Lubricating Rifle Cases for Progressive Presses

[luzyfuerza]

I'm setting up my Dillon 650XL to load up what is for me a large batch (~3,000 Lake City and Greek cases) of 30-06 to feed my M1 Garands.

Does anybody successfully load bottleneck rifle rounds entirely on a progressive machine? If so, I've got three questions for you:

1) what case lube and lube application method do you use,
2) would this lubing technique be compatible with the casefeeder on a machine like the 650XL, and
3) has anyone been able to find (and use) a carbide or nitride bottleneck sizing die in a progressive machine?

How many of you lube and size your bottleneck cartridges outside of the progressive press and use the progressive only to prime, drop powder, seat bullet, etc.?

 

[Shmackey]

Imperial. I do lube, size, and prime as a first phase. Then you can wipe them off, trim, chamfer/deburr. Suddenly you have fully primed and prepped brass that runs through the remaining steps on a 650 like grass through a goose.

The idea of tossing unprepped brass into the hopper and just going straight to finished rounds is tempting, but unless you have a 1050 it doesn't allow for trimming and chamfer/deburr.

 

[Slamfire]

Garands need precise ammunition for safety’s sake. I would not recommend sizing, priming on a progressive.

If your cases are too long, or too fat, which easily happens on progressives when the dies backs out, then your Garand bolt will have to crunch fit the case to the chamber. In a Garand type mechanism, there is no firing pin interlock (it is a free floating firing pin) and that will rebound off the primer while the lugs are not engaged. Given a sensitive primer and an interference fit cartridge, you have just created the perfect conditions for an out of battery slamfire.

Regardless of what press you use, you must set up your sizing die with a cartridge headspace gage and size to gage minimum. Do not assume that your die will properly size the case to minimum dimensions if you follow the old “size to the shellholder and add a quarter turn”. That advice is bogus more often than it is correct.

I size all my Garand ammunition on a single stage press and I size with a small base die. I frequently check to see that all cases are sized to gage minimum, or at the very least, 0.003” less than the chamber. I use RCBS water soluble lube because it works.

I trim with a Giruard.

I also ream primer pockets to depth and insert each and every primer by hand. You must verify that all primers are below the case head as you absolutely want nothing hitting the primer before lug engagement.

I use the least sensitive primers that I can find: CCI#34 or Tula7.62. These are sold as military spec primers. Do not use match primers, or any primer that is advertized as “more sensitive”. Federal primers are the most slamfiring primer in this mechanism and I do not recommend them. Do not assume military spec primers won't slamfire in Garands/M1a’s/M1 carbines/Mini 14’s. They do, but the frequency is less than the more sensitive commercial primers. This mechanism has slamfired in battery and out of battery with every primer on the market. What you want to do, is bias the odds, by carefully sizing the case so there is no resistance to bolt closure and that all primers are below the case head, such that if you get a sensitive primer, the rifle slamfires in battery.

Once the cases are sized and primed, then I dump powder and seat the bullet on my Dillion 550B.

Garands are the most slamfiring, and the most slamfiring out of battery rifle on the market. These are rare events but they do happen. You want the best ammunition you can produce to use in these mechanisms. The greatest problem with ammunition produced on progressives is that you get high primers or fat cases, because something got out of adjustment, you don’t know, or think you can get lucky, and you end up blowing off the back end of your receiver.

Also, always feed from the clip, or use a SLED. Never ever drop the bolt on a round in the chamber. At least lower the bolt half way then let go. You want to reduce the kinetic impact energy of the firing pin as it rebounds off the primer.

 

[luzyfuerza]

ShMackey, thanks for the response!

The Imperial lube looks like it will be the missing link. I knew that none of the half-dozen or so types of case lubes that I've used in the past would be compatible with the 650's case feeder.

Do you apply the Imperial by hand? If you use a casefeeder, does the Imperial seem compatible with it?

 

[Tom488]

I use two different progressive presses, but yes, I load .30-06 progressively, from start to finish:

After tumbling fired cases in walnut-shell media, they get sprayed with RCBS Case Slick (Dillon Case Lube works just as well), shook around a bit, and dumped into the case feeder of my Hornady LnL. The LnL resizes/deprimes in station 1, trims to length in station 2 with a Dillon RT1200 trimmer, and neck-expanded in station 4 with a Lyman M-die.

From there, the prepped cases go into a corn-cob tumbler to clean off the lube, then are fed by hand into my RCBS Pro 2000, where station 1 decaps (to knock out any stuck media in the flash hole), station 2 primes and powder-charges, station 3 powder-checks with a Dillon powder check assembly, station 4 feeds a bullet from a Mr. Bulletfeeder, and station 5 seats the bullet.

Due the the size and surface area of the .30-06 case, I need to be a little more diligent with the lube. I also keep a tin of Imperial sizing wax handy, and occasionally wipe some on a case, to help keep the die lubed.

It should also be noted that I have my expander ball reduced slightly in diameter, and polished to a mirror finish - the Lyman die takes care of the final neck expansion, so by expanding less with the expander ball, I reduce case stretch.

Using this method, I don't get a lot of gunk building up in the case feeder, but still occasionally remove the feed plate, and wipe everything down. There's really not too much that can get gummed up - and the Hornady and Dillon case feeders are very similar, so you shouldn't have any issues, either.

 

[cfullgraf]

Currently, loading bottle neck cartridges on my Hornady L-N-L has not excited me but, I am currently setting up a RCBS Pro2000 for loading rifle.

I will continue to resize on a single stage press, then trim then clean cases and set them aside to load the cases at a different time.

I resize and prep cases shortly after shooting to keep the batches small. Resizing and trimming are near the bottom of my favorite reloading tasks list so keeping the batches small makes it more palatable.

 

[luzyfuerza]

SlamFire1, I appreciate your comments! They are consistent with the best information I've read elsewhere. I don't want a chunk of a receiver to ruin my face (although some might say that it would be an improvement), put out an eye, or ruin a fine rifle.

Right now, I size on a single-stage press using a small-base die and RCBS water-based lube, trim/chamfer/bevel manually, swage out primer crimps, check each case with a headspace/case gauge, and seat CCI#34s by hand using the single-stage press.

I should be able to do all this on the 650 (except for the swaging and gauging, of course) using two toolheads and Dillon's 1200B trimmer. I'll watch for differences in case dimensions between the single-stage and the progressive as you suggest.

One step that you suggest that I do not currently perform is to machine the primer pockets to depth. I'll have to give this some consideration...right now I eyeball and feel each primer to make sure that it isn't high. My guess is that you have seen variations in primer seating that were solved by machining the pockets...true?

 

[Henny]

You'll be able to make very good rifle ammunition on your 650. I used my 650 for thousands and thousands of rounds that I used in competition.

When I process brass I first tumble the brass to clean it then lube it with a home made mixture of 2 oz of liquid lanolin with 20 oz of isopropyl alcohol. I just put a few hand fulls of brass in a zip lock bag, a few squirts of lube and shake the bag. From there the cases go in the case feeder. The first station has a universal decapper, second is blank, third has the Dillon size/trim die, fourth blank and the 5th station has a Lyman M die. From there I remove the primer crimp and tumble the lube off.

When I reload the cartridges station 1 has a universal decapping die to knock out any media that may be in the flash hole, station 2 prime/powder, 3 powder check, 4 bullet seat, and station 5 is the crimp. Your ammo is now loaded and ready to go!

I have to admit, I don't use my 650 for rifle as much anymore since I picked up the 1050!

 

[Kevin Rohrer]

Imperial Sizing Wax and their Dry Neck Lube.

 

[Lloyd Smale]

I use anhydrous lanolin. Its basicaly what imperial is and you can buy a lb of it from your pharmaist for what a little tin of imperial cost. I put a couple hundred cases in a shoe box or bowl and put a little dap of lanolin on my palm and rub it good into the box of cases to distribute it. Ive never had stuck case this way or any way with lanolin. then i run them from the case feeder to completion. When im done i stick the loaded rounds in my tumbler with a little squirt of nu finish car polish and crushed walnut and tumble for a 1/2 hour to get the lubricant off. been doing it this way for about 20 years and never have had a problem.

 

[tcj]

Between my son & I we shoot about 1,500 rounds/year on a Garand and do all of the reloading steps on a Hornady LNL.

We use the one-shot lube before sizing (Hornady die, full length resize) and we do an ultrasonic clean before depriming/resizing (we deprime using a Lee universal die) and then again to remove the lube.

FWIW - I load a lite as possible that still cycles well and get 6-7 firings per case.

 

[45_auto]

I use an RCBS lube die for doing larger quantities of .223, .308, and .30-06 on my XL650.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/136732/rcbs-lube-die-1

I keep tool heads set up with the lube die in station 1, sizing die in station 2, Dillon Rapid Trim in station 3. Seems smoother to me if the cases are sized before the Rapid Trim, although the rapid Trim will also size if you set it up for it.

I deprime and trim a large quantity of brass in one operation, keep them in 5 gallon buckets.

When I'm ready to load, I run the processed brass through the normal cycle (prime, powder, bullet seat, crimp) except there's no sizing die, they are already sized and trimmed.