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