Question:

How often or do you clean your dies? Do you simply leave them together and never clean them inside or do you break them down and clean the inside of the die out? Just curios as I haven't reloaded much but am trying to do it the right way.

Ted

I can't speak for others. On my rifle dies some I have loaded with for 30+ years and never took them apart to clean. I use as little lube as required and clean cases. On a couple of my pistols sizer dies I have ran a wad in them to clean them. I tumble my pistol every other time and sometimes I pick up unfired powder in the sizer.

If the brass starting showing something marking it then you should clean.

Thanks ramrod. I appreciate your comments. I might need to break mine down to see if they have any build up in them. Then attempt to cut down on lube.

Ted

Give the dies a good cleaning when you first get them. There can be a lot of polishing compound & other crud inside. If stored properly yo should have little problems. Occasionally I'll spray some rust prev. on the outsides of the non plated dies.

The dies should be thoroughly cleaned inside and out at least every twenty years or so.

Actually....I've got some that haven't seen a cleaning agent for that long and they're still working just fine.

It don't hurt to disassemble them every 1000 rounds or so and clean them with Acetone and then reoil them and repack them in their boxes.

I spray die lube into the dies when ever I clean them....but it's not often as they just don't often need cleaning.

If you see some strange marks or dents then something needs to be cleaned. If you are new don't overlube the cases.
Another way to look at your dies is that they are precision tools and they have very tight tolerances. Clean precision tools work better than dirty ones. You will figure it out in time as to when to clean.
Enjoy the hobby.

At least clean them when they are new.

Other than the possibility of some left over stuff from machining (very rare) there is a little hole in the sizing die that lets air escape and it could be gummed up.

Bullet lube can build up in seating and crimp dies when loading cast bullets. I'll clean these out as necessary, usually every few hundred rounds. I do most of my cast bullet loading in pistol rounds on my Dillon 550. Dillon dies come apart very easily for cleaning without losing their adjustment.

As far as dies used in my single stage, it's pretty much as the others said above. I clean them when I get them, look at them regularly, and clean them when I feel the need which is not real often.