There must be an easy way to lube bottleneck cartridges. Also, I've noticed the lube junks up my dies. What methods/products do you reloaders use? Do you lube the inside of the necks?

I'm new to bottleneck reloading but I jumped right on the Lee Collet die, no lube needed at all. It neck sides only.

Ruger#1

Get some spray case lube! You can do a whole tub of brass in moments! Then hold the tub at an angle and jiggle it so the case mouths point up mostly and give them a quick sweep, then you don't get that sqweek that happens when the resize ball goes through the neck.

I use Lee lube and I hate removing it from the brass after I have a reloaded round.

A couple of comments:

Watch the Lee lube. It lubes OK, but it will rust your dies if you do not clean it up.

The spray lube works as advertised, but it is messy also.

The best thing is Lee collet dies if you shoot a round they have a dies for. They are really the answer. Ku-dude

With spray lube, do you have to wipe it off the shoulder before sizing? Will you get dents if you don't?

Hornady one shot lube. Just spray it on wait a minute and go no dents works great & simple it doesn't get any easer unless you have carbide dies. Try it you will be happy you did.

Slowhand. No, you dont have to wipe it off of the necks before sizing. Just spray it on, wait a minute and start sizing. It is messy because of the overspray but it beats a lube pad. Make sure you spray the cases on a flat surface like an old cookie sheet so as to get total coverage. As for the Lee collet dies, I tried one with my 30-06 and the groups immediately opened up to the point that I might have been able to cover them with a good sized dinner plate. To be fair to Lee products, I might have done something wrong in the set up. I'll just have to try again and see what happens but I think I'll wind up spending a little more money on Redding dies and another can of One Shot.

I have used and like the Hornaday one shot but the last couple of cans I brought pluged up on me and I only got to use half the can. I now use Midway lube in a pump bottle workds well.

Try some Imperial Sizing Die Wax. You can wipe it off with a paper towel. You can apply it with your fingers or use a typical case lube pad.

Slowhand
Imperial Sizing Die Wax is the ticket.
dave

Another vote for imperial sizing die wax.

Chuck

If you are neck sizing, try moly coated shot. I have some steel shot coated with moly. It's in a small plastic cup (cap from a spray can). I just give the brass a quick dunk and twist. No need to wipe it off.

When I full lenght size, I like the Hornady one shot.

R

I think I'm going to try the spray lube. It sounds fast and easy. Which brand is the best? Or are they all the same? Are there any brands to stay away from? Thanks!

Like everything else, it all depends.

If I am doing several hundred military cases, they go into a bucket and get tumbled with Lee case lube. I don't trust the spray-ons when there are likely to be cases fired in oversized chambers in the mix.

If I am doing radical case reforming, I use Imperial or anhydrous lanolin. Pain to apply, but worth it for this use.

Everything else, I use whatever spray-on the local shop has in stock.

You gotta pick the right tool for any job.

Some will no doubt think I'm crazy, but I've been using Mobil 1 synthetic oil for case lube for several years. I load several thousand rifle rounds a year and couldn't find any case lube on a Sunday morning, but had Mobil 1 that I use in drag racing engines, so I tried it. It's thinner than standard engine oil and you can clean off 50 cases with one paper towel square. I haven't bought any case lube since, and you can well imagine how many cases can be lubed with a $4 quart of Mobil 1. Just try it-then tell me I'm nuts.

OK fellers--here is my .05 cents worth.

FL sizing bottleneck cartridges--Hornaday One-Shot........

Neck size only--go to the local auto-parts store and pick up a small bottle of powdered graphite. My last purchase was about 5 years ago and still have half a bottle...Nary a problem in 4,000 or more cases.

Keep loadin'..............

Ol' John

I usually reload large quantities at one time. The thing that works best for me it to have the cartridges in some sort of container. I dip my finger into about the first knuckle in bear oil, and stick my hand into the cartridge container. I roll the casings around, and they get lubed in short order. The bear oil wipes off easily after you are done.

This is just an idea, I haven't tried it because all of my rifle loading is limited to about 50 at a time. To date, I use Imperial sizing wax. It works great, but it does need to be applied by hand to each case which takes a couple of seconds per. Would be time consuming if trying to a couple hundred at once, say a highpower competitor or a varmint shooter.

Anyway, here's my thought. Lee's lubricant can be diluted in water. They say no more than 4-to-1 water to lube, but I've heard other people going as high as 10-1. Anyway, get about 4 or 5 squeeze bottles of lube and dilute in gallon container, maybe something like a new paint can (cheap at your local hardware store). Fill about 3/4 full with water and then just toss your cases in and let them get a decent soaking. Pour diluted lube out into another container to save for later. Let cases air dry on a cookie sheet or whatever. Now you have cases that are completely outside lubed and the interior of the necks are also lubed. I understand that after they dry, the cases kind of have a dry, milky film on them. Resize them and then if you want, either rinse them in hot water and dry again or tumble. You could trim them, chamfer/debur and now your cases are ready for remaining loading steps.

Don't know if this would work on a progressive loader, but I can't see how it would be any different than if using a spray on lube where you aim a bit down in the neck to lube there as well. I mean if you elected to not tumble or soak them to get the lube off. For a single stage, it wouldn't be any problem.

Cost wise it's probably a bit cheaper than spray lubes, but it may be a bit more of a hassle. I tend to split reloading up into several steps spread across several sessions so in my case, it wouldn't be that big of a hassle. For those that want to rock and roll from the get go and finish up with a loaded round, spray lubes would probably be better. Anyway, just an idea of mine.

Martindog

[ 03-31-2003, 05:29: Message edited by: Martindog ]

If you have a progressive press use a lube die. I use one for most of my varmint calibers and have no complaints. It saves a ton of time

Be careful rogerinbraska, you do not want to coat your chamber in Moly! You could end up with a situation where the brass does not grip the chamber walls upon firing resulting in huge bolt thrust, this is same situation as having oil in your chamber but harder to detect or get out. Even the Sierra bullet techs don't reccomend moly bullets in semiauto's for this reason.

I tried the dipping in diluted Lee lube back when the lube was new and I was young. Once was enough.

The main problem is that the cases tend to trap water particularly in the smaller calibers. If you just "spread them out on a cooky sheet to dry", you are gonna be waitng for days and have substantial lube deposits in some of your cases. To make this work, you have to rig some sort of rack to hold each case upside down and then you have to place each case in it.

A second problem is the suggested method of cleaning the cases by tumbling them after sizing. Trying this once is enough, too. The lube inside the case neck increases the clogging of the media inside the case. You wind up with a bunch of cases full of media.

You also wind up with a bunch of flash holes with a grain of media stuck. This is not the fault of the lube, just what happens when you tumble decapped cases.

CH 4D will fully TiN coat your size die and even the expander ball if you want. In '95 I put some Hornady carbide expander ball/stem assemblies in my RCBS dies. Wow, what a difference! I still use spray lube but just not as much. When I get around to it I hope to have CH 4D coat my size dies. The TiN coating would reduce the need for lube quite a bit.

Paul

I use a clean large plastic container with a screw on type lid (a former peanut butter jar works well). I then place the brass inside the jar; squirt some spray lube inside (any brand is fine) and quickly screw on the lid. I then 'shake, rattle and roll' the brass inside the jar for 30 seconds. I find this method gives even lube coverage on the brass (including case necks) and obviously does not let the lube dissipate in the air. Try it, you'll like it!

SlowHand,

I use a water soluble spray lube. I am presently using Lyman’s. I spray the inside of the sizing die as per instructions and then spray the cases. I stand the cases upright in two rows and spray them holding the can approximately 3” above the cases and at about a 45� angle to the case mouths. I spray a quick pass down one side/row and then walk around the desk to the other side and do the same thing. This put a bit of the spray in the case mouth. Let them dry a few minutes and size them.

I then take the sized cases and put them in a small container of hot water and add a couple of squirts of GOJO Orange hand cleaner. I swirl the cases around until the hand cleaner is dissolved and then let them set a few minutes. Dump the dirty water and then rinse a couple of times with hot water. The GOJO actually shines the brass a bit.

Then the wet cases go to an old oven I use for canning. It is in my garage. I put them in the oven on a tray and set to over to approximately 225�. I let them in there 10 minutes or so and shut the oven off. I then generally reload them the next day or thereafter. If you want to reload them immediately after sizing and cleaning, then you will need to adjust the oven temperature/time to allow the cases to be dry. A bit of the GOJO white residue may be in the primer pocket but it cleans out easily with a pocket cleaner. Most times I don’t even bother.

I have no idea how many cases I have sized using this procedure, but I have never had a problem. The key to this method is WATER SOLUBLE spray lubrication. Good-luck…BCB