I've got a Sako Finnlight in 270 Win. I use cases that are sized in a Lee Collet Die and I get 1/2 to 3/4" groups, I'm very pleased to say the least. My question is, I would like to use the same cases in my hunting loads. There seems to be enough neck tension but I wonder if there is an adequate amount to retain bullets in the magazine. My experience in the past has been that neck tension is much more important to hold bullets securely than crimping. Will the Lee Factory Crimp die give my loads adequate bullet retention for hunting?
Thanks,
Jeff

Very much so! You can control the degree of crimp the die applies. Crimping might be a moot point with a .270 though - I doubt the recoil would be sufficient to set the bullets back. If it does, you may want to polish a thou' or so off the collet die's mandrel, which will size the neck that much tighter.

For what it's worth, I've found an improvement in accuracy with every calibre I've used the factory crimp die for. It's a wonderful gadget.

I use it religiously for my 44 mag (loaded with 355 casts at 1100 fps) and my458 Win Mag!

Crimp is not necessary on .270. Only rifle rounds I use a crimp on are those that will be loaded into tubular mags - 30-30 and 45-70.

I don't think it would hurt anything to try a crimp on a few, but it's really not necessary.

My experience is that crimping provides more uniform starting pressures and velocities. Plus, you don't wind up dropping a bullet and having it be 1/4" shorter than the others.

I had a lot of problems with .454Casull loads slipping out of their cases under recoil til I got one of these, but I'm not sure that I would regard it as necessary for a .270win.
If you think there is accuracy to be gained then go for it, but again, I don't know that crimping the necks will give you better accuracy. It might help with concentricity, but I've never heard of any BR shooters doing this.

Great for heavy recoiling and tubular mags.

Jeff57,

I have them in 270 Winchester, 30-30 Winchester, 7-30 Waters, 357 Magnum, and 44 Magnum. They put a perfect crimp on all calibers mentioned. It does add an extra step, but I think it is worth it. Good-luck...BCB

I use it in every 300WinMag round I load, from soft to hot and whether I'm testing recipes or doing quantity. My reasoning is simple. Even if in testing I tend to single-load the rounds and recoil won't affect seating of subsequent shots I will eventually use X or Y recipe in the field where I have to trust that bullets won't creep. Might as well test them with a crimp and remove that potential variable.

Oh, and I do it with the separate factory crimp die. Try this next time you set it up: with no case in the shellholder put the ram all the way up so the 4 pieces of the crimper thing close completely. Then insert a bullet up side down and see how far it goes. I tried it and I'm thinking all the way closed is way too much crimp so I've been more careful not to go too far.

Jeff,

We use it on the .300 Mags, on up. In my .416 Rigby, it allowed me to drop from 105 grains to 102.5 grains and get the same velocity.

For a .270; .30-06, all other rounds, etc. I turn down the neck expander die 2 to 3 thousandtds and put a high polish on it. This gives enough neck tension to keep these bullets in place.

With that said, the dies are so inexpensive that it would be worth it to try one just to see if you do get a difference. I am kinda that way. EXPERIMENT. Let the gun decide, not the bunch of us with theory or conjecture.

All the best,

Sam

It works very well. I love mine in 375 and 416. May not be necessary in 270 but will not hurt the smoothness of your handloads, they will feed better than no crimp. Good hunting. "D"

I think I'll either turn down my mandrel a little bit or order the undersize one from Lee and check how much neck tension I can come up with from my Collet die. Like Big Sam says, the crimping die isn't overly expensive so maybe I'll try one of those too.
Thanks for everyone's help,
Jeff

I use the factory crimp die with my 458 win mag.

I only use neck tension on the rest of my rifle rounds.

I'm a recent convert to the Lee Factory Crimp Die and now swear by it for my .458 Win Mag... Gives you very uniform and precise control over the crimp. I will be using it on other rifle rounds, (especially my .450 Marlin) too as soon as I can get others.

I use the Lee Factory Crimp Die for all the calibers I load for: .223, 6mm Rem., .270 Winchester, 30/06, .300 Weatherby, .375 H&H. I use it for all bullets, without regard to whether the bullet has a cannelure. Its use does increase accuracy a bit. (See Saeed's tests, given elsewhere in Accuratereloading, that show an increase in accuracy using a crimp from this die.) I recommend it highly.

Do not screw the die down until the sides all close, I tried this with my 243 and then pulled the bullet with an inertial puller and found the bullet wasp waisted. It Mic'ed .212 (roughly) with my blade mic.

Jeff 57,
I love the collet dies, but they do expand the necks pretty far to the point I think the bullets might fall out if I tuned them up-side-down. To combat this, I always order the reduced size mandrel when I buy a collet die. I also crimp every bullet I make to give uniformity/consistency in velocities. (As someone above said).

To date I've only seen a need for them in my heavier revolver cartridges, particularly those that also get fed into a lever action magazine. The crimp die works beautifully.

I use it in 416 Rem. Works great, IMHO.

I don't think crimping is either necessary or desireable for the typical bolt action rifle cartridge. And I sincerely question the reports of improving accuracy by crimping (How many benchrest shooters have you ever heard of crimping their ammunition? That's what I thought.)

However, if there is a need to crimp (some automatics, tubular magazines, some handguns) then the Lee die is far superior to the crimper built into conventional seating dies.

By the way -- the surest way to scar a bullet and potentially degrade accuracy is to set a conventional sizing die to both seat and crimp at the same time. This results in the bullet being pushed deeper into the case while the case mouth is being squeezed against it, making it impossible not to scar the bullet jacket. Therefore, crimping should always be done in a second operation AFTER the bullet is fully seated, and you might as well use the economical and efficient Lee crimper rather than resetting your seating die.

Is the crimp necessary in most rifles? It�s pretty obvious that the answer is no. Does it help? It can. Does it hurt to put a crimp on? Maybe, maybe not, but your rifle will decide that.

The bench rest claims are problematic, mainly because they are using highly specialized equipment and deal in highly precise methods for rifles of extremely tight tolerances. But this doesn�t mean that the Lee factory crimp die can't improve the accuracy in a loose tolerance hunting rifle. As others have claimed, apparently it can. The consistent ignition coupled with lower standard deviations in velocity because of it, has a great potential to increase the accuracy in such a set up.

The only way to know is to try it and let your gun decide. They are pretty cheap.

Turok

I use them and they seem to work fine so far.

I was reloading some Accubonds for my 270 Winchester last night in some collet die sized cases and noticed that the bullets were awfully loose in case necks(unlike the Hornadys I had previously loaded). I took the mandrel out and polished it down a thousandth which helped some but the bullets were still a little loose. I then annealed one of the offending cases and resized it again, this also helped by giving the case the same outside neck diameter as one sized in my FL sizing die. I ended up with a thousandth of an inch neck tension on the bullet, it could still be pushed back into the case, but it took considerably more effort. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I got the case too hot when I annealed it, I'll go buy a welding temp stick tomorrow and try again. I'm thinking I need a Factory Crimp Die, my only problem is the other dozen things I'll probably order with it(the die is the cheap part). Enough of my rambling.
Jeff