Crimping

I guess I should have searched it first!
Found some good info on another post.
So I'm not going to crimp, what kind of dies should I get?

How much do you want to spend? I recommend Redding Bushing dies with competition bullet seater. I think it is worth the price.

I crimp but would only do it with the dedicated Lee Collet Crimp Die. Never use the integrated crimp in a bullet seating die.

Chaztrev said:

Another question, is it a must to taper crimp bullets for the AR?

Click to expand...

Nor do you need a small base sizing die. Truthfully, unless you just want to spend a lot of money, regular Hornady, Redding. Lyman or RCBS dies will do anything you need to do. I'm an RCBS dies fan myself except in 223 where the floating seating bushing is better for me because I load a ton of short 40gr flay base bullets for varmints and it aligns them far better than the others. Redding bushing size dies are nice because you can adjust neck tension simply by changing bushings and not using the expander. So, if you find you are getting bullet movement you can prevent it by increasing tension rather than crimping. If you decide you must crimp though follow Xman's suggestion about the Lee Factory Crimp die. NEVER use the roll crimp function in a standard seating die. A seating die with a taper crimp option is also a decent choice for crimping. Me, I don't crimp anything except rounds loaded for my tube magazine Winchester 94 and my magnum rifles.

What they said... If you do decide to crimp, do it in 2 steps. Seat the bullet with seating die and change to a Lee FCD to crimp.

I have a 4 die set from Lee for 300blk and someone made me a floating seating stem for it. The run out was only about 0.002" on the ogive with that die set. Couldn't believe it when I checked with a concentricity gauge.

You can send a couple bullets to Lee and they will make a custom seating stem for that bullet for only $8 IIRC. Well worth it.