Hello,
I am in need of some help. I am just getting into reloading and have been reading as much as I can and asking questions were I can. I have the Hornady Handbook and have watched the videos on RCBS and a lot on U-Tube. Most of them talk about reloading rifle cartridges. But I wanted to start with my saved pistol brass. I have a Rock Chucker and Carbide Die sets. I understand the cleaning, case prep, priming and charging. What I don't really get is how to expand and crimp.
The Hornady book say to use little or no crimp on the 9 Lugar but doesn’t say anything about the 38. I look at my factory loads and the Win 38 Spec has no crimp the 38+P has some and the Rem 357 Mag looks like it has no crimp.
But here is where I am really confused. The Expander Die, I understand you just want a little so you can seat the bullet. My very first round I didn't use a primer or powder and just a little expansion. When I tried to seat the bullet the brass would not go in the die. So I tried a brass that had not been expanded the bullet felt like it seated great. After a couple of tries I had the length just right. So I made a batch of 50 rounds. I repeated the process with the 9 Lugar and the expanded brass worked fine so I made 50 of them. Just to try I seated a 9 Lugar in a brass that I did not expand and it seated just fine. My question is why did I buy a 3 Die set or do I really need the Expander die?
By the way I really like the Hornady Bullet Puller, I have pulled more bullets than I have finished. I would really appreciate any help or recommendation from anyone because I have about 4,000 pistol rounds to do before I start my rifle rounds, but I still have to buy the dies for that.
Oh, one last thing, whats with the crimp in the middle of my factory loaded Winchester 44 Rem Mag? My Remington UMC ammo dosen't have it?