Does any one have any advice or has anyone ever had this happen to them.

Any remarks would be very helpful. And thanks in advance.

I'm puzzled. Try polishing the expander and claning the die with copper solevent, and try it again with a brass case first.

Don

The only thing I can think of here is that perhaps you didn't clean the dies before putting them into service and possibly there was a gritty substance on them from the factory.

I wouldn't say, I have ever run in to that problem exactly, but I have had dies from RCBS and Redding that truly needed to be cleaned before using. But not to the degree, that you seem to be encountering.

Good luck, and call the die maker, they'll point you in the right direction.

Good advice from someone before me, about trying standard brass and polishing the expander.

But positively, you should clean your new dies, coming out of the box before use. Just like you clean a new rifle.

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Live Free! Madison, Jefferson and all the boys paid for it, and so did our very own fathers.

[This message has been edited by 1LoneWolf (edited 09-23-2001).]

Brass that have fallen on the ground usually contain dirt, sand, and other materials that can scratch the dies. It is not a bad idea to clean the dies after use, and then covering them with a laundry bag to keep dust out. That way they will be ready for the next time.

quote:

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Originally posted by jrpilot:
Well today I thought that I would try to reload some nickel 7mm brass that I have at the house. The dies that I used were Lee. Then I looked at the die and saw that there were scratch marks on the expander.

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This sounds familiar. But were these reloads? or were they new brass?

My problems were with new nickel plated brass. The ends of the mouth were rough and would scratch the expander. I think (it's been awhile) I run the cases onto the expander just enough to round the mouths, then deburred the mouths inside and out. I probably run a brass brush on a drill into the mouths, also.

As to the scratches on the expander, As long as they don't scratch the cases I don't care, but would probably give them a light sanding after rounding all the case mouths.

Another way, use a carbide expander. I think redding has one that fits rcbs dies.

Anyway, once the inside of the necks are smooth, I haven't had any more problems.

JerryO

quote:

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Originally posted by jrpilot:
Just wondering, how would the brass brush smooth the necks if the nickel is hard enough to scratch the steel on the dies.

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Good question.

First, those are lee dies. Lee uses the easiest to machine steel they can find, if they think it is ok for the application (I think this is really good engineering). Anyway, the neck expander is probably very soft, at least as soft as your barrel steel

Second, who said nickel is hard. Not I. I don't have tensile strength for nickel, but have alway seen it praised for its ductility (like soft?).

Third, are those brushes (brass or bronze?) soft or hard? I have a chart of tensile strength (from the 50's) which list brass wire as running from 50,000 to 150,000 (bronze, phosphor, hard drawn is 110,000 to 140,000) pounds per square inch.

Fourth, sofer materials are often used to polish harder materials.

And finally I'm not sure if I smoothed the nickel or maybe just cleaned the inside of the necks. Anyway the reason I considered it was that used nickel cases seemed to be smoothed by the bullet which had been loaded and fired.

BTW: some other tensile strengths that I found:

Aluminum wire ---------- 30,000 to 40,000
lead ------------------- 2,600 to 3,300
platinum wire ---------- 50,000
steel ----------------- 40,000 to 330,000
piano wire .033 ------- 357,000 to 390,000
tungsten, hard drawn -- 590,000

JerryO

I've never reloaded new nickel-plated brass. (Is that an oxymoron?) It was always once-fired.

JerryO made a good point that maybe you should run the expander ball into the neck just enough to force the mouth round, then use a deburring tool to get rid of any fringe of nickel at the mouth. The brush afterward then only has to pull the grit out of the neck.

A good use for a stainless brush (maybe the only good use) is to chuck the brush in a hand drill and use it to brush the case mouths. I have done this when loading moly bullets - mainly to get good bullet retention - but it also really cleans and regularizes the inside of the neck.

Good Luck,

Don

Thanks for all the help.