Punching out a bunch of .45 the past couple of days, Lee classic Turret press and lee deluxe carbide dies. Never had much trouble before and everything was going fine. Then I began to notice increased resistance in the powder/belling die pulling it out. Then I noticed the bullets seemed to fit "tighter" and some fine copper powder was beginning to form around the shell holder.
Then, a few cases tried to shave the plating off. Then it became more and more frequent until I had about 15-20 of them from a batch of 200! Resistance was fairly high pulling out of the powder/flair die.
I stopped a couple of times, reset every thing to no avail. Cleaning the die helped a little with the resistance, but shaved plating and crumpled cases persisted. I tried to adjust the flair greater, but no luck until it was way to much, causing the case mouth to look like a blunderbuss.
Then a thought occurred: Could the resistance pulling out of the flair die be so great it was pulling the flair out? Measuring showed a slight flair, not enough!
So, I pulled out a tube of Lee lube (said to not degrade powder) and put some on the part inside the die that does the flaring, and just a smidge on the first case mouth or two, and went back and set dies to where they usually go and TA DA, problem solved!
I guess even carbide dies need a clean and lube once in a while. These were brand new brass being used the first time...never had this happen before but there you are. Now to take apart 20 bad shells. About 10 (from the beginning of the problem scrunched the brass enough to be scrap, the second 10 I could feel the plate starting to peel and stopped. Bullets are scrap, primers are of course good. Lesson learned!
Russellc
Then, a few cases tried to shave the plating off. Then it became more and more frequent until I had about 15-20 of them from a batch of 200! Resistance was fairly high pulling out of the powder/flair die.
I stopped a couple of times, reset every thing to no avail. Cleaning the die helped a little with the resistance, but shaved plating and crumpled cases persisted. I tried to adjust the flair greater, but no luck until it was way to much, causing the case mouth to look like a blunderbuss.
Then a thought occurred: Could the resistance pulling out of the flair die be so great it was pulling the flair out? Measuring showed a slight flair, not enough!
So, I pulled out a tube of Lee lube (said to not degrade powder) and put some on the part inside the die that does the flaring, and just a smidge on the first case mouth or two, and went back and set dies to where they usually go and TA DA, problem solved!
I guess even carbide dies need a clean and lube once in a while. These were brand new brass being used the first time...never had this happen before but there you are. Now to take apart 20 bad shells. About 10 (from the beginning of the problem scrunched the brass enough to be scrap, the second 10 I could feel the plate starting to peel and stopped. Bullets are scrap, primers are of course good. Lesson learned!
Russellc