Lee question on 40/10mm die...

[stilly]

I can SWEAR that when I read the directions for the 40 cal die setup it said that for 10mm setup just needs two full turns instead of the three.

Is that incorrect or do they mean 2 full turns ON TOP of the 3 full turns?

I thought that the 10mm needed to be longer so the die would go up more then the three turns, but clearly I have no clue here...

I figure that I would just put a shell onto the holder and ram it all the way up and then screw down the die until contact was made and then just play from there cause it is only crimping that we are talking about after bullet seating...

Any info before I start playing around is appreciated.

[Munk]

If you're talking about the sizing die only... You just run it down to the shellplate anyway. FL sizing is FL sizing for a case with the same outer diameter.

For seat/crimp, just put a completed round in there, run the ram up, then turn the die down until it hits the complete round; test seat one of your handloads, then adjust the seat slightly until it comes down to the right length (minor plasticity of the metal means that it'll usually be slightly longer than what you think you set it to.)

Then you run the crimp die down over your properly seated round. If you have the FCD... I can't really help you because I don't use it. If you're using another type of die, i've found that the optimal amount of light crimp is when you take a completed round, run the ram up, spin the die down until you feel it hit the cartridge, then (with your hands only) give it a good hard turn by hand as much as you can. This gave me just the right amount of crimp to pull the bell out and just slightly beyond that. I've never had any bullet setback or other shift in my .40 while using that crimping technique.

[stilly]

That is good to know.

I have the Lee set of dies. I was setting them up and it said that for 10mm only back out two full turns (as opposed to 3 for regular...) for the seater/crimper. I thought maybe it was a misprint on their part and they need to correct their docs.

[J-cat]

You don't crimp in increments of a "full turn". You crimp in increments of .001". The proper way to crimp a round is to screw the die down on top of a round until you feel the crimping shoulder touch the case mouth. Then you turn the die down a little bit at a time until you remove the bell from the case mouth and a little bit more. That is your setting for that bullet/brass combo. When you switch brands of brass or bullets you should reset your crimp setting because case wall thickness and length varies between brands.

[stilly]

My brass is always mixed. I find that even same head stamp varies most of the time so I just load by caliber.
My habits are mainly what I have read in the documentation that came with my dies and they said turn all the way down and then back out three full turns or whatever, but screwing in till it touches seems like a more accurate way to go. Thank you for the input as well. MAybe tomorrow I will decide between more 44 mag and 40 or 10mm...