I haven't been able to find this information anywhere, so I thought I'd post it here while I wait for a response from Lee's customer service.
I don't want to start an argument or debate on whether or not to crimp bottleneck rifle rounds, because there are plenty of those elsewhere on this forum and that's not the topic here, so if that's what your response is going to be, post it in one of the other threads where it already exists.
So! Here's my dilemma. I have a .30-06 and a 7mm-08. I just got the 7mm for my wife recently and so haven't reloaded for it that much yet. I have the same set of dies for both, the Lee Pacesetter dies that include the factory crimp die. I noticed that with the '06 the crimp is placed at the very tip top of the case neck, so that all it seems to do is put a bevel on the mouth edge. With the 7mm FCD, it places the crimp slightly lower on the neck so that the petals of the collet are clearly visible and it looks much more like a factory crimp, similar to what you would see on a box of Winchester power point cartridges. I trim my brass every time I prep, so the case length is consistent. I think I know the answer to this, because one of them looks like a factory crimp and the other doesn't. But, I think it's also possible that Lee may have designed it to where the crimp is at the very top of the neck. I have seen pictures of other peoples' FCD crimped rifle rounds that look like my '06 crimps.
Has anyone had any experiences like this and if so, what did you do about it? Did it seem to affect accuracy one way or the other?
I don't want to start an argument or debate on whether or not to crimp bottleneck rifle rounds, because there are plenty of those elsewhere on this forum and that's not the topic here, so if that's what your response is going to be, post it in one of the other threads where it already exists.
So! Here's my dilemma. I have a .30-06 and a 7mm-08. I just got the 7mm for my wife recently and so haven't reloaded for it that much yet. I have the same set of dies for both, the Lee Pacesetter dies that include the factory crimp die. I noticed that with the '06 the crimp is placed at the very tip top of the case neck, so that all it seems to do is put a bevel on the mouth edge. With the 7mm FCD, it places the crimp slightly lower on the neck so that the petals of the collet are clearly visible and it looks much more like a factory crimp, similar to what you would see on a box of Winchester power point cartridges. I trim my brass every time I prep, so the case length is consistent. I think I know the answer to this, because one of them looks like a factory crimp and the other doesn't. But, I think it's also possible that Lee may have designed it to where the crimp is at the very top of the neck. I have seen pictures of other peoples' FCD crimped rifle rounds that look like my '06 crimps.
Has anyone had any experiences like this and if so, what did you do about it? Did it seem to affect accuracy one way or the other?