Reloading tip: Candle Wax Crimp Seal
 

Do you ever have a reload where the crimp dished in a little too much leaving a small opening in the center? This can happen when your reloader is set to crimp one kind of shell and you use another. It can also happen when loading shells that use a filler wad and you don't get the shot column high enough, easy to do loading the Short Ten.

When this happens these shells will often leak shot shot making them unusable. It's difficult to open the shells after they are loaded and fix it. There is a simple solution. Drip some candle wax in the center of the crimp and seal the shell.

Old timers used to do this to waterproof their paper hull reloads even when the crimp was right.

I have thought this was something everybody knows but then yesterday when I "fixed" a couple of old Remington SP hull 10ga reloads and thought I would share with those who might not know of this trick.

PS. Don't do this on your reloading bench, that is not a good place for an open flame :)

I am new to reloading, having started only about a year ago. Right from the start I was experiencing the crimp problem you describe - maybe because I'm reloading RST cheddites, but almost half of my reloads have waxed crimps. It was just something I thought of when I could see shot lookin back at me through my lousy crimps.





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Dean there are couple things that can cause a hole in the center of the crimp, one is the shot column is too low and another is the cam of MEC loader is not adjusted correctly for the brand of hull you are loading. The wax is way to make a shell with a hole usable.

Adjusting a single stage MEC cam is here:

Thanks for the video Pete. Maybe now I can quit waxing my crimps.





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Pete and Dean, I've posted this before, but will do it again for anybody who's missed it.
When adjusting the crimp station, the CAM is the LAST thing you adjust. Adjust the crimp starter first, then adjust the seating stem to get the proper depth. When you are getting a correct fold of the crimp petals, and the correct depth set, THEN adjust the cam to eliminate the flare. NOTE The cam adjustment should be set at least 2/3 of the way up, while the other adjustments are being made. Then, and only then, lower the cam enough to eliminate the flare.



The roller will not touch the cam (or at least not have any force put on it by the cam) at the very bottom of the stroke. BUT, more cam means the cam will touch the roller and apply force to it longer (further down) in the stroke. The cam has a fairly sharp shoulder or lobe on it. When you start down with the press the roller rolls on the cam (because this part of the cam is circular) and the outer (plastic) part of the die is pushed down by the cam and roller. Until you get around 1/2-3/4 of the way down, everything I have said so far remains true regardless of where the cam is set. However, the cam is rotating as you come down. Eventually the cam rotates to the point when the roller goes past the shoulder on the cam. Past this point the cam is no longer circular. As you come on down the cam puts less and less pressure on the roller. But, the center punch will come on down because it is fastened solidly to the top of the press. If the roller gets past the shoulder of the cam too early in the stroke you will end up with the punch coming on down on the center of the crimp and this tending to squeeze the top of the shell outward. But the plastic part of the die is not coming on down, which means it cannot prevent the top of the shell from flaring outward. It takes a lot of fine tuning to get this just right. There is a reason why Mec adds the final taper die to the Grabber and 9000. Having a separate die that is used strictly to get some taper makes things a lot simpler.
The video is ok, but it's a bit miss leading of the purpose of the cam adjustments. Yes too much adjustment down will wrinkle the shell, but first I'd look at the component height in the shell. You need enough shell left over to crimp it. I don't remember right now but I think at least a 1/2" is necessary in a 10ga. Then enough start crimp is necessary - the more the start crimp you have - sometimes the folds almost touching - the more material there is for the final crimp. This alone will sometimes eliminate a hole. Then I do as stated above to round the top of the shell and help close it.
Yes, I do keep a candle near by and use it when setting up for different length shells seeing how I have 2 5/8, 2 3/4, and 2 7/8 10 ga hulls.

you can also use a hot glue gun for this....charlie

Load Gun club in 12 and 20, have a good source and am surprised at the variation in length of hulls from different batches of them. Adjust press in the middle, longer hulls have slight swirl , shorter hulls just closed enough not to leak. In 410 have to adjust when going from Rem. to Win.

when I load 3/4 oz 12s with # 9 I get a few leakers. Mostly worn out hulls on the last round. Set them aside,for sealing.

I put a little puddle of white Elmers glue on a piece of plastic . Touch it with a pencil point picks up a tiny dot of glue. Touch the hole it seals it with a very sparse dot. You can control the size of the dot with the size of the pencil point.

William

I never cease to be amazed at how we will go thru all sorts of machinations to save a penny using worn out shells that will be shot thru guns for which we have paid thousands .

(Including myself)

FWIW I "waxed" a crow with the shell in picture this afternoon :) Next time I will try use a little more filler wad.

All of mine are once-fired only. I have over 1,000 in 16 ga., over 1,000 in 20 ga., over 500 in 28 ga., and at least as many 12's.... all once-fired.






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After dropping the shot you could try adding a standard overshot card before you crimp. This will flatten the final crimp to the shell perfect. For 12 gauge, use 16. For 10, use a 12, etc....

I was getting dished crimps like the picture Pete posted when I needed to switch to 700X which is a more dense powder than Clays since I ran out. The overshot card made a nice tight flat crimp and you get confetti for special effects when you fire off the gun....

When I was a kid (re. paper shells) I found that bee's wax candles worked better than paraffin for sealing shells. It seemed that the bee's wax would stick better and wouldn't flake off as the shells got bounced around in my hunting coat. Now with a properly adjusted crimp die and plastic wads the problem doesn't come up very often.
C.G.B.

I've been using candle wax for decades. When I was shooting registered skeet the 410's got the most use from a candle.
Dean I'm loading all 2 1/2 inch RST as well and once in a while you pick up a shell that's a different crimp. as they age (get used) the crimp memory degrades and the candle comes out. This reminds me I need a new candle:)

COB, those .410s can be a bugger, especially when one loads Rem, Win and Fiocchi hulls. I use a lot of overshot cards. I'll use them for most of my shells, .410, 28, 20, 16 and 10. Don't need them for 90% of my 12g 2 1/2" shells. For some reason my 12g crimps are usually right on the money. I also use them for my 12g Black Powder paper shells. Really finishes off that crimp.

I always used the Win AA hull in the 2 1/2 inch 410. Never had a problem with them but back in the day I would load them until the crimp was shot off:eek:
I could use them a dozen or more times until the wax came out to hold the shot in:rotf:

I have some vintage smallbore candle wax that I could let go real cheap.:eek:

ive waxed for decades and found toilet paper to be as good if not better. issue: wax dries. if you shoot shells with wax in a semi auto, the feeding stress can cause the wax to pop out.
if you shoot a lot, the wax melts inside the bore.
if you reload, the old wax on the crimp gets jammed up in the deprimer and resizer die.
though ive never had a safety issue with wax, those that do it should be aware of these additional things. I hope it helps.

I might add that if you use wax, while its still clouding over and soft....smash it down with your thumb, to make it form into the top lead and lock into the crimps from the inside. itll have less chance of falling out.

Ok, now I am torn between wax and toilet paper.

i too use toilet paper you get your game and clean it at the same time.....charlie

toilet paper? torn? nice pun.

drop a rice puff in before final crimp. that works too!

If I think a hull is bad I don't load it. Get a Open crimp by surprise I seal them and box separately with "toss" in black marker on the box. Alternative is cut them open to salvage components, real pain compared to seal shoot and throw away.

William

I mainly load 3" .410 shells Had to do some playing around to get them right on the MEC. If I ever need to load 2 1/2", the Spolar makes awesome shells.

If I have to resort to the wax to keep the shot in then I mark the bottom of the hull with a black sharpie and throw it out after using it.

My shells don't sit around long enough for the wax to become problematic and I don't have any semi auto shotguns:nono:

I put salt in mine.



Wait for it!

As the old joke goes, my Parker kills so far that I have to add salt to keep the meat from spoiling before I get there.:)

Now that's bad.