Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Lee Crimping die

Anyone use one of these? A guy at work is trying to sell me one ,and I guess I've never really thought or heard much about them. Your thoughts --Thanks

I use them to crimp pistol bullets. Might not need them, but I do use them. miles

They are handy to have around. and are pretty cheap.

I have a couple.. hardly ever need them... but when I do, they are handy to have.

I think I paid like $8 for them.. and have a couple that just came with the die set..

I use them on all auto pistol rounds & I use the rifle version (collet) one to put a very light crimp on 5.56 rounds to go through an AR.

They work well where a crimp is needed & a roll crimp is not ideal.

MM

I use them on all straight wall cases, and reloads for semi auto rifles. I don't crimp bottle neck bolt gun cases, in my tests it gained nothing. If your going to crimp, the lee is the way to go.

For rifle or handgun? There are two different designs.

The one for pistols is useful for ironing out Glock smiles but I can't tell that they do a better job of actually crimping the brass than the ones that came with my Dillon SDB.

The ones for rifles seem to work rather nicely if you need to crimp your rounds, which I rarely do. If I loaded .30-30 I'd use one all the time.

I used a factory crimp die on my .223 loads for ground squirrels because the long throat didn't leave much of the bullet in the neck. I pulled a couple of the bullets a year later and found that they were wasp-waisted, the crimping operation had deformed them. These were 50gr Vmax. It didn't look like I put too much crimp on, but apparently the thin jacketed varmint bullets don't take well to the operation. I didn't crimp this year and the exact same load gave more consistent and smaller groups, so the deformed bullets were not flying right. I may do it again for blasting ammo used in my ARs, but not for single loaded bolt gun ammo.

I use them for pistols and 38-40 loads

I load multiple rifle calibers but the only two that I've found a need to crimp were the .375 and the .416. The .375 is crimped to address a feeding issue and the .416 is crimped to prevent bullet setback due to recoil. In those two cases the $10 was money well spent. I've never even thought about crimping any other caliber.

I use them for my 350 mag and 223 AR ammo.

I use one for non-cannelured jacketed 10mm bullets in a Ruger Blackhawk .38/40. Getting ready to order one in .325 WSM for a Browning auto.

I use them for my .375 Ruger loads, as well as my .454 Casull rounds. Kind of a necessity for these hard-recoiling rounds, and the Lee dies do a much better job of crimping than my RCBS dies.

use 'em and love 'em

Alert the villagers! Ready the stake! Pile [bleep] (not that kind, you idiots)!

The (bleep) was "phaggots", which SYSOP (or whoever) deemed worthy of (bleeping), thereby establishing himself (itself?) as one of the idiots.

I really like the Lee Collet crimper especially for heavy bullet rifle cartridges as I've been in a situation where
recoil was pulling the bullets from cartridges in the magazine........far enough out that last round couldn't be loaded into chamber......

use them for pistols and .444 Marlin they are the cats azz

I use the Carbide factory crimp die ( Lee ) for all pistol loads. It resizes the case if you bell the mouth to much. The crimp is easy to repeat . Hasbeen

One of the most important tools on any reloading bench. For Hunting Ammo. Self defense ammo.

They help make the 22 Hornet more consistent in it's neck tension, something that it struggles with at times with the thin brass.

They give me comfort in a round designed for use in semi-autos. There is not drawback to a light crimp.

they are cheap to shoot, i bought a bunch of them when i just started to teach my son how to shoot.