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Have I been reloading wrong for 16 years?


Scubagrif

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I’ve been reloading since I took up competitive shooting in 2003. I reload several pistol calibers but mainly 38SC for competition. When I had an Open gun built for me, my gun builder came by to help me switch from a 550 into a 650 with a case feeder. At 50 years old it’s much easier for me if I lube the cases before sizing, he recommended using straight lanolin from a tube, put a little on your hands and rotating the unsized brass until lightly lubed. It didn’t take long to figure out this was to messy so I switched to One Shot and started spraying the brass right in the brass feeder, works great so far. My question is, obviously some of those cases are pointed up and the lube is covering the inside of my case. I’ve never had a squib, misfire or any cartridge malfunction in over 100,000 rounds of reloaded ammo, but is this a stupid practice to do and eventually, it will foul my powder or is this what a lot of people are doing with their pistol brass?

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Just spray a piece of paper towel, put that in a plastic bag with 200 pieces of brass,

and shake.

 

Then, just to be safe, I let it dry for a couple hours before I reload the cases.

 

BUT, if you've "never had a squib", you really don't have a problem   :) 

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I use dry Teflon lube.  I spray the inside of a small plastic storage box with a hinged cover (shoe box size, from Home Depot) and let the carrier evaporate, takes a few min.  Dump in 200 - 300 pieces of 9mm brass and shake well.  Cases are lightly coated.  No messy liquid lube to clean up and dies stay clean.  Has worked very well for over a year now. 

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According to Hornady:

 


ONE SHOT® CASE LUBE
One Shot® Case Lube with DynaGlide Plus® technology is a micro-penetrating high pressure dry film. It contains no petroleum, teflon or other synthetic silicone so it will not contaminate powder or primers.

 

 

If you have loaded 100,000 rounds without issue, i wouldn't sweat it

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I am pretty generous with the One Shot Case Lube when loading pistol on a 650.  It says it dries in one minute approximately.  When I check powder charges you can see sometimes a little powder wants to stick to the case wall, I assume from the waxy nature of the lube.

 

Now I guess your real question is: does it affect combustion of the propellant?  Hornady says it does not.  My chronograph says it does not affect combustion.  I also tumble my lubed LOADED rounds for 5 minutes and the chronograph says there is no change there either.

 

I think it is good to be objective and question your reloading practices, or else you can not improve.  I think your good using the case lube.  I suppose you could spray an extreme amount of case lube on the cases and test that as a stress test but it seems like we would have heard something about One Shot affecting propellant combustion in the last couple of decades.  I personally have not.  Maybe this thread will elucidate that.

 

On a tangent I buy the Dillon Case Lubricant in bulk for trimming brass with my Dillon power trimmer (for rifle).  I do not believe it makes the same claims as One Shot about not affecting the propellant so I only use that for brass trimming.  I will have to go read the label on that product...

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I use homemade Dillon lube. I have used one shot and found the home brew to be much slicker. I have used ziplock bags etc but I have now settled on plastic shoe boxes. I put a few hundred cases in and tilt the box to one end a spray a few pumps onto the empty half then just swirl the box around so 99.9% of the lube stays outside case mouths. Then dump it in the casefeeder and start loading. I use 99% alcohol so it dries well before having powder introduced

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I stole one of my wife's cookie sheets and use that.  Lay the brass flat, spray with one shot, roll around a bit, spray a little more,  dump into a bowl then into the case feeder.

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I had a squib I strongly suspect was from loading the case after hosing it down with one shot.

 

I now have a small tupperware plastic bin in my clean brass bucket.

 

Hose the bottom with one shot, use it to scoop up brass, agitate, dump into casefeeder.

 

Keeps you from spraying inside your cases.

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1 hour ago, Sarge said:

I use homemade Dillon lube. 

 

How do you make it?

 

3 hours ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

Just spray a piece of paper towel, put that in a plastic bag with 200 pieces of brass,

and shake.

 

Then, just to be safe, I let it dry for a couple hours before I reload the cases.

 

BUT, if you've "never had a squib", you really don't have a problem   :) 

 

I agree with Jack on this one.  I have a box that I use for this purpose.  Make sure to lay the cases on their side, spray down your brass and start loading.  I've never waited to start loading after spraying my brass with 1 shot.  I've never had a squib.

 

I'm curious about the 1 shot that may have caused squibs.  Is there gun powder present or evidence that the case was charged with powder?

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I use a JR II single stage for resizing and priming. I use the RCBS Lube Pad and drop a glob on the pad. I would just get a small bit on my left index finger and thumb. Pick up a case, using a Carbide Die. I would probably dip my finger/thumb into the Lube every 10th case. Then wet media the cases and oven dry.

 

Now I use the Lanolin/Alcohol mix, I don't even let it dry, just go for it. Resize then wet media. I primer on the single stage. If I catch a loose case, most of the time it's probably split or just too loose. Then onto the Lee Load Master. Keeps the LM clean of Lube, spent primers and crude.

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50 minutes ago, CSEMARTIN said:

 

How do you make it?

 

Bought 99% alcohol and a bottle of lanolin oil on amazon. Put some alcohol in a spray bottle then add about 10% lanolin. Shake well. Should just start to turn the mixture yellow. Then you can adjust from there. If it still feels a little hard to size just add another drop of lanolin. If it sizes so easy it feels like it’s already been sized then add a little alcohol.

  It doesn’t take much lanolin to make a really slick mixture. As a matter of fact I read that some guys buy Dillon lube and cut it with 99% alcohol and it still works the same.

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Lee makes a case lube you can just combine w water in a spray bottle.

 

I use dry media and after I separate I just put a couple drops in the separater and mix again.

Edited by EazyRhino
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17 minutes ago, Scubagrif said:

Thanks to everyone that helped me with this question. I think I’m going to at least lube my cases in separate shoe box before pouring them into the 650. 

 

That’s all you’ve gotta do.

 

I tried the Dillon lube above. It leaves your rounds very sticky and needs cleaned off after loading.

 

I went back to one shot.

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11 minutes ago, MemphisMechanic said:

 

That’s all you’ve gotta do.

 

I tried the Dillon lube above. It leaves your rounds very sticky and needs cleaned off after loading.

 

I went back to one shot.

If it’s mixed too rich it gets really sticky so I keep it thin as practical.

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7 hours ago, RJH said:

According to Hornady:

 


ONE SHOT® CASE LUBE
One Shot® Case Lube with DynaGlide Plus® technology is a micro-penetrating high pressure dry film. It contains no petroleum, teflon or other synthetic silicone so it will not contaminate powder or primers.

 

 

If you have loaded 100,000 rounds without issue, i wouldn't sweat it

 Hornady One Shot instructions tell you to make sure the inside of rifle case necks are sprayed with One Shot to ease expanding the necks.

 

And as stated in RJH posting above One Shot is a dry film lube and does not need to be removed from the case.

 

To me the main point of using Hornady One Shot is it removes a step in the reloading process and the cases do not have to be tumbled to remove the lube.

 

I put my pistol cases in a large zip lock bag then give it a shot of One Shot and then squeeze the bag and work the brass around. I then dump the cases on to a flat tray to dry and then size.

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Hmm.  Am I the only guy that doesn't lube pistol cases before running them through the press?  I wet tumble with a carnuba car wash soap and it makes the cases slick enough that I don't feel like I need to lube them.  I have a can of oneshot that I use with rifle cases so I can try it I guess.  

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15 minutes ago, Code3FPV said:

Hmm.  Am I the only guy that doesn't lube pistol cases before running them through the press?  I wet tumble with a carnuba car wash soap and it makes the cases slick enough that I don't feel like I need to lube them.  I have a can of oneshot that I use with rifle cases so I can try it I guess.  

You’re not the only guy but close to it.😂

Lube makes things so much easier on the press, the body, the brass, etc. makes oal more consistent as well. Most who swear by not lubing generally change their minds after trying it.

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I use the home made Dillon style case lube.  I spray a bunch in one of those $1 plastic shoe boxes.  Dump a bunch of brass in and stir the brass around.  Dump in feeder.

 

I don't bother to clean it off for pistol.

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Another vote for the plastic bag method.

I just generously spray in inside of a gallon plastic bag with One Shot, dump a bunch of cases in, and then work the lube on the cases by squeezing the bag.

The lube doesn't get inside the cases this way, so the powder won't stick to the sides of the cases when measuring charges.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

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11 hours ago, Code3FPV said:

  I wet tumble with a carnuba car wash soap 

 

I never tried it, but I'm guessing the wax is lubricating your cases for you.    :) 

 

Any downside to that ?   Is it sticky ?   How long before it's dry ?  Do you wait before

you load the cases ?

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Spray OneShot into gallon Ziplok bag, dump in clean brass, shake around, dump into case feeder.  I wait about 10min.

I've been lazy and just sprayed brass in the case feeder and it works fine too.  The feeder stays cleaner & attracts less grit, if I use the Ziplok.

Edited by Yeti
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