Brushing lube into rifle necks

AJC1

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Wet tumbling is all the rage, and I did listen as the old br guys grumbled about stupid clean cases have no good carbon in them. I guess the modern work around is to now brush a lubricant into the neck prior to seating the bullet. We seem to be coming full circle and relearning what we already knew. Some channels on the tube are showing testing on the improvements of the new method. Anyone seen a test with clean, carbon, and neck lube. I will always wet tumble range pickups to allow for best inspection, but I'm considering running a set dirty just for testing.....
 
I tried that and found some lube in necessary when full length resizing. I use Hornady's Unique. I also tried wiping them clean and tried de-carbon-ising them by cleaning them out with an old bronze brush. To me there was no difference in accuracy. I only found bullet seating was a lot easier when having a little Unique in the neck. I would wipe a very little, itsy bitsy amount on a q-tip and litely apply when resizing. I would remove some carbon/powder residue from the neck on the Q-tip with each wipe. A Q-tip end was good for 15 or so necks. 30 per Q-tip with .30.06 or .270 cases. Now as I said before I generally shoot between .662 and .750 MOA with a 1970 Model 700 Rem. in 30.06 or a 1974 push feed Model 70, Winchester in .270 Win. . I guess it works ok..........I was told I was going down a dark rabbit hole when reloading and that's very true. "Luke use the Force......"
 
I use a short pistol rod with a used brass bore brush wrapped with a patch and lightly coated with Hornady Unique. Found much more consistent seating pressure with my 223. The guy that won our winter league 3 years in a row uses graphite powder on a brush. Also when looking into the necks afterwards they do not look wet and there are no globs.
 
Don't you need some lube inside the neck in order to get the expander ball back out of a sized case? I've used tooo little lube and run into problems with the neck being pulled out enough that it makes chambering a round problematic. I just use a little RCBS case lube on a Q-tip for most rifle cases. The Hornady spray works good enough for the slight taper of .300 BLK cases.
 
Don't you need some lube inside the neck in order to get the expander ball back out of a sized case? I've used tooo little lube and run into problems with the neck being pulled out enough that it makes chambering a round problematic. I just use a little RCBS case lube on a Q-tip for most rifle cases. The Hornady spray works good enough for the slight taper of .300 BLK cases.
This is not a case sizing exercise it's about lubrication for bullet seating, the proposed results are lower sd/es numbers. I posted the video above for clarification.
 
I always lube prior to sizing rifle cases and expanding pistol cases in 357/38. My new Starline 357 cases took quite a bit of effort to get the expander out of the neck. To be fair, I lubed the expander, but from now on I'll lube the cases. I've never thought about it for seating bullets. I figure there is enough in there left from expanding or sizing to take care of it.
 
I always lube prior to sizing rifle cases and expanding pistol cases in 357/38. My new Starline 357 cases took quite a bit of effort to get the expander out of the neck. To be fair, I lubed the expander, but from now on I'll lube the cases. I've never thought about it for seating bullets. I figure there is enough in there left from expanding or sizing to take care of it.
Interestingly I did exactly the same process with my last batch of 60 that I related as dirty. These cases were fired and not cleaned because I have become interested in the carbon idea. The cases were fired, ejected in my hand, put in a plastic bag and then processed. They were previously wet tumbled and jewelry clean. I noticed the expanding process was much easier and required far less effort. Now I did get squeeking during bullet seating, which I normally don't but no additional force was required. I would wager that trafmditionally lubed bullets would have not made any squeaks. I don't pretend that metalic Silhouette will show an improvement or problems as shooting offhand is definitely the limiting factor....
 
Right or Wrong this is what I do.
New cases are expanded once and dry lubed to seat bullets but after that I do not tumble wet or dry rather lightly burnish the burnt carbon left in the neck as it reduces friction and makes for smooth consistent bullet seating.
 
I tried dry lube and that stuff is messy.

I don’t lube any necks and I walnut tumble. Am I screwing up accuracy?
 
FWIW, my method is de-prime, wet tumble, dry (either outside in summer or in a food de-hydrator), lube with Hornady Unique, including a dab inside the neck every 4 or 5 cases with each case neck getting the RCBS plastic brush, then wipe off cases with a towel, then trim, chamfer and de-burr, and wipe inside necks with a Q-Tip cotton swab to remove any excess lube or bits of brass from trimming and de-burring. It probably still leaves a very light bit of lube in the necks which may make seating the bullet a little easier. Does it affect accuracy? Not really sure, but it is what works for me.
 
Ahhh, the link was broken when I saw it to begin with but it looks like it’s working now
 
One of the things in my dad's remnant stash from back when was a set of Bonanza (now Forster) neck brushes mounted inside a case, and that came with dry graphite. Prior to sizing a case, lube the outside wiith imperial wax, then run the case over the neck brush, where it picks up some dry graphite on the way out. That adds up to two passes with a neck brush to clean up the neck and a lite coat of powdered graphite left behind.

It does help the neck sizing ball or mandrel extract easier.
 
First of all, it needs to be made clear if it hasn't already been, I believe this thread is about lubing for bullet seating, not for resizing.

AMP made a press that measures and records pressure through the seating operation and displays it on a computer screen. This was the next logical progression beyond 21st Century's arbor press with the hydraulic pressure gauge that displayed real-time pressure during seating. Now we have more data from AMP's press in the form of pressure curves for seating the bullet of each cartridge displayed on a graph. The original idea was to sort cartridges by seating pressure so as to obtains the smallest groups by using cartridges with consistent seating pressures. Lube is the next step, attempting to equalize the pressure curves generated during seating.

If you have all the available data, this is a worthwhile pursuit. If you're flying blind, just imitating what people are doing experimentally and hoping to obtain a benefit from it, I think that is wishful thinking.

There is scarce data that shows any annealing process improves results on target. Using seating lube alone without annealing might very well obscure any difference that annealing makes that has been measured to date. Combining annealing and seating lube is worth experimenting with, but I am skeptical that it will produce a conclusive advantage. It will sell annealers, presses with pressure transducers and lube though, no doubt. As far as the video goes, the data set is far too small to draw any inference.

Don't forget that we've already tried Hex Boron Nitride. If seating lube was going to make a difference beyond just what we see for the plot from the seating press' transducer, HBn would have shown it on target long ago.
 
I can feel a slight difference seating into fresh brass vs x times fired and walnut tumbled. I've never compared for accuracy. While I would like shiny brass and not have to wear a mask when dumping cases, I prefer the inside neck lubricity that carbon and walnut affords.

After reading responses to page 5 I think I should add that I haven't seated a jacketed bullet in years so my experience may not track with others.
 
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I can feel a slight difference seating into fresh brass vs x times fired and walnut tumbled. I've never compared for accuracy. While I would like shiny brass and not have to wear a mask when dumping cases, I prefer the inside neck lubricity that carbon and walnut affords.
Is there a reason to vibrate in walnut once fired? Are you jacking the out case onto the ground or is the carbon so thick it requires management?
 
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