Rust on dies, Lee is the worst, I have lee dies, I do not use them.
I priced out a pile of dies to sell at the last Guns Gun show, no interest in Lee dies, I found one I had not seen in a whole, I was concerned until I was able to scrap enough rust off the die to identify it as a Lee, 300 Win Mag.
Then it there is the culture, starts out with “This is what I do etc., etc..” Cleaning dies and bad habits, starts with a degreaser, I want all the grease on my dies I can get, inside, I am the one that uses a towel on a dowel, that is it. the rusty Lee die did not start out as being one of my dies, I purchased 40 pounds of junk, gages, dies, Wilson case holders for their trimmers, including the trimmer, and? Lee dies, I started separating the Lee dies as a good gesture, I was going to give them back after purchasing the assorted pieces of reloading equipment, the Dealer saw straight through my generosity, as in one ‘upsmanship’, he claimed he threw in the Lee dies for free.
I did make an effort to clean the die. the inside of the die looked good except the first .200” above the belt portion of the die, it was swollen meaning the die was not sizing/touching the bottom of the case in front of the belt.
I purchases a set of RCBS 44 Special/44 Remington dies for $5.00, the dealer said that is all they were worth because they were so ugly, the only part of the three dies that makes contact with the case is the carbide ring and crimp portion of the seating die. I left the dies with a friend, I pocked them up about a month later, the dies looked like he swapped them with a new set of dies.
F. Guffey