charge out of the shell to verify??

If you are not using carbide dies and are lubing the cases powder can stick to the sizing lube that gets in the case and keep it from emptying all the way. I like carbide sizing dies so that I don't have to lube at all.

A .5 difference is large in 38/357 rounds because you're not throwing that big of a charge. I would have thought that the difference would be .1 grains or less between loads.

Caleb, Both the Lee "Perfect" and "Auto Disk" powder measures have red hoppers. In the former, YOU operate the handle to throw a powder charge. In the latter, a "powder through expander die" operates the measure to throw a charge. If you have the Perfect, try tightening the screw on the drum (where the handle attaches) a bit. If it's the Auto Disk, you may not have the disk inserted correctly and/or the hopper screws are too loose: Gently tighten them or you'll strip the thin plastic cavities on the hopper.

Caleb dont worry about asking to many questions forgive me for my spelling, i have the lee auto disk and you have to play with it a little if i was you check out the screw on the side you should not be losing powder from the side tighten it up next i would invest in dit.scale,and a powder trickler that way you can get each load percise good luck later