reloading dies

[OLDE RETIRED COASTIE]

I am still fairly new to reloading, but is my understanding that in pistol dies, a carbide sizing/depriming die, needs no lube. It is also my understanding that this die can be used in
conjunction with steel expanding dies, and steel seating dies, and the case does not need to be lubed Is that correct. I also understand when in doubt....... LUBE!!!

 

[allisd17]

I am still fairly new to reloading, but is my understanding that in pistol dies, a carbide sizing/depriming die, needs no lube. It is also my understanding that this die can be used in
conjunction with steel expanding dies, and steel seating dies, and the case does not need to be lubed Is that correct. I also understand when in doubt....... LUBE!!!

I've never used lube with carbide sizing dies but I'm sure there are people who do. I do make sure that my brass is squeaky clean, though, and I do occasionally clean out the die. You don't need to lube the cases to run them through the expanding die, but only expand them to the minimum necessary to accept the bullet.

 

[Soupy44]

I have all carbide sizing dies and do not use lube for pistol brass. Of course I do use lube to size rifle brass.

I do know a few folks that use lube with carbide dies simple to take some load off their arms.

 

[KY DAN]

I use lube and size and expand case mouths while lubed.

I then tumble them, I use walnut and nu finish car wax.

Try this , size 100 cases dry and then 100 lubed and tell me how you elbow and shoulder fees afterwards.

 

[Cheesemaker]

Applying lube only pertains to the sizing die - not the expander or seating die.
Steel sizer needs lube. A carbide sizer does not, however, some folks apply lube every 5 or so cases, it does make it easier.
Some folks may lube the case mouth when expanding/flaring straight wall cases (pistol) - I do not.
Usually resizing bottleneck cases (rifle) will need a bit of lube on the the case mouth.

 

[dgod]

My rule of thumb, any bottle neck brass must be lubed, any other brass it is not necessary.

 

[WeekendReloader]

I have carbide dies and I still lube all my brass. It helps it slide through the dies with ease.
I use the LEE lube and do not clean it off after loading.

 

[1KPerDay]

This is the one good use for hornady one shot case lube. Bulk lubing a bunch of handgun brass. It greatly lessens the effort needed for sizing. Couple sprays, shake it up in a bucket, load (using carbide dies), shoot, clean, repeat.

 

[Milt1]

I do the same as KY DAN and WeekendReloader in that I lube cases when using my carbide resizing die. I've tried it both ways and it's much easier with a little lube. Chances are you're going to clean your brass after resizing so the lube is going to come off when you do that.

 

[OLDE RETIRED COASTIE]

Do ya'll use spray lube, lube from a tube on a stamp pad kind of thing , or what?

a for real stamp pad works , as long as you remember to use a new stamp pad, remember murphy's law, and murphy was an optimist

 

[Mk-211]

You can make your own spray lube, someone can post their version or you can Google it.

I like to use Hornady's Unique for rifle cases, you get a big tub of it for a few bucks. I spread some in my off hand, move the case around to cover it from top to bottom, then stick it on the press. Every 3 or so cases, I scrape a finger tip over the case mouth. This gets on the expander to ease it through the necks.

 

[2ndtimer]

My rule of thumb, any bottle neck brass must be lubed, any other brass it is not necessary if you are using carbide or nitride sizing dies.

Fixed it for you. There are non-carbide dies available for straight wall cases that do require lube.

 

[.38 Special]

I use carbide dies whenever possible, primarily so that I don't have to lube. (I also don't tumble or otherwise clean brass after sizing unless I had to lube them, and I'm not sure why anyone would.) The only exception, for me, is the .500 S&W, which requires quite a bit of effort unless lubed, even with carbide or nitride dies.

When I do need lube, I prefer Imperial wax, which I believe is now sold under the Redding name. I think it is superior to spray and roll-on lubes in every way except for bulk loading. When more than fifty or so cases are to be sized, it can be a real pain in neck.

 

[OLDE RETIRED COASTIE]

when I first started loading back in the 70s and 80s, am an old kinda gent, was told to always lube, but that was before the carbide dies became so popular. Was reloading back then cause was in the US COAST GUARD,
stationed in Kodiak, AK, and ammo was hard to come by., Only got to town, or the COAST GUARD exchange about once a week. And the base did not carry a lot of different ammo.

but just started back up since covid, ammo scarce again. and prices are finally settling down, not as before covid, but coming down

 

[johnjohn]

I use a little Imperial wax on everything. Makes carbide dies SLICK. A little goes along way, still on the first can in about 20 years. (little bitty can)

 

[JFrank]

I am still fairly new to reloading, but is my understanding that in pistol dies, a carbide sizing/depriming die, needs no lube. It is also my understanding that this die can be used in
conjunction with steel expanding dies, and steel seating dies, and the case does not need to be lubed Is that correct. I also understand when in doubt....... LUBE!!!

If you put lube on the shoulder of a bottle neck case or lube in excess or you may experience hydraulic denting and in consistent sizing of the brass.

 

[film495]

I lube every case with a steel sizing die, and every 5th-7th with carbide anyways. Just makes the arm smoother and I feel like I'm less likely to bulge a case using less force to do the same action. Probably not needed, but if you've ever chased rounds that won't chamber to find out why - and you land on bulged cases, you just want to be nicer to the brass, that's what happened to me anyways ... a bit of sizing wax on an expander plug every 10 or 20 rounds doesn't hurt either IMHO. I wash the brass again after prep to get rid of any lube residue before priming and finishing the rest of the process. It doesn't take much lube at all, but no lube = stuck cases, which I hear is kind of a PITA ..

 

[BJung]

I started reloading before carbide dies and lubing pistol brass was a messy PITA. If one was to resize pistol dies with steel dies without lube and was successful, I would guess he'd get more case stretch than with the carbide dies.

 

[Big Wes]

Just a spritz of spray lube on everything I load, all my dies are carbide dies. It just seems to make the press work smoother to me.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

For pistol cases, those of us that lube them to size, mostly use a spray lube of some kind. Some store bought, some homemade.
For rifle all we do what works for us.
I throw all my pistol brass in a big pan and knock them all over. Then I spray straight down on them with Hornady One Shot. I give them a good spray then stir them around and hit them again. I don't want to spray inside the cases. I like all the neck tension I can get.
I let them dry for 10-15 minutes and this really helps with OAL consistency on my progressives. I tumble afterwards to get the lube off unless I'm loading hollow points. I don't like digging the media out of them so I tumble the empty cases after sizing them and load in two different steps.

 

[Remington1911]

Do ya'll use spray lube, lube from a tube on a stamp pad kind of thing , or what?

Imperial sizing wax/dry neck lube.

 

[WeekendReloader]

Do ya'll use spray lube, lube from a tube on a stamp pad kind of thing , or what?

I use the LEE lube in a tube. I put 1 oz of lube (1/2 of the tube) into 10 oz of 70% isopropyl alcohol in a spray bottle. Shake it up really good to dissolve the lube.
For pistol brass, I'll do a light spritz or two per 100 pieces, roll them around a bit, then air dry (or hair dryer on low). It's not much lube at all, but it makes a big difference in the force needed to resize. A little bit goes a long way.

I tried the 99% alcohol, but the LEE lube did not want to dissolve very well in it, so I had to add some water. Presto! It dissolved and works great.

 

[WestKentucky]

I use carbide pistol dies but I always use lube. Not supposed to need it… oh well, I’m a fan of repetition and lube is part of that repition in reloading. Also after a stuck piece of brass or two rips the rim off you begin to appreciate the advantage that lube gives. I generally like a little wax in the tumbler media and a quick squirt of Pam over a bucket of brass then shake the bucket and size away. I load separate from sizing operations so that works well for me. For folks doing everything in a progressive it wouldn’t work well.

 

[rdnktrkr]

If you tumble with Nu-finish car polish in your media it helps when sizing handgun brass and it protects the brass against tarnishing, something else I like to do is polish the expander and inside the dies with grinding compound and a blue shop towel (maybe just to make me think it helps), when the dies start getting dirty I will run them through a ultrasonic cleaner with Eds Red, I run handgun with a Lee turret and have not had any problems doing it this way. When reloading rifle I like the lanolin/alcohol mixture and since going this route I stopped having trouble with rifle rounds

 

[AK Hunter]

I don't put lube on my brass for sizing in carbide pistol dies but I do a lite alcohol/lanolin lube on my rifle brass even the straight wall rifle brass.