And now for an actual firearms post:

More messing around with the .310 Cadet

With most of these rifles, when a cartridge has been fired, a lot of people do not resize the case; they just deprime/prime, throw in a charge, and then slip the heel of the bullet into the case and shoot it that way. Which does work, but has two problems: One is that you have to put the cartridges in a box bullet up, and there better not be enough space for a jar to let a bullet come out; it will. Or if you try to pick it up by the bullet, it’ll come out.* This is not optimal.

Second is that some propellants will burn more cleanly and evenly if the bullet is crimped in so there’s a bit of resistance before it starts moving.

What I’d tried up to now was resizing the first 1/3 of the case so it’d hold onto the bullet heel better. That means having to size, then bell the case mouth so the bullet can be seated.

So some reading was done, and what some people have done is take a .32-20 Lee Factory Crimp die and modify it to work with the Cadet. The mod is to take the die apart(use a punch and hammer to tap the crimp piece out of the body), and then cut .250” off the body, and .230” off the bottom of the crimper.

If you’re not familiar with these dies, the inner piece is a collet, and the inside of the body is shaped so that it’s loose, but when the shell holder pushes up on the crimper, it forces it up, and a shoulder inside the die body causes the collet leaves to close in, crimping the case mouth. So this mod should allow the die to crimp the case mouth into the bullet heel(remember, this is a heeled bullet; a standard crimp die won’t work with this).

Lee die was obtained, and shortened according to the instructions, and I loaded five using it to crimp. Also, I took five loaded rounds loaded with sized cases and used this to crimp them. So next time I get a chance, I’ll see if I can see a difference. Long as it doesn’t worsen accuracy, it does the job of holding the bullet in place, so worth it for that.