Thanks for the replies. I've never loaded for a lever action with a tube magazine, do you guys crimp because you had problems with the bullets slipping, or just as an SOP?
smokepole;
Good evening once more sir, I trust the day behaved, your weather is tolerable and you're well.
Initially I was going to answer that if it's .30-30 bound for a tubular mag I always crimp. The condition being I used to load for a Savage 340 as well and want to say it was 130gr Speer HP in it.
Then I recalled something wandering around in my memory that I did an experiment way back in the day with some .308" RN bullets - likely Speer because we used to get them relatively cheap in Oroville, WA back when that was still a thing. They had no crimping cannelure so were perhaps 150gr or maybe even 165gr, again sorry I'd have to go through 40 plus years of reloading notes to find the weight.
Again based upon semi-geezer memory here sir, what I did was load up a bunch and then would shoot them and measure the last couple from the front of the magazine tube to see if they'd moved. I do not recall any issues with them doing so.
That said, when I went back to running "regular" .308" RN or FP bullets meant for the .30-30 I did go back to crimping. Old habits and all that.
When I'm loading subsonic 170gr cast bullets with Trail Boss I don't crimp either, but they're usually loaded one at a time dropping one in the top.
I want to say that I did crimp the regular velocity cast bullet loads however.
Hopefully that was useful and not as confusing as it seems when I've re-read this.
Good luck with the reloading and the shooting with a fine old round.
All the best.
Dwayne
