A picture is worth...
My Glock, my AR, now my reloading dies?
Who knew we were supposed to clean these things and why am I just now learning of this?
Dean,
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine
"The problem is not the availability of guns, it is the availability of morons."- Antonio Meloni
Especially your rifle dies.
Lube and other crud will build up in the bottleneck area. I once had a headspace issue with a 223 bolt action. Finally realized that after reloading thousands of rounds, there was buildup in the die, and it was setting the shoulder back too far. The gun was perfectly fine.
-Seconds Count. Misses Don't-
Yeah, case lube makes them all ganky and shit.
Don’t blame me. I didn’t vote for that dumb bastard.
Something I learned yesterday.
I was having trouble seating soft lead wadcutters and I kept thinking, "Something is wrong."
After about 20 minutes of futzing with the settings of the die, I took it out and looked inside. Some soft lead had shaved off a couple of bullets and was applying sideways pressure on the bullet when seating. Some pipe cleaners, a dental pick, and about 5 minutes of effort and everything was corrected.
Maybe the moral of my story is, "Before you fuck with the setting, check the dies first."
Back when I shot mostly 200gr LSWC #68 bullets in a 1911 I had to stop every so often and clean bullet lube out of my seating die.
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This was my 9mm decapping and sizing die. I’ve been working on washing more 9mm before loading it up. I was surprised at how much effort it took to get the Dillon powder drop die clean. I also took the time to thoroughly clean out the exterior and interior primer tube, a absolute must for Dillon progressive owners, unless you want your stack of primers to ignite at once and embed the tube into the ceiling (common occurrence).
#RESIST
A couple months ago while cleaning out my 45 acp deprime die I found a . 22 rimfire case pushed onto the decapper.
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It goes without saying that loading lead bullets, especially cast versions with their messy lube, requires that dies be cleaned periodically. When lube and lead particles build up in seating dies, overall length changes. It can affect crimping too. A best practice includes cleaning new dies before use. With steel sizing dies seen in processing bottleneck rifle cartridges and some straight wall cases like 45-70, grit can imbed in the resizing die walls. The result is scratched cases.
Charcoal lighter fluid serves nicely as a solvent. One of the best cheap solvents is the so-called white gas sold in gallon cans at Walmart for use in pump up lanterns. An outstanding anti rust spray is Hornady's One Shot lube. Dies will rust if not protected.
Maintaining reloading presses required that the ram be wiped occasionally to remove the seemingly abrasive crap from primer pockets. Too, occasionally removing ram and cleaning out its channel is needed. Lubing moving parts should be done. These simple steps insure that a press will remain serviceable for decades. Recently I gave away a simple Lyman C press bought new in 1970. I took much better care of it than I have done for my body. The press left my hand with no rust or scratches but did show honest wear.