Interesting.

Of special note;  I'm surprised the Handloader data showed the amount of crimp.  Also, IMO, .418" of crimp seems to be quite a bit, and more than any factory ammo I've measured.  I'm not suggesting right or wrong here, just generally commenting.

The Atlanta Arms stuff I shoot at the indoor range has no measurable crimp.......I've been using .419, I forget where I came up with that figure.

Depends on how you measure it.

For instance...here is some Double Tap Nosler 135 old stock I recently found.

Measured on the large "flats" of my caliper, I get .424":



But, if I measure right on the leading edge of the case rim with the thin tips of the calipers, I get .416":



Now, the case actually has a little bulge that is being measured in the first picture.  If I use the tips and measure the bulge .110" below the base mouth, I get .423":



And just below the bulge, .210" from the case mouth, I get .416 again:



The bulge tells me the round was seated and crimped together and the brass started to buckle at the bottom because of the extreme crimp.  The brass was so tight the bullet could not slip any further, so the brass moved with it.  If you are going to use an aggressive crimp like this, you really need to do it in two steps:  seat, then crimp.

Finally, looking at a pulled bullet, it has been swaged way down.  Right below the shoulder of the bullet we see it's diameter reduced to .394":



At the base it measured .401".  I haven't really shot these from a bench that I recall, but I would expect accuracy to improve if the crimp were lessened a good bit. I expect there is significant possibility the bullet won't enter the rifling square, and therefore the base won't exit the crown square. This will cause the group size to open up.

The pulled powder looks like Longshot, so I am going to work up some loads and test accuracy and speed at some point.  Living an hour from a good place to set up the chrony means it may be a few weeks though.

Hey sqlbullet,  what did the load of LongShot weigh from that pulled round?

11.4 was the powder charge on the scale.

11.5 was calculated by weighing the loaded round, then pulling, then weighing the bullet and case without the powder and subtracting.

This is about .2 higher than recent reports of 11.2 and 11.3 grains.  Also, this is probably four years old or more, so it is likely from back when DT made their claims.  This could indicated they backed down the load.  It could also indicate a slightly heavy charge.

After I have tested these over a Chrony, if I have 5 left I will pull them and report each individual weight as well as the average.

Come on, what was the overall length? Must you make it so hard?

Yeah, I measure the crimp at the the edge with the 'knife' end of the caliper jaws. Crimped in a Lee crimping die as a separate step.

The gun show was a complete bust......very small number of dealers and NO deals that I saw. No powder either, except the usual I can find anywhere. bleh.....

1.245" was the COL.

By chance sqlbullet, what was advertised velocity at that time on those 135's?

Here ya go:

Thanks! 

Meanwhile..... I gave in, surrendered or whatever you want to call it and ordered some VV-N350, haz-mat fees and all. I gotta know......

Looking forward to hear how it goes

Definitely looking forward to the results of N350 in conjunction with a 180gr bullet.

I did get some 180 Gold Dots to try, too. I measured them for something to do ......0.633  to 0.639 length and the 180 XTPs were all around 0.618. From 0.015 to 0.020 longer for the GDs. Shows why it's a good idea to match the exact  bullets used in load data.

Do you have any 180gr FMJ laying around to take a measurement of for comparison to the JHPs?