Starline 44-40 brass

[skizzums]

if you die is set to crimp hard before the seater stem is finished, then the neck will crumble. that means if you want a hard crimp and some brass is longer than others, you will need to adjust the die for the longer brass or trim. I crimp on a separate die to keep this from happening.

if you have a separate crimp die, then when using the seating die, just put the case in the body of the die as little as possible and just have the seating stem screwed al the way in. this prevents that die from doing any crimp no matter how long the brass is. that combine with a good flare should stop any crumbling. some notice that lee dies have such a sharp angle on the flare, that it doesn't go deep enough in the case to allow for long lead bullets, I tend to agree.

 

[mehavey]

44-40 (and many other roll-crimp cartridges where bullet has good crimp groove)

1. Screw the die down to contact empty case
2. Back off a full turn
3. Seat a bullet to near top of crimp groove by adjusting seating stem only (establishing desired OAL)
4. Unscrew the seating stem many turns
5. With ram/bullet still up, screw die down to contact case again.
6. Drop ram. Then screw die down additional 1/2 turn.
7. Raise ram (thereby crimping bullet w/o contact w/ seating stem).
8. Minor adjust on die body to desired final crimp profile. Then Lock it
9. With ram/bullet still up/crimped, screw seating stem down to contact bullet. Then Lock it as well.

You may now seat/crimp in one stroke (very very minor adjust on seating stem on first few bullets to get ensure exact OAL). ReLock it.

 

[RickB]

I've never used Starline brass, but when resizing .44-40, I find that the case mouth does not remain "even", that there's a sort of wave running around the rim resulting in inconsistent length.
I do trim them after a couple of loadings.
I've used nothing but .427" bullets in Colt and S&W revolvers (one of each).