Another die experiment fail

[beatledog7]

Dawn is also excellent for de-oiling sea creatures that get mucked up by the occasional crude release.

I've used only two case lubes: Hornady One-Shot and Lyman. Both work just fine; I have yet to stick a case or hydro-bubble a shoulder.

 

[Hondo 60]

For the life of me, I fail to understand people who try to save money on what is arguably the cheapest part of reloading.

Dawn is something that some of us have in the house already.
I wouldn't even know where to look for lanolin, much less other questions about it.
Are there different types? different strengths? etc.

And I very much appreciate FROGO207 posting this, as I never would've thought that Dawn would be water based.

Ya know, at some point every idea is brand new.
And if no one tries ....

 

[ranger335v]

I've experimented with case lubes for a very long time. Reloading companies buy, mix and bottle concoctions for case lubes and sell them at inflated cost but nothing is specifically made as a case lube.

All water soluable case lubes are soaps. Neither soaps (nor detergents) will rust anything but the water used to make them liquid will. Make sure your dies are dry before storing them and all will be well no matter how much water is in your lube.

Imperial is simply a slightly softened vegatable oil wax and/or bee's wax mix. So are Kiwi's "Mink Oil" boot treatment and other paste shoe waxes, paste floor/furniture waxes, toilet bowl sealing rings, Chap-Stick, etc, and they all work fine.

Lanolin is a excellant case lube. It's easily found in some readily available things like the better dry skin creams, some hair treatments, some bath soap bars, nursing mothers nipple salves and milk cow udder balms are good; applied correctly they all work fine.

Petroleum products - auto greases and STP type oils - work good but they are messy to apply and a hassle to get off cases and fingers.

 

[fguffey]

"Ya know, at some point every idea is brand new.
And if no one tries .... "



it was not that long ago I said I use vinegar for cleaning the worst of cases, I placed a time factor on the process, 15 minutes, once, for the life of the case. I did not clean cases with vinegar, I used vinegar to cut down on the time it took to clean cases that required 2 days plus of tumbling. I started with placing cases in 5% vinegar for 2 days, the cases turned pink/orange the longer the case set in the vinegar the thinner the case got. Washing the cases after soaking in vinegar did not stop the process, it took multiple soakings.



Before that the process as late as the 50s used H2SO3 reduced to 2.5% +/- very little with a maximum time limit of 3 minutes and soaking/cleaning in hot boiling water repeated at least twice to remove the acid and its effect on the case. In the old days it was referred to pickling, when washed the cases turned black.



Then stainless steel pins, reloaders lined up, most lined up, the lines did not include me, never a question like "If stainless steel pins are miracle workers, Why the lime shine", most do not understand the question. I use tumbling media and nothing, again, for the worst of cases I start with vinegar once for the life of the case for a maximum of 15 minutes and I know it is most important to wash the cases thourly, over and over etc..



Again, I use tumbling media and nothing, when I want to show off I use a home made case spinner. I know, Lee makes a little Zippy self wind case spinner, when used as a case spinner it does a half hazard job. For Bling and showing off, nothing beats the home made case spinner.



F. Guffey

 

[mdi]

That satisfaction would quickly go away once you stuck a cartridge case in a rusty die. ;0

The only case I stuck in a die was lubed with Honady spray. I only reload two bottle necked cartridges and using a dedicated reloading case lube failed. In over 2 thousand cases without a stuck cartridge/die, none were lubed with a commercial dedicated case lube, as Mink Oil Boot Dressing works soooooo much better...