Removing case lube after full length resizing

[Steve in Allentown]

I owned and shot a benchrest 6mm-.284 for twenty years and always tumbled the cases twice; first after depriming to remove all the powder residue and again after resizing to remove the case lube.

Recently someone told me there was no need to remove case lube as it doesn't have any adverse effect on the powder. I don't know if he was referring to a specific brand of lube.

Can anyone confirm this is so?

 

[Skylerbone]

I use Hornady One Shot and have never experienced a problem. Chrono numbers are where they should be and SDs are low. I used to do the same, double tumble, but not anymore.

 

[cw308]

I'm not sure about that, I clean my cases first , lube size and clean again to remove the case lube .I use Redding Imperial Dry Lube by dipping the base of the bullet into the beads . You don't want any case lube in your chamber. I don't think case lube should be near your powder . I wet tumble , using the dry lube is different then case lube , makes seating very consistent in is smoothness. I would keep doing what your doing and remove all the case lube.

 

[jmorris]

Some times I leave it, sometimes I don’t. Any lube will adhere dust and grit. A dry surface is much less likely to do so.

 

[JFrank]

I’ll be in the minority here and confess that I just wipe um down with an old rag.
J

 

[icanthitabarn]

I wipe em them down, after resize. It seemed to make my tumbling media turn black when I tumbled with the lube

 

[Jack Ryan]

I never "clean" it off.

At most I'll wear cloth jersey gloves or have a rag handy and wipe it off one that catches my eye as particularly dirty at any one stage of reloading. BUT I do all mine one at a time on a single stage press.

 

[Skylerbone]

I'm not sure about that, I clean my cases first , lube size and clean again to remove the case lube .I use Redding Imperial Dry Lube by dipping the base of the bullet into the beads . You don't want any case lube in your chamber. I don't think case lube should be near your powder .

Rest assured, or not, but it works fine. @Slamfire can show you what lube in a chamber looks like and it doesn’t come from an itty spray can.



And yes, I’m set up for old fashioned as well, even got my RCBS pad and Lee Lubricant. Simple mica for seating, dip the neck, run it on the brush.

 

[cfullgraf]

I know that some folks do not clean the sizing lubricant off their cases after resizing. It is their preference.

I do not care to handle the lubricated cases when I am loading the cases, especially when I am using RCBS Case Lube or Imperial Sizing Wax. I also use lanolin/alcohol lubricant at times and I could almost not clean that lubricant off., it is not so sticky as the other lubricants.

When neck sizing only, I generally use Mica powder. When in a hurry to load some ammunition, I've bypassed the cleaning step here.

Finally, I generally resize, prep and clean my cases shortly after shooting. I then store them away for a future loading session. In addition to the previously mentioned reasons to clean the cases, I'd prefer to not store the cases with sizing lubricant left on them.

 

[rdnktrkr]

I deprime, vibra clean, lube, size then ultrasonic clean. I like putting car polish in with walnut hulls and use either Lee, Imperial or alcohol and lanolin. After loading I store ammo in vacuum bags.

 

[Blue68f100]

I use OS for straight wall brass and do not remove it. For my match rifle brass I use Imperial Sizing Lube and Neck lube, wiping off the lube on the outside with a rag. The inside lube on the necks remains for there is little left after expander is pulled through. If I'm using my bushing dies I do not use any lube on the necks. I live in a very dusty environment, removing the case lube is a requirement unless you want to use abrasives in your chamber and bore. If you by chance drop 1 round, its coated with fine sand here. Not something you want to put in/through your gun.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Imperial Sizing Wax is an excellent product which has no need for tumbling. It's water soluble and has no effect on powder. You use very little and I wipe down the case with an old washcloth while inspecting the case after sizing.

 

[reddog81]

I use an old wash cloth to wipe off any excess lube. It’s pretty quick and easy to do 10-20 at a time.

 

[GW Staar]

I agree with cfullgraf, for the most part....I also don't like to handle sticky, dull, or gritty brass...but, there are times when I don't, depending on which lube was used. If I notice it, it's bad enough to wipe 'em down.....I just don't take the time to tumble again. Tried that and rejected it as not worth the trouble. I load mine one round at a time in a cartridge box, to take to the range.....if they need wiped one at a time it's no bother then.

Depends on the lube.....I don't like lanolin left on....it gets hard and dull. I've even used a mineral spirits slightly dampened cloth to wipe down a batch of that, left for a month. I can see why some tumble that.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

It's about time we had another lube thread, hope it stays civil

Best option, Spray cases with One Shot, resize, load.
Another option, apply any greasy lube however you like, resize, wipe with shirt tail, load.
Both methods work, one is much slower and leaves you with a dirty shirt.

 

[hdbiker]

I put my lubed & sized cases back in the tumbler for a few minutes. hdbiker

 

[cw308]

I see on the Hornady ONE SHOT Spray you can leave it on , l will remove the case lube anyway .

 

[mdi]

My handloads have powder on the inside and lube on the outside, and never the twains shall meet...

 

[Skylerbone]

So long as the lubricant is powder safe and doesn’t leave clumps on the outside it shouldn’t matter, just preference. @Blue68f100 made an excellent point with terrain being a factor for many.

 

[cw308]

It's only one step for me to remove the lube , then I trim , chamfer , install new primers , I have 0000 steel wool wrapped around a smaller size cleaning brush in my drill press , a quick up and down , remove any dust , powder charge and before seating the bullet I dip the base of the bullet into that Redding Imperial Dry Lube beads and seat , seating is as smooth as silk without changing neck tension . I'm not loading volume only 30 rounds each week for rifle benchrest 308 so going the extra mile an a half is no big deal . Loading larger amounts would be a different ball game . Maybe I shouldn't be in this conversation but just wanted to add in some way if it would help .

Chris

 

[Rule3]

I use "water based" lube (and not much of it) so I do not remove it

 

[Bwana John]

Rifle - tumble, resize, deprime, trim, clean primer pockets, champher, tumble with NuFinish, load.... Single or progressive.

Pistol (on progressive) - tumble with NuFinish, load.

 

[whatnickname]

HORSE HOCKEY!!! Lubricant and primers are a bad combination! And yeah I’ve heard all the hype about how this or that case lube won’t harm a primer. There’s quite a bit of hype out there about Dillion’s case lube not killing primers. That stuff is lanolin cut with alcohol. Lanolin is sheep oil. Oil is oil and I don’t put any oil where it comes in contact with my ammunition. Argue the pros and cons all you want. My ammo always goes bang when I pull the trigger. Want to leave resizing lube on your completed ammunition then have at it! For me...no thank you!!!

 

[JFrank]

I’ll probably get blow torched for saying I really don’t use a bunch of lube because my Dies don’t grossly under size, it is very evident if I leave any lube or get a moisture layer from AMBIENTE temperature change on the cases I’ll get heavy bolt lift right away.
As mentioned I just wipe um down, in fact I do not anneal or tumble brass nor do I give 2cents about runout. I find that to be a non factor in Benchrest disciplines

 

[Slamfire]

HORSE HOCKEY!!! Lubricant and primers are a bad combination! And yeah I’ve heard all the hype about how this or that case lube won’t harm a primer. There’s quite a bit of hype out there about Dillion’s case lube not killing primers. That stuff is lanolin cut with alcohol. Lanolin is sheep oil. Oil is oil and I don’t put any oil where it comes in contact with my ammunition. Argue the pros and cons all you want. My ammo always goes bang when I pull the trigger. Want to leave resizing lube on your completed ammunition then have at it! For me...no thank you!!!

Primers are actually very difficult to dud out. Saeed the administrator of accuratereloading ran a little experiment.

How to kill a primer

I removed all but Saeed's comments as the rest were irrelevant.

There has been a number of questions about how to de-activate a primer.

Our past experience showed that it all depends on the primer.Those available for us reloaders, some have a protective covbering that prevents oil from penetrating the compound to kill it.I am going to try this with some factory ammo. We have started with Fiocchi 9mm ammo.I have pulled the bullets out of 10 rounds, and squirted WD40 into each case to about half its capacity.

My intention is to see how long it take for the primers to die.Round 1 fired after 30 minutes of being soaked, no problem there at all. I will fire a couple today, noting the times. The rest I will leave, firing one every day. I will let you know how this works out.

posted 20 August 2011 14:05
Round 2 fired 2 hours after being soaked in WD40 fired, but sounded rather subdude.

posted 20 August 2011 18:19

Round 3 fired after 6 hours of soaking in WD40.Went off like the number 2.Next one will be fired after 24 hours.We selected WD40 because it is a penetrating oil, no other reason.

Round 4 still fired just like the previous one. Not with a full BANG, but still might ignite the powder.I have 6 more rounds to fire, which I will do each day.

Yesterday I also pulled bullets from Norma 9mm Para ammo.Fired one one hour later, and went off about half power.This morning, I fired one Fiocchi and one Norma.The Fiochi has been wet for 48 Hours, and the Norma 24 hours.The Fiochi went off with a louder bang than the Norma, despite being wet with WD 40 for twice as long!

Will fire the next ones tomorrow.

posted 25 August 2011 09:18

Well, apart from the original effect on the primers after a few hours, it seems things have stood still. Both the Fiocchi and Norm primers fired this morning. Once I am finished with these, I will try the same with primers that I have for large rifles.I have primers from Federal, Winchester, CCI and RWS. By the looks of things, the RWS do not seem to be sealed, so it will be interesting to see how they all perform.

posted 28 August 2011 13:42
This is getting interesting.The Fiocchi have been soaked for 8 days.
Still fire, but with a very much reduced report. The same with the Norma.

posted 09 September 2011 16:49
Well, it has been 20 days of them soaked in WD 40, they still fire, albight at much reduced power.So I thought I might try something else.I have deprimed 50 308 Winchester cases - I have plenty of these.I have marked each 25 of them separately, as I have Federal 210M and RWS 5341, just to see if there is a any difference in what happens.

I am going to soak 5 primed cases with each of the following:

1. Sea water.
2. Hoppe's lubricating oil.
3. Hoppes Elite Gun Cleaner.
4. Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber solvent/degreaser.
5. Hoppe's # 9.

I will fire one of each every 24 hours.

10 September 2011 14:52
Well, this certainly is an eye opener.

Here are the results of soaking the primed cases for 24 hours.

1. Hoppe's Lubricating oil - RWS, fired normally. Federal 210M , dead!
2. Hoppe's Elite Gun Cleaner - RWS, fired normally. Federal 210M, dead.
3. Hoppe's #9 - RWS, fired normally. Federal 210M, dead.
4. Birchwood Casey Scrubber - RWS, fired. Federal 210M, dead.
5. Sea water - RWS, fired. Federal 210M, fired.
So it seems sea water is the least effective primer killer!
And it depends on the make of the primer as well.
I will fire the rest of the RWS at 24 hour intervals, and the Federal with sea water as well.


11 September 2011 14:40
48 hours later.

1. Hoppe's \lubricsting oil - RWS, fired normall. Federal 210M, dead
2. Hoppe's Elite Cleaner - RWS, dead. Federal 210M, dead
3. Hoppe's #9 - RWS, fired normally. Federal 210M, dead.
4. Birchwood Casey Scrubber - RWS, fired normally. FFederal 210m, fired normally.
5. Sea water - RWS, dead. Federal 210m, fired normally.

Now, I have to qualify what I mentioned above about "fired normally" as I am not sure the primer would have ignited the powder charge.

I could definitely hear a bang, and see smoke as I eject the case out. But, it is much less than a normal primed case.

12 September 2011 14:43
Well, here is todays update.
72 hours after being soaked.

Ingredients as numbered above.

1. RWS Fired. Federal, dead.
2. RWS, dead. Federal, dead
3. RWS Fired. Federal, dead
4. RWS, fired. Federal fired.
5. RWS, fired. Federal dead.

Number 4 above with Birchwood casey, the liquid must have evaporated, as both primers went off with almost full force.

I generally lubricate my cases after washing and drying my cases, though there have been times when the turnaround between matches was such, I sized, trimmed, primed, and dumped the powder, and never had a misfire. The guy I got the idea to lubricate 308 Win cases for use in the M1a had been doing this for years. I think his reloading practices were even more barbaric than mine!. He shot the stuff, collected what did not fall down the rabbit holes, rolled the cases in a old towel, already saturated with RCBS water soluble lubricant, put in 22 drops (for one match worth) rolled them around, sized them. He claimed he knew which cases were long by their behavior in the sizing die, and if they were long, he took a file to the case mouth and reduced the length, but did not measure how much he was taking off! He primed the stuff, without washing the RCBS water soluble lubricant, and dumped powder, added a bullet, and shot the stuff. He won every medal you could get in NRA Highpower Competition. Regional Gold's, silver's, bronzes, Camp Perry Gold, silver, bronze, I don't remember if he had a Pres 100, but could have. What counts more than bench rest reloading techniques, in Highpower, is putting the rounds in the X and ten rings. This is seldom addressed, in fact what you read, is that expensive equipment will offset a lack of shooting skills. Lee Land, a winner of the President 100's, his reloading techniques were even worse! Anyway Bud never had a primer dud due to residual RCBS water soluble sizing lubricant. Bud took his cases an entire shooting season without a case separation, which is rather extraordinary, considering the advice at the time was to reload a case, in the M1a and Garand, no more than five times and toss it. I retrieved cases from Bud's who did not lube their cases, and their cases had severe case head stretching at the fifth reload. I mean bad case head stretching.

I took mine 23 firings, 22 reloads.



Never experienced a case head separation with lubricated cases. Absolutely no internal necking or case stretching.









I don't have any pictures of my 45 ACP ammunition. It all comes off the Dillion 550B dry, but I have been lubing the heck out of the stuff in Bullseye Pistol to improve function and the drop of oil I put on the bullet case junction seems to keep the leading down. I will get back from a match and all I have to do is push a patch down the barrel and it is bright! I still use a brush in the chamber, old habits and all. Oiling cases is messy, but one interesting thing is, oil goes up the barrel and out the back of the chamber. Oil from the cases (with the cheapest Motor Oil, or mineral oil you can find) is squeezed back into the mechanism and keeps the rails/titling lugs lubricated. Which from a function viewpoint with minimum power loads, is actually a good thing. It also keeps the mechanism lubricated. Also keeps my hands lubricated as I am frequently wiping the pistol down after each ten round target. But, as the old timers said "your elbow is the drip point".

I have shot thousands if not tens of thousands of lubricated pistol rounds, particularly 9mm. Even though I use a carbide die on my Dillion 550B, an un lubricated 9mm round is hard to size and causes bumps when it bottoms out in the sizing die. (Most of my 9mm is range pickups anyway. I have ammo cans of the stuff, some has clearly been fired in full auto weapons) That has knocked powder out of the powder horn. However, if I lubricate my 9mm cases, the reduction in sizing effort is an eye opener. Not quite effortless, but not far from effortless in a carbide die. Of course I have done the same with 45 LColt, 44 Special, nicked cases of all shapes and sizes. They just glide in with hardly any effort at all. I don't wash off the lube, and the lube could be anything oily or greasy, and all rounds have gone bang.

Just keep the stuff off the ground or you will have to wipe the dirt off with a rag.