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We have completely confused ourselves on this, so finally had to ask.

When we loaded our first rounds, no crimp had to be applied, just seat the bullet and go. Our handgun dies (Lee Deluxe) all came with factory crimp dies, but we won't use them anytime soon.

However: Preparing for our first rifle cartridge loading, we just cleaned a whole bunch of 30-06 cases (DynaBlue didn't complain too much about decapping a few hundred cases...). Then, we started looking at our Lee Deluxe die set. It has a neck sizer, full-length sizer, and seater. No special crimp die, and the instructions say the FL sizer does not do crimping.

The confusion: We're loading for Garands (plural, so FL sizing is needed). Would our current die set apply the correct neck tension for the Garand? We're leaning toward buying a factory crimp die, but you'd think this set should have the neck tension covered.

Neck tension alone on rounds for use in semi-auto rifles is OK, sorta. Loading single shots it isn't too important to crimp if shooting from a magazine a crimp will keep your rounds from bullet set back.

If the bullets you are using have a cannelure then a roll crimp is appropriate - - - a normal rifle seating die will put a roll crimp without anything but proper adjustment. Non cannelured bullets can be crimped with the Lee factory crimp die DO NOT attempt to roll crimp non cannelured bullets you will make a mess.

Thanks for helping with our sanity check!

(In my case, sanity checks typically find none....)