Lyman headspace gauge

[Hoot]

Even if they did I would still ask! Someone ALWAYS helps out us dumb ones! Actually I’m very glad to have found this forum because of the wealth of information that has been learned by very few and shared openly. This is still a growing caliber and for me the toughest to reload for so far. Previously it was my first tapered rifle round.

So once I get the round seated to the proper depth and crimped with the seating die, do I just go back and run the taper crimp? Can the handle over, tighten down the crimp til it touches the round, cam the handle back and tighten down a half turn at a time until I get the crimp I want. Sound right?

Mostly right but for one important detail. Never adjust the seating die body down to where you impart the crimp it has built in.
Take an empty case, back off the seating die to where you can run that resized case all the way up up without it touching the crimp former. Screw the seating die down until you feel that crimp former barely touch the case. Back the die off (up) a half turn and tighen the locking ring. Then tighten the set screw. You will never adjust that body height again. From there on you will only adjust the seating stem knob to achieve the seating depth you choose for a given bullet model. Now once you've charged the case, go ahead and seat the bullet to whatever COL you choose. Unless you have more than one press, go through all your bullet seatings. I use two side by side single stage presses. one holds the seating and the other holds the taper crimp die. In the case of only one single stage press, after you're done seating all your bullets for that particular experiment, remove the seating die and put the taper crimp die in. Run one of your rounds all the way up and screw the taper crimp die down until you feel it engage the case mouth. Now you can "cam the handle back" and slowly adjust the die down, pausing to re-measure the mouth diameter as close to the lip as possible, until you reach the aforementioned diameters. Don't bother using the lock ring set screw unless you're going to crank out the same recipe forever. Just hand tighten the lock ring so the die doesn't drift and away you go.

I'm fussy about my loads so I usually run the ram up about half way onto the taper crimp engagement range, back off enough to unlock the case, rotate the case about 90 degrees and apply the remainder of the taper crimp. The cases float somewhat in the shell holder and when you engage the taper crimp, if the case is a little off center, the downward pressure will lock it in position, a little off center. The stop-n-turn allows it to re-register more to center. Another method for encouraging it to find the middle most position is to run the ram up, when you feel it start engaging the taper crimp rattle short stroke it a small amount several times, that will encourage the case to jostle to center in the taper, then send it home all the way. Hard to put that into words that make sense to anyone but me. If you just go all the way without making an effort to center the case in the taper, you will feel different amounts of resistance to the crimping action from one round to the next. That's how you know its not always in the perfect alignment. This nuance also applies when you're resizing your lubed cases. It helps with consistency if those cases being resized are centered in the taper of the sizing die as well. I usually deprime in a separate step, so the decapping stem is not in my sizing die. I run a lubed case up until it resists entering the sizing die and then do that rattle short stroke to allow the case to self center before the pressure locks it into position. Doing that when sizing, you'll feel an obvious reduction in force needed to push the case all the way up into the die. The difference in resistance is very noticeable when a case is in proper alignment versus slightly off center. The net result is cases that are as close to coaxiality as possible.

Straight case, straight seat, straight crimp, straight shot.

I'm full of this kinda stuff...

Hoot

[offrink]

So don’t use the seating crimp at all. Otherwise it’s pretty much the same. I remembered in another post about you turning the round 90* when you crimp. I just did the wrong crimp. I think I got this now! I just couldn’t figure out how to get it so much smaller! Any more crimping and the brass started to bulge!

[Hoot]

Come to think of it, I do the lift-n-turn on seating the bullet as well, so I guess its at every stage. Its a matter of personal preference, I've never entreated owning a progressive press, aside from when I was shooting lots of trap and skeet (preferred skeet) back in the 80's and 90's. Had a MEC 650 progressive shotshell loader. If you're loading blammo ammo for just the joy of shooting and 2-3 MOA is all you want, you can crank these bad boys out as fast as you please.

Have fun.

Hoot

[offrink]

So I’m taper crimping like a pro. The rounds still aren’t seating in the headspace gauge. Well not all the way. Where I think I’m having a problem is the midway point of the brass. The resized round fits the gauge. Once reloaded with no crimp it doesn’t quite fit. But that is to be expected. Taper crimp, still no but the midpoint of the brass on the factory round is 0.484 and is about 4/5 of the way down when it hits 0.490. For mine, all of the rounds since the first are 0.490 at the midpoint and stays that way to the 4/5 point where it increases to the full .500 at the base of the round. The taper of the brass is to quick below the projectile seated in the brass. What am I doing wrong?

[Hoot]

So I’m taper crimping like a pro. The rounds still aren’t seating in the headspace gauge. Well not all the way. Where I think I’m having a problem is the midway point of the brass. The resized round fits the gauge. Once reloaded with no crimp it doesn’t quite fit. But that is to be expected. Taper crimp, still no but the midpoint of the brass on the factory round is 0.484 and is about 4/5 of the way down when it hits 0.490. For mine, all of the rounds since the first are 0.490 at the midpoint and stays that way to the 4/5 point where it increases to the full .500 at the base of the round. The taper of the brass is to quick below the projectile seated in the brass. What am I doing wrong?

If you were using cut down .284 Win brass, I could understand that happening but not with 450b specific brass. There's always a small but perceivable case "bulge" produced by seating the bullet but its not supposed to take the cartridge out of specification. You either have:

Bullets that are out of spec.
Process issue
Chamber gauge that is out of spec.

If you haven't already done so, carefully mic some of your bullets. If to some reason, they're too fat, they theoretically could cause an excessive bulge. Note: The bulge is not an issue with your actual chamber, just the chamber gauge. That's important to keep in mind.

Normally, whether you taper crimp the case before trying it in the chamber gauge or not, should not affect whether it passes or not. The purpose of the taper crimp is not to perform a secondary resize though obviously it does change the dimension on the front end of the case a little. It usually affects the first 1/8" back from the mouth the most. You're not using the expander die before seating your bullets are you? IMHO, with the Hornady die set, that die could be totally eliminated. The bullet guide sleeve in the seating die aligns the bullets prior to starting into the case so well, that all you need is an honest chamfer on the lip, to get them started. That's something else the skimpy instruction manual doesn't mention. If you apply excessive expansion to the case, you just compromised the resizing die's effort and then Yes, the taper crimp does have to significantly resize the case after seating. Its early and I don't want to get into the other negative effects the expander die has. Just don't use it. Good bullet handling technique as its starting, along with that guide sleeve, will carry the day.

The bottom line is the issue you are troubled by, seems to revolve around the chamber gauge. Sounds like your rifle is happy with the end product. No one likes buying something they thought would help them, only to discover its not particularly useful. I have a drawer in my shop full of such devices that I accumulated over the years. You could pay a gunsmith to check your chamber gauge with an actual 450b chamber reamer. Lyman is generally pretty reliable but lately, they've been a little more consumed with profit margin than they used to be.

Just sayin'....

Hoot

BTW, I keep saying "chamber gauge" because in Hoot's language these are Headspace gauges:

[offrink]

Thank you very much Hoot. It took some trial and error but everything is working and fitting well. The expander die was the issue. Cut that step out and the bullets were a little harder to seat but it did work and once crimped it fit into the “bullet gauge designed by Lyman” (sound better?) with out an issue. Not as well as factory but it goes in and out. I like using the gauge because it gives me one more step of don’t blow your face off safety. Now to try them in the range!

[Jim in Houston]

Yep, lessons from the "early" days of the 450

Don't use the expander die

Don't crimp with the seating die

But Hoot has not mentioned the side crimp. More fun awaits.

BTW, I spent a lot of time and money on headspace gauges and related products. I found I could, for the round of interest, load to a COL of 3.7XX. Then I noticed that my magazine would only feed a max of 3.600. So much for that.