Chris, those brass crimp starters are the bomb!!

Have had the "smashed" problem a couple of times with different hulls. Found that backing off on the crimp start did more for the issue than anything else I tried.

When you reload enough you get the feel for too much resistance on that downstroke of the press. That lets you know when to back off on the pressure.

Only 5 months into reloading strictly 16ga 2.5” shells and a bit north of 1000 now I have had this problem many times. I fix it by adjusting the final crimp pressure. I also have had to readjust slightly between batches. I feel it was a matter of how many reloads the shells have had and certainly between RST and Herters as well as between 8 and 7.5 shot.

Let’s just say I keep a good eye on the wear abouts of my allan key.

The base height in the purple Herters hull is higher than the hulls used by RST. It will raise your stack height.