I load black powder with a mixture of new and old card and fiber wads in 12 ga. sabot/slug hulls (probably not very critical) and nitro/plastic wad loads in 16 ga. Canadian Cheddites (might be?)so I can't tell you what hull volume is ideal for 16 ga. smokeless. But I can tell you that the old clamp down, hand-cranked roll crimpers are for more sophisticated that we might imagine. As an example, that nine dollar chuckable abomination from BP or Precision Reloading or whovever is a piece of junk--the two little bosses inside the roll groove are sharp and can essentially bind and cut the top off a hull if the speed reduction on your drill press is not adequate to slow things down. By comparison, the brass roll heads on the old crimpers frequently have three small wedges or ramps machined into the crimp groove--a very gentle way to apply progressive pressure, friction, etc. They do OK on Federal paper hulls if you dip the mouth in parafine and, amazingly, they do a wonderful job on plastic (certainly an application they weren't designed to handle). If you can pick up an Armstrong roll crimper in 16 gauge for a few bucks at a flea market, eschew the cheap plastic drill press model and the 27$ steel ones also.
jack
