doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 12 ga roll crimper

Joe I collect antique shotshells. I deal with lots of brass ones. For every 1 that I see that has been crimped I see 100 that haven't. Just observation nothing with offical data.

I kind of collect old shells too...all the brass shotgun hulls I've got are empty except the one.
I kind of thought all my empties were once factory loaded.

I've got 4 or 5 that were crimped but have been shot. The crimp is still very visible. I also own a 10ga brass case hand roll crimper. I've expermented with it a little. Overall impression is that the cases would have a very short number of reloads. I've also seen 3 or 4 different ways to crimp brass cases. The least destructive would be slightly rolling the mouth over. The 10 or 12 point star crimp really destroys a shell quickly.

Chuck, according to protractor about 76 degrees included angle off the long axis of the Delrin rod looking down on the utility knife blade and maybe 10 degrees off a section normal to the rod looking at the point. Don't think it's critical as I eyeballed the slot with a hacksaw. Needs the angle to "draw" the blade direction of finished cut without presssure. Just another sort of screw or inclined plane. At slowest speed on the lathe, it takes a very fine continuous spiral shaving and bottoms very quickly without pressure other than that needed to hold hull stationary. Twisted by hand, takes the coarser spiral shaving shown. Matter of feed rate and pressure something like all that pie and TUMS Xmas day. And that spring wrench isn't needed to hold hull when trimming; it's a McGyver for holding the hull stationary under the el cheapo BP roll crimper.

jack

I'm having trouble seeing a star crimped brass case...

Chuck, you are a handy guy, make your own shell holder like I did. If I had a lathe I would attempt to make a roll crimper too. The hardest thing would be to polish the insides so that the burnishing of the hull doesn't grab the shell.


I don't know if I would do brass, different components, and like jOe said "I'm having trouble seeing a star crimped brass shell".
Most I've read about were sealed on the end with wax over the shot card.

Inclined as I am to the Armstrong-powered for reasons largely compelled by a surplus of power cords and a nagging shortage of power points, I also have my eye on one of those clamp-down roll crimpers. Oddly, most people seem to think they're some sort of apple corer or other fruity implement. I also like your shell-holder, JDW.

jack

Here you go.

Any brass hull can have its life extended many times over by annealing the mouth. Any method of heating the brass to, say, 500-600F will work. Dipping in molten lead and holding a few seconds is quite good; don't clean the brass first or it is possible to get some soldering. The amount of work hardening the mouth is subjected to determines the frequency of annealing. Something severe like the pie crimp shown would require frequent annealing, whereas a light inward crimp might not need annealing for several loadings. Glue/water glass requires no annealing, of course.

Careful with molten lead. Wear hand, body, and face/eye protection at all times. Be sure the hulls are all completely dry and free of foreign matter, but don't polish off the surface oxide.

I used to make loads for a friend's 32-somthin or another from 30-30 cases and they needed to be annealed. I would stand up a bunch of cases in a pan of water, then heat with a torch until a dull red and tip each over.