Do any of you ever throw your dies into the tumbler to clean them up--die wax or whatever--or to knock a touch of rust off of one--I have a buddy who bought some used dies and I told him it might be worth a whirl to throw them in the tumbler as I had read that here on the forum once.....he said it worked like a dream, but resizing seemd to take a lot of force--only a .308 die, so shouldn't be a lot of force required....

Thoughts?

It might be that the tumbling media took the rust off ok, but did not polish the die surface enough, leaving small pits where the rust was, resulting in a fairly smooth looking surface, but not really smooth enough for easy re-sizing.

Tell him to get a dowel rod that will fit in the bore of it and polish it well with 4/0 steel wool.

Go easy on excess, just enough to slick it up real nice. It can be over done and make it too large.

RCBS lube works swell too. Might be he didn't get it slicked up good enough.

Good luck,

George

Thanks for the thoughts guys, he uses Imperial die wax as I do, he's fairly experienced, and knows the amount of force that it should take to operate the press. I'll tell him the steel wool tip George,

Thanks--Don

Fish, I'm wondering if the tumbling removed some of the wax that works it's way into the pores of the metal. I've used a pretty strong degreaser before on dies and it takes a while before sizing effort returns to normal. I would clean them thoroughly and then roll up a paper towel soaked in bullet lube and work it around inside the die, and then finish up with a dry paper towel. That should work enough lube into the pores to get sizing effort back to normal.
I think for removing rust on dies I'd be more likely to use a little automotive wire wheel cleaner - which should remove the rust in seconds. Just be sure and relube!!!!..........DJ

DJ, good thoughts, I didn't think about the lube in the 'pores' makes sense. I'll let him know, and recommend the bullet lube in the die thing.

Good idea on the wire wheel cleaner for rust--I have a few Wilson case holders that get a spot of rust from time to time, and will try some of that on them.

Take care--Don