I read all the warnings, and I have always been very careful not to get case lube above the shoulder on a bottleneck case and to never use what seems to be excessive case lube. Finally, last night, I decided I had to see how much case lube it takes to put dents in a case. I really slathered it on a few 375 cases I'd culled for one reason or another. Yup, if you use too much, or if you get very much at all on the neck and shoulder, you get dents.

That got me to thinking. What is the right amount of case lube? If use enough case lube so as I don't dent the cases or get them stuck in the sizing die, I guess I didn't use too much or too little.

But does the amount of case lube affect the size of the sized case? If I use a lot of case lube, but not enough to cause dents, do I get a smaller case that fits looser in the chamber? If I use a slightly different amount on each case, will the fit of my cases to the rifle's chamber be inconsistent? If the case lube is not applied with perfect even-ness, will my sized cases not be concentric?

All these questions are of very little revelance to my own shooting. I can't shoot 1", let alone 0.25" groups with anything I own (or probably anything you own either). I'm just curious whether this is something a benchrest shooter loses sleep over.

H. C.

Aside from the dents in the shoulder, the big concern with case lube is that it will find it's way into the bottom of the case and contaminate your primer. I've been reloading for 35 years and still prefer the case lube to the graphite for reloading. I only neck size though so the only place I put the lube is a thin ring inside the case neck. That's to help clear the expander ball on the way out. After I've resized the cases I wipe the lube back out of the case just to be sure. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

Good luck on SHOOTING THE DENTS OUT of the brass.

I will post my proceedure for FL sizing rifle cartridges. I have been reloading for 50 years and have never had a stuck case bad enough to require a tap. I have made some dents of course in shoulders but this is how I avoid both problems.

First I wipe out the inside of a die before I use it. I use a paper towel and push it with a ball point pen body. Now the first case sized in that die needs more lube! The place to put the most lube is around the middle to the bottom on the case towards the rim. This is where they stick.

I put this lube on with my fingers one case at a time. I do wipe the entire first case with lube however but the amount on the top half of the case is very sparse.

I also lube the insides of each neck using a Q Tip.

For a long time I used a can of Lubriplate but it's lost now. It was an oil base of course with a solid in it that seemed white in color like maybe mica. This worked well. Then when I started selling lube I used a sample of 00 weight EP chassis grease. I just started using Imperial sizing wax on the bodies but still use the grease in the insides of the necks.

Then comes the clean up and I wipe each case off with a paper towel and clean out each neck using a piece of cotton sheet and an Allen wrench. I wipe each neck out twice. Most of my expanding buttons are carbide (Hornady made for RCBS dies) but I still lube the insides of the necks.

My FL dies are set just right for each rifle. I don't size to the shell holder but to a fit for that particular rifle. I get very little case stretching using the above method and only need to trim about once in every three shots per case.

None of the cartridges I am loading for now are neck sized as most of my rifles shoot better FL sized or at least I have peace of mind doing it my way. Each case is checked inside for insipiant head separation in particular if it's a belted round or the rifle does not have front locking lugs.

The bottom line here is that you can FL size any case with out dents and never get them stuck.

Henry
I have always used enough case lube so that I could "feel" it, but not so much that I could "see" it built up on the case!
When I roll the cases on my lube pad, I let the shoulder and about a third of the case wall hang over the edge (no lube there), and apply a very "small" amount of lube to the neck with my fingers once they come off the lube pad.