The lyman dies I have for my 40-65 will roll crimp the bullet in the case. A friend of mine uses a taper crimp die for all of his BPCR reloading. Is there an advantage to one over the other? The reason I ask is I've never crimped a catridge for any gun I've reloaded for, and the 40-65 is the first straight walled case I've messed with. After I bell the case mouth out enough to seat the bullet easily, if I don't crimp the bullet, I can fell a slight drag from the case mouth when I try to chamber the round. Am I getting to carried away when I bell the case mouth?

What you're experiencing is fairly common. Just taper crimp enough to remove the bell.

I've never heard of anybody roll crimping a BPCR cartridge, but perhaps it can be done.

Paul

Maybe roll crimping was the wrong description. I was using my lyman dies to crimp the cartridge.

I don't taper or roll crimp I ordered a special tool to re-size with that barely holds the bullet in the brass. You can get those from Buffalo Arms. You have to experiment some to get there.

I tried a roll crimp once but it caused inaccuracies. One edge invariably doesn't match the other on the opposite side of the brass. It may work for you.

Like Paul said just set your seating to to crimp just enough to take the flare out of the case. Don't scrimp to much on the flare or you risk skimming the base of the bullet when seating and that will cause you a couple of versions of grief.

I've always done as the others have suggested. When seating the bullet, set your die so as to just remove the flare. Only BPC's I crimp are for my double rifles. As far as my experience indicates the firmness and type of crimp only comes into play when using smokeless powder and on heavy handgun loads it can have a lot of effect.

Thanks everyone, I was messing around last night and I think I have it pretty well dialed in. I'm going to go out and shoot again this weekend, and then on the 12th there is a Schuetzen match I'm going to try.

I don't have flares on my brass.

I assume the special sizing tool you use eliminates the need for belling the mouth of the brass? I don't have one so my brass gets the mouths belled or flared, whichever word is preferred

Now I'm curious what the tool is that avoids belling the case mouth. The only tool I'm aware of that does that is a sleeved seating die like the Vickerman or Meacham, and that requires at least slight chamfering of the inside.

I suppose an expander plug that allows a slip fit of the bullet with no tension would also work without belling.

I've never used the seater die to remove the bell, never tried it. I use a Lyman taper crimp die. Just a kiss of the taper die is all that is necessary to allow the round to slip into the chamber.

Paul

Midway has the Lyman taper crimp die for $20, think I'm going to grab one just to see.

A GOOD investment.

The BEST investment, in the true "Never Sweat" sense, is a Chamber that drops Fired cases ready to cleanup, and reload with nothing more then a compression die, and accept correctly cast bullets in the "Push fit" mode......

That failing, go with Gullo's creed, "Work with the chamber you got".

GTC

That's what I've been doing from the get-go. But, I started out with a bunch of seasoned, good BPCR shooters and had the learning curve substantially shortened for me. They helped me out a lot.

It's not anything THAT deep,....it IS a question of the reamer used to chamber properly,or hopelessly screw up, what is in all other respects, a good piece.

"Push Fit" has gone in and out of favor in the BPCR venue for the last 18 years that I've been half azzed involved.

I see it as an objective to strive for, myself,......Lord knows there's enough work to the game without MAKING more with loose and sloppy chambering practice.

And that method DOES produce very good , if not GREAT accuracy.

GTC

I suppose an expander plug that allows a slip fit of the bullet with no tension would also work without belling.

That is it.

I don't 'flare' any of my cases; shoot PP only and with a 22* chamfer tool I can hand seat the patched bullet into the case such that it will not fall out if inverted. All cases are FL resized, .45 Norma Basic brass. Patched bullet OD runs .4510" on one bullet; other bullet patched OD runs .4495". After seating I run loaded cartridges through a TCD for a very very slight taper crimp! They shoot rather well!

I thought I knew everything about reloading. You fellars keep on filling my head with new unknown facts about the subject. Now my head hurts. Think I'll have a drink.

Aw, Joe - don't let this stuff make yer head hurt. This ain't rocket surgery, after all. There're just a few "tricks" you pick up the longer you do it. After a while you just do it and forget that what you are doing was once a "trick" somebody else told you about.

Yep, and the cheap tricks are the best ones of all.