That's far from a non answer. I'm a novice reloader and this is the first time I've dealt with crimping. I'm trying to get an understanding of the how's and why's of it.
I have a Lee factory crimp die, is that the die you're referring to?
No. I don't use Lee dies for bottleneck cartridges but yours will work fine. I use a Lee specific caliber crimp die that just crimps and nothing else. I use RCBS or Redding or Wilson die sets.
At my age a and arthritic fingers, it's hard for me to seat a pill for loading with the pill on the underside of the die (conventional bullet seating) so I like the RCBS front load seater dies because you 'drop in' the pill in the front of the die and seat it. The RCBS and the Redding both have micrometer seater plugs that set bullet depth consistently and repeatedly and the Wilsons can be used without a press at all. Handy for range loads, similar to the Lee Classic Loader but much more accurate in sizing and seating.
Everyone is/was a novice at one thime and a lot of the information in reloading manuals, especially the information written in the front chapters, tends to 'beat the drum' for that particular company, when in fact, there is little difference between manufacturers and procedures..... Which is also why I have numerous reloading manuals and compare loads across all of them.
The crimp operation (depth/severity of crimp) is entirely dependent on you and how you set the press/die for crimp so it will behoove you 'practice' getting the desired crimp depth/severity.
I tend to use bullet specific manufacturers loading manuals, like Sierra or Joyce Hornady or Speer, Nosler or Berger when loading their specialty pills. They all have professional, paid, on staff ballisticians (I'd love to have one of those jobs) that do nothing but test the company's bullets in load combinations to find the best mix for publishing.
