450Bushmaster.net

c_franklin50 wrote:

Hoot wrote:

c_franklin50 wrote:Thanks for the reply hoot my 450 is a hunting gun not a range toy. Would my lee 450bm FCD need just a collet modification or would I have to cut down the body of the die as well like others?

Unmodified, the 450 FCD will keep the crimp out at the mouth. To move it down xx amount, remove the same xx amount from the bottom of the collet. IE, it you want a stab crimp .15 down the case, remove .15 from the bottom of the collet. IIRC, that's about the maximum you can remove and still have enough protrusion to close the collet jaws with the ram all the way up. Don't have one handy to confirm.

Hoot

Hoot would you happen to know if I need to thin out the crimping portion to increase the PSI like I have seen on some of the other tutorials of converting 45-70 and 460sw?

Again, IMHO Yes. Thinks about what you're trying to accomplish. Pressing an indentation through a brass wall with enough remaining on the inside to have a positive effect. The case wall will diffuse the stab as it propagates through it. The sharper the stab going into that wall, the less brass has to be moved to produce a ridge on the inside without causing an hour glass slope adjacent to that ridge. You don't want to distort the bullet body any more than you have to. You don't want those jaws so sharp that they have a tubing cutter affect. That would weaken the case. Its darn tricky getting that balance right.

With fired brass, especially multiply fired brass, annealing helps keep it soft in the area of the crimp so that it doesn't fight indenting any more than you can avoid. I recently finished making a salt bath annealer and now I'm Johnny Appleseed about annealing. Spreading the word far and wide.

Hoot

I hear you there, this years reloading fund is going into an amp annealer. I’m still young (20’s) and plan to reload for years to come so it should pay for itself.

i've got one of the Annealeeze machines, and its quite nice for the $. i get >4000 223 sized cases from a 1lb tank of gas, and i find it to be very consistent. i just dont shoot enough to justify an AMP machine in my budget.


the new digital speed controller looks to add a measure of repeatability than my dial type gen-1 unit offers when making caliber adjustments to accommodate for brass thickness.




amp did a bunch of testing on the salt bath thing.. might want to give it a read.
although on their limited testing with straight walled stuff, it did appear to work better than bottleneck cartridges did with the salt bath method.

https://www.ampannealing.com/articles/5 ... -it-work-/

plant_one wrote:...snip...
amp did a bunch of testing on the salt bath thing.. might want to give it a read.
although on their limited testing with straight walled stuff, it did appear to work better than bottleneck cartridges did with the salt bath method.

https://www.ampannealing.com/articles/5 ... -it-work-/

That was discussed a lot last spring when they put it out. Opinions ranged from "Did you really expect them to praise their competition" to testimonials from folks who did crush tests before and after, who saw marked improvement. My main motivation for building it was not the 450b, but as you suggest, bottle neck cartridges. It does help with the 450b as well. If I were young enough or had disposable income burning a hole in my pocket, I would have loved to get an induction unit. That whole technology has captured my imagination ever since hobbyists began playing with it a few years back. Regardless of how you generate the heat, its a useful tool. Doubly so when you're trying to press a sharp crease through cartridge brass.

Hoot

Plant one I am a man that has to back up stuff with scientific data although the torch method caught my eye a few years back when I first thought about annealing. Seeing induction with lab results is hard for me to look away from. I am this way at work as well, I am a sticker for speeds and feeds and have to have and rhyme and reason when setting up the machines. Some guys still work on the guess and check but for me its about eliminating as many variables as I can so I can get repeatable results every time. I find myself attracted to odd ball cartridges that will require annealing as i don't think 256 win mag will be coming back around anytime soon. while my free time is short as I'm sure yours and Hoots is this seems to be the fastest way and if I can anneal on the side for people at $5-10 per 100 cases that will help to off set cost of the unit.

Hoot that is my concern with the side crimp is getting a consistent result which I believe is how we just got on to annealing on a page for crimping. I wish I had a higher amount of disposable income to acquire these things faster but bills before toys and everything has a shifting priority order. Now I have to think about do I want to put that VX-6HD on my Rigby that I have been eyeing or wait and get the amp?

Here's an example of the uniformity afforded by salt bath annealing. In this case, 260 Rem brass. Every caliber I've processed so far has had good consistency. Neck crush test with a pair of pliers using an un-annealed piece and one I processed was like night and day.



Hoot