Resizing Lube for 223

I use 1oz lanolin to 12 oz ISOHeet in a spray bottle. 1 spray on the bottom of a plastic Chinese takeout container and 1 spray on the lid. Tumble around for a few. Not spraying directly on the cases keeps it off the necks. Good for about 100 .223 at a time. Very smooth resizing. Most of the time just the handling of the brass in subsequent operations is good enough to remove the lube. If not then a wipe with a paper towel or alcohol wipe does the trick.

Bob in MO said:

Do you remove the lube after sizing, if so how?

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I wet tumble rifle brass twice - once briefly when I bring it home to clean the dirt and powder off. Then once again when I've finished sizing, trimming, deburring, taking out the primer crimp, etc. The 2nd round of tumbling both cleans off the sizing wax you asked about, and also rinses away any brass shavings stuck in/on the cases. It also cleans the primer pockets that didn't get clean from the first tumbling (since the spent primer was still in it).

When I do my final tumbling, I actually do a quick (~20 minutes) tumble with a watered-down ZEP de-greaser to clean off the sizing wax, then rinse it out and finish up with my usual detergent (Woolite with a bit of lemishine for about an hour).

For lube, I use the Hornady one-shot re-sizing wax that comes in the small tin (not the spray can). The spray can one-shot works extremely well for pistol brass, but I don't trust it for bottle-neck cartridges. It might work fine for rifle too, but I'll stick with what I know works well.

I'm another that uses the Lanolin/Alcohol spray. I'll dump about a hundred cases into a gallon Ziplock bag, give them a couple of pumps and shake them good while trying to roll them around. Then I dump them out on a towel to let the alcohol evaporate. This takes about a minute. I tumble them to remove it.

243winxb said:

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This is the best choice for rifles.
Handgun brass gets sizing wax because it's easier.

Bob in MO said:

Well fellers I've loaded pistol rounds for several years. But now I'm wanting to start loading 223 and I got some questions.
What product do you use to lube when resizing?
How do you apply it?
How do you remove it (if you do)?
thanks

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I don't know if this is appropriate or not for use but After getting several cases stuck I got desperate and grabbed my tub of Working Mans Hands. Not one case had to be hammered out of that. When finished I cleaned my dies and put the case in the shell holder that came with my trimmer that hooks to my drill and grabbed a microfiber cloth and quickly spun off the excess.

Use a combo to lube. Make my homebrew of Liquid lanolin and HEET (alcohol.) 10 to 1. Then spray it on them. Sometimes that is not enough so I keep some wax nearby and keep a little on my fingers. If I feel the press working a little too hard I use more wax. After that I dry tumble again.

By the way I bought myself a plastic tumbler a few months ago and regret not buying one on day 1. Dump 'em in, turn handle, and dump 'em out. I used to (for years to save the $60) blow out every empty cart with an air compressor to remove the Lizard walnut mix. A real PITA.

243winxb said:

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I like using the RCBS pad. Doesn't take much to roll a hundred cases. Easy enough to wipe off after sizing. Plus I can usually spot a split case before loading.

Hornady One Shot. It's easy, and a little goes a long way.

I used the RCBS lube and pad for many years, usually lubing every other case.

When I got a progressive press and started loading pistol, I used Hornady #1 spray. I know “you don’t need to lube straight wall pistol cases” but I can feel the difference.

Initially, I didn’t clean the lube off. What I noticed was when I weighed powder charges, a couple of 10th if a grain would be stuck in the case.

So I tumble the cases after sizing.

When I spray the cases, I put a couple of hundred in a box, spray a couple of blasts, move them around and spray again for a total of 3 times. I can tell when even a straight wall pistol cartridge doesn’t have lube on it.

I’m gonna trying this for my hunting rifles in the future. Since I wet tumble with stainless steel media, tumbling after sizing not only gets the lube off, but cleans the primer pockets.