I received my die set yesterday and sacrificed a piece of brass and a bullet to the cause.
With the bullet seated in the case and the ram all the way up and die backed all the way out I turned the die until I felt resistance.
Ram goes down and I turned the die another 1/8 " down and locked it in, ran the loaded case through a couple of times and hardly the slightest perceptible crimp. With my thumb I could still set the bullet back (into the case deeper).
So I redid the above and went in increments of half turns and before you know it I was a couple of revolutions around. When pulling the press handle it didn't take superman strength but you could feel the crimp being applied. I thought good this is working.
...Until I pulled the ram down and the case now had 3 distinct bands at various locations (mouth and segmented below the mouth).
The cartridge is malformed (won't chamber) so obviously over crimping with the Hornady die is possible and not optimal but I cannot in my minds eye see why the die is crimping three parts of the case. I suppose it is tapered within which goes along with the name of the crimp but this shouldn't be a guessing game.
All dies should be the same from the factory, "should" so from the initial point of contact with the case how far are you turning your crimp in and setting at for Hard Copper or monolithic bullet and what is your measured dimension (.474 or .475 or .476 etc)
Yes I am wanting to ballpark this, my primary concern and reason for crimping is to prevent bullet set back - operating without a micrometer and other tools I can expect accuracy to suffer and I am fine with that to a 1 MOA extent.
Your assistance is appreciated!