I thought I would mention The good products and service I got from a company in Italy. I have had trouble finding some of the small gauge roll crimpers in 32 ga and 24 ga. The company is called Gaep at www.gaep.net. I will try to post some pics of some 20 ga and 32 ga shells that I loaded over the weekend. The person that helped me is Charles from Gaep. email is gaep61@gmail.com He also got an old style cranker from another site that I could not get to ship. Technical problems with that site. The Gaep crimpers can be be interchanged in the old style crank crimper with small modification of some washers. These are high quality crimpers that can be used in a hand drill or drill press as well. They look more domed than the us style crimpers.

Another top view picture of the shells. They also have star type crimpers.

thanks for the information, have also a 24 ga hammergun from Colette/Liege. only load magteck brass now but with a good rollcrimper will try plastic again. do you load once fired Fiocchi shells? I found them very weak in the past. many were going in parts after my "homemade" handload.

I have loaded a lot of 16 ga in the Fiocchi and 28 ga. My 16s have been loaded several times. The Fiocchi 28s were mostly black powder and usually only do them twice from new hulls. The nitro 28s seemed to be ok. I only load to 1200 fps. in as low pressure as I can find. The hotter loads might be hard on the hulls. I had some ignition problems with some magtech brass 28s. Not sure of the reason but they sat the the shelf for awhile. I guess I like the plastic if you have a good roll crimper.

Here's an Italian site that sells the hand cranked roll crimpers. Scroll down. They resemble some vintage crimpers that I use. Ciao!
http://www.siarm.com/index.php?cPath=2_105_19

Siarm is the site where I got the hand crimper but I could not get their shipping to work to the USA. I had Charles from Gaep get the roll crimper from Siarm and he shipped it to me. Perhaps it works now. They said they were working on it. The crimpers they come with are not the quality of the Gaep crimpers.

I need a 24 bore roll crimper. Looking at them they are quite inexpensive. I wonder if I can get shipping to U.K. I should think that within the EU it should be easier. Not got a Paypal account but Brother has. I will look into this. Thanks for the information. Lagopus.....

I got an email from Gaep and Charles said he had just finished making a 10 ga roll crimper and 10 ga 6 pt star crimp. I don't believe the 10 ga tolls were listed on the site before. I think he has most gauges available now.

OK -- I ordered a set of Roll Crimper and what we know here as crimp starter from Charles at GAEP. I ordered the parts for 24 gauge. Charles is very good to work with. He responded super quickly to my e-mails for explanation of his tools and everything. I'm not sure, as I haven't asked him directly, but I think he makes professional tools for mass shotshell production, and now wants to tap into the home re-loader market. It took 8 working days for the goods to arrive from Italy via regular parcel post -- that is excellent. Maybe tomorrow I will try these tools. The spinning roll crimper is intended to close and finish star-crimped shells started with their crimp starter. I really need that when loading the new unfired Fiocchi Reiffenhauser-type cases I get from Ballistic Products. This will enforce some crimp memory so subsequent re-loads will look better. By the way, I converted my own MEC 600 to 24 gauge with some small amount of lathe work based on 20 and 28 gauge parts. I have also taken to using a 28 gauge MEC SuperSizer with the collet closer backed off a few threads to resize the somewhat delicate Fiocchi brass heads. The real key part of the MEC, however, is the final crimp die, and I had to make a special taper-ended reamer to bore out a 28 gauge plastic crimp die. Also, you have to enlarge the crimp closing punch and its recess in the die -- easy. I turned down a 20 gauge crimp closer, and reamed the recess in the final crimp die to suit (0.5 inch dia.). Of course, by the way, the same spinning roll crimper from GAEP above will close roll-type crimps -- with the top wad. For those of usloading odd-balls like the 24 or 32 gauge, this obviates the need for messing with the final crimp die of the MEC. The wonderful thing about GAEP is they make these dies in 10, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32 and .410. Nobody here does that.

I recommend the GAEP products just based on service alone, right now. What really counts is results, and hopefully I can comment positively on that in a couple of days.

Tony Lowe

PS --Dwight Beske - Thanks for the pictures. No huge problem, but those roll crimps are a bit shallow. I think a little more free hull length above the over-shot wad makes for a better roll crimp. Just my opinion. All the best, and thanks for cluing us into these GAEP products.

I brought to 16 ga roll crimp heads from Charles at GAEP in Italy. One for paper cartridges, the other for plastics. The service was excellent and the quality of the crimping heads first rate. I have several american made from Precision, Lyman, and BPI and the GAEP are better.

I recommend Charles at GAEP

Dwight,

Thanks for posting this. Those are very nice looking roll crimps, IMO.

What is the thread size in the top of the roll crimper? Do you use them on a drill press?

SRH

Stan,
I am not sure of the thread size. I think it is probably metric. I don't have a drill press so I used a hand drill and held the shell on top of a vise. I did get an old style hand roll tool thru Charles that worked with the 20 ga but slips with the 32 ga. You can interchange the heads with it. I did not have a lot of time when I did the few shells with the pics so I will be working with it again soon. I think the drill press will work great because you need pretty good pressure to do the crimp with the plastic shells. I have not tried any paper shells yet. One advantage to the drill or hand press is that in a 2 3/4 or 3" hull you can do a nice crimp. I have found that my 20 ga hand crimper tool has too short a space for the longer hulls. Also by having the hull verticle the top overshot seal will not fall out like it does sometimes in the horizonal position. I have a bunch of new 20 ga active hulls and this is going to work great on them. In hulls that I cut off I like federals the best for roll crimping. The hulls seem be a good material for roll crimping and I have done some a number of times in 12 and 20 ga. I have had good results with fiocchi 16 ga and 28 gauge. Chedite also ok.

The roll crimper from Ballistics Products does a nice job. The trick seems to be in the little notch on the inside lip. I think it is to let some of the heat out as these can get hot. I also found that in using a drill press to go bring the handle down slowly to the stop and lifting it and doing it again to get a nice crimp. I use them for 12 ga. 16, ga and 20 ga.
These are 16 ga, 2 9/16" Cheddites with my home made vise.

Here is the od fashioned hand roll crimper, in my opinion, does it faster and just as nice. These are Remington Gun Clubs cut to 2 1/2".