The other day I stopped by to see a buddy who happened to be in the back room cranking out reloads. He was adding a step that I had never seen before. He was warming his hulls.
He had a rig set up that held 25 empties base down with a hair dryer blowing on them. This got the mouth of the plastic shells pretty warm. He claimed that warm plastic is softer and crimps better and "this is how they do it at the factory".
I have heard that factories used a hot crimping die before.
Has anyone else heard of this? As to safety, his warming rig was on the back porch away from powder and primers and he only got the shells warm, not piping hot. A shell would melt before it got hot enough to set off a primer or primer and even if it didn't, it would still be way too hot to handle. The way he did this is perfectly safe.
He had a rig set up that held 25 empties base down with a hair dryer blowing on them. This got the mouth of the plastic shells pretty warm. He claimed that warm plastic is softer and crimps better and "this is how they do it at the factory".
I have heard that factories used a hot crimping die before.
Has anyone else heard of this? As to safety, his warming rig was on the back porch away from powder and primers and he only got the shells warm, not piping hot. A shell would melt before it got hot enough to set off a primer or primer and even if it didn't, it would still be way too hot to handle. The way he did this is perfectly safe.