To crimp or not to crimp?

[WHITEBULL]

I always put a little crimp on my AR loads. Some just a bit when there is no cannelure groove. I purchased some Lehigh defense Controlled Chaos pills for my .204 bolt gun and have not loaded anything for this gun yet. Do I need to crimp into the cannelure? Sorry, for the newbe question, just not familiar with reloading this caliber or gun.
Thanks.

[NugginFutz]

The answer is a definite maybe. Cannelures are not a mandatory call to crimping. It just depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

I personally crimp my auto-loaders, but that doesn't mean I think everyone should. I believe it comes down to how much neck tension your sizing die gives you and whether or not a measured bullet can be stripped off the magazine and chambered without bullet setback. Easy enough to check, next time you're at the range. Measure before and after (firing the previous round). If anything significant in the way of setback shows up, then I'd recommend that you do.

Others will crimp for more consistent neck tension, in an attempt to improve accuracy. My personal thoughts on that are that if that's your aim, then you can get a redding S-type sizing die with the correct bushings and accomplish more.

As a final note, I do not crimp any of my bolt guns, cannelure or no.

Hope this helps.

[kmon]

Haven't crimped rifle rounds in years, some do like mentioned above. I check the rounds but most of time I use compressed powder charges and .003 to .004 neck tension.

Bolt guns I never crimp, the only rounds I have crimped in years are straight walled cases be they rifle or pistol.

[WHITEBULL]

Thanks. I was a little thrown off that this little 28 gr bullet had a cannelure, when all of the other 32-40gr pills from other manufactures don't. This is a all copper bullet and the cannelure was not in the right spot for this cartridge OAL. Maybe their intention is for it to be a gas check? Barnes has multiple grooves on some of their all copper bullets.

[kmon]

On some bullets the groove is not necessarily a cannelure, some like the ones on Barnes Triple shocks are for pressure relief. Nosler at one time used them over the partition on the partition bullets that were turned on a lathe in manufacture.

[FW Conch]

kmon is right on. Before Barnes put those groves on it was hard to get those solid copper pills to go down the bore. Now that they have, I have found them (TTSX) to be very accurate, and effective on game. :-)

[wraith1516]

Love barnes ttsx 100gr bullets its all I hunt deer with 30 gr 8208xbr @2713 fps good deer medicine