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Joined: 31 Jan 2009 Posts: 18

Hello,

I don't have any experience with reloading. I am still collecting components and trying to figure out exactly what I want. Bird season is almost here and I plan on spending rainy days or dark nights reloading. Anyway I was looking at the stress lines on some of the hulls I am collecting and wondered if it would be worth it or possible to use some type of plastic conditioner on the hulls before reloading.

I would not think about it if hulls were readily available to me like the 12 or 20 are at the range. Would it be worth it to maybe get another reload out of the hulls I have now or best to just let them go? Would they still crimp or maybe not due to the reduced friction? Anyone ever bother with this type of thing?

G.H.

Member Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Posts: 1338

Member Joined: 06 Oct 2007 Posts: 2357 Location: West MI

Mike's right, roll crimping is a way to extend the life of cracked or burnt hulls. Cost of the basic equipment isn't too bad. To start the basics you'll need are a; hull trimmer-easilly home made, roll crimp tool, hand drill and hull vise (channel locks and strip of leather to start). If you find roll crimping to your liking then upgrading the tools would make sense i.e. drill press, hull vise/MEC super sizer.

Sometimes on ebay you can find antique hand powered roll crimp tolls that several reloaders around here say are working great for them.

As far as "plastic conditioner" I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Are you suggesting stuff like Armor-all? Or a tool that reshapes the mouth? Can't speak to chemicals but I use a plastic kitchen funnel to reshape hull mouths.

You can still fold crimp shortened hulls but the load capacity will be reduced. With RCing load capacity doesn't suffer much at all in a shortened hull because the amount of plastic to close a rolled shell is much less than a fold crimp.

As far as hulls being readily available, again not sure what you're speaking of. The online reloading shops have all sorts of hulls available that last a good long time. Here are 2 that I use for hulls, there may be more.

http://www.precisionreloading.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=PRE&Category_Code=16_GA_2_3-4

http://www.ballisticproducts.com/products.asp?dept=77

At the end of all this if you dont find RCing to your liking save all those burnt or cracked hulls. I'm certain someone around here (me for one) can use them and may trade full length good hulls for them. Say 3 cracked for 1 uncracked or 5/2 or whatever makes sense.

Hope this helps, Mike

Joined: 06 Mar 2008 Posts: 596 Location: 17603

Or here;
http://www.grafs.com/shotshell/416
Cheers,
R*2