Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Speer .375 235 gr Hot Cor?

Here's the latest update. Got home late last night (early this morning) and found a Lee crimp die for the .375 Winchester sitting on my desk. Ordered it a few days ago from midwayusa.com for about $13. Lee had offered to make a custom crimp die for $25 and that may still be an option I pursue.

Failures so far.
1. Attempting to build a really long version of the cartridge. I forget the COL but it would not cycle through the action. I know from past experience (after I dug up my notes) that a 2.600" COL will cycle so I ended up using that.

2. Attempting to crimp the dummy round pictured in a previous post. It had the case shortened by .136" in hopes I could use my standard dies to roll crimp on the full diameter of the bullet.

3. Attempting to crimp the shortened case with the Lee crimp die. This was an unexpected failure as I thought the crimp collet allowed the location of the crimp to be adjusted for height above the rim. It does not. The bottom of the die was contacting the case rim, game over..

4. Grinding the bottom of the Lee crimp die. Don't have the proper tools to do a good job and the bottom of the collet extends below the bottom of the die body. This is the part that would have to be ground and it rotates inside the die body, making the job even more difficult. I decided a custom die for $25 would be a better option.

5. Building a dummy with the shortened case that could be sent to Lee as a model for the custom die. Since I could not get a good crimp the bullet kept moving under even slight pressure. No way it would survive the trip as the proper COL.

In the end I went back to a standard case length (2.010" trimmed) for my dummy round. The Lee crimp die provided a fairly solid crimp just ahead of full bullet diameter (0.266" diameter on the ogive). I've been pushing and pulling and trying to rotate the bullet in the case with no success, but I keep trying harder. My primary concern is the bullet could get pushed back into the case, raising pressures.



It seems to me that a case trimmed to max case length (2.020") would provide a more solid crimp. That said, it appears the crimp is good enough for a two-shooter, which is what my rifle will be with this load - one in the mag and one in the chamber.

The 'best' solution is probably to build a dummy with the shortened case (1.874") and send it off to Lee for a custom crimp die. All I have to do is find a way to secure the bullet at the proper length. Ideally that would be with a crimp, but then I wouldn't need the custom crimp die...

Maybe I'll try seating the bullet out further and re-check for function cycling through the action. I know it can go a bit longer than 2.600". Might be able to get another 0.050", which would be awesome, but don't have time to do it right now.