Roll Crimping

[Milton C Starr]

Im thinking perhaps a easy way to do it is when roll crimping to just pop the driven pulley off and find something like one of these wheels and hand turn it. I noticed with my PR crimper it doesnt like any sort of lubrication in fact it wont even begin to crimp but the BPI seems to work either way. The above green hulls are 8 gauge Remingtons I did with the BPI cant remember if I used the drill press or hand drill. I have rolled crimped one old paper hull maybe from the 1970s with the BPI crimper with a hand drill. It worked but the old paper and the jagged way I cut the old crimp didnt look the best. I ordered some expensive custom paper hulls last week I might try something different crimping those they are to expensive to mess up haha.

If you wanted to get real simple id buy a hand crank drill attach it to a drill guide and do it that way. Really when you break it down you just need something that can hold a 1/2" chuck horizontally stable at a slow speed, I think anyway you could achieve that with a hand crank would probably work best. Or if these are just going to be used in a sxs or any break open gun run down to the local Dollar General and buy a hot glue gun or tube of duco cement. It really depends if you care how pretty they look you get better case mouth life using a glued in overshot card. Me personally I dont care as I get rid of them after 1 firing as I like my ammo to look pretty

[Stan Hoover]

Thanks Edgar for your thorough explanation of how you do roll crimping and all the helpful tips.

And thanks to you also Milt, I appreciate all the knowledge I can pick up on this great forum.

As they say, Life is to short to learn only from your own mistakes, learning from other peoples mistakes is a plus

Thanks to this thread, the roll crimpers that I did buy are the ones produced by Nick Ross, so now the search for a good press will start. I love when I have an excuse to buy something that I've been wanting for a while.

Thanks again,
Stan

[edgarspencer]

When I was old enough to take a gun out by myself, the only shotshells were paper, and loading paper hulls was initially my attempt to recreate the smell and nostalgia. I began rolling my own when I found a nice old hand roller. Since then I learned there's more to it, but, like Milton, I like my shells to look nice too.
Apart from the appearance, rolling gives advantages in lower pressures for old guns.
I've pattern tested lots of these, and found that overshot cards need to as thin as practical in order not to skew the pattern. or, doughnut hole them.
Another detail of importance is that the roll be physically uniform all the way around. If not, the mouth opens up first at the point of least resistance, and the pattern is skewed. The depth of the roll does not need to be any more than what it takes to do a complete 180 degree turn. More, and it builds pressure opening up the mouth; Less, and there's the risk the loaded shell will pop the card loose and spill the shot. Plastic hulls need reconditioning after fired. Reloaded paper hulls are never as pretty as they were new.
All I need now is time to get out and empty a mess of these shells.