If you are addressing my post I stated using the old style pre-crimp seemed to add a bit of STABILITY/INDEXING to the press operation.... My comment about indexing hull to pre-crimp is in reference to the BPI tool that is available and their own information indicates if using their tool on once fired the indexing hull to the tool may be necessary. Have you had experience with either the old style MEC or the BPI tooling? Larry

The old style Mec, yes. The BPI, no. I have the old style on my 9000H. I switched it to the old cone style a couple of years ago and it works just great. On my SS presses, 650s, and Grabber I use the newer plastic start crimps and ground the ribs out. The only BPI tool I can think of someone would try, or buy, is the metal one for hulls that are new and haven't been crimped at all. I'm not sure how it attaches to the press, maybe it doesn't index. I never believed their ad hype about needing one, or skiving new hulls. I've cut down about 500 10ga 3 1/2" hulls to 2 7/8" and a great number of 12 ga hulls to 2 1/2". This makes all of them the same as new unfired hulls with no crimp. All of them crimped just fine with a Mec plastic start crimp die and without skiving. The second time they index correctly and crimp just fine. JMHO.

I had a friend give me a cone but it turned out to be 20 ga. I am going to fire up the lathe and make one for 12ga. I will just use the dimensions from the 8 point and should work in the die just fine.
Larry

Here is a followup:
Got one of these "Perfect Crimp Handy Trimmers" (Thanks Painter* for the link):


After trimming the hulls the crimps are much more consistent. Virtually no swirls. Other big advantage is that since I don't have to worry about swirls now, I was able to lower the crimp die. The result is much better crimp depth. Very close to 0.055" for crimp depth now.


Thanks for all the help! Now back to hull trimming!

Perfect!

tp