Lubed stuck brass during decap process

[Areaonereal]

Had a Very interesting experience….had a custom Mauser barreled to a 280 in 1983.. very accurate.. shaw barreled.. had a 280 reamed in 2019 for a different action..different reamer. Different barrel. Different rifle….. 700 Rem.. shot very well.. had been using Redding 280 dies FL…sizes cases from the older Mauser we ran thru the Redding full length…whoa…..hard bolt close even after bumping them…and trimming in the the Rem 700…too hard to risk firing.. measured everything…what is going on…should be chambering fine. Last result …ordered a Lee full length die….resized them and ..whoa…perfect chambering…Redding Die was the lssue in not resizing the case to SAMMI specs..I assume. When I say hard bolt close..I mean hard bolt close..

 

[TOBY458]

I've had this happen a few times. In EVERY case, I was using spray on lube. I've never even come close to sticking a case with regular case lube, such as Hornady Unique case lube.

 

[shootist~]

I try to only bump the shoulder back about .002" from the fired case measurement, (cartridge headspace), for bolt guns. This is often only a little more than just kissing the ram with the sizing die, in my experience.

Running the sizer down a quarter to a half turn past touching the ram results in over working the brass and shorter case life.

Using Skips die shims makes it easy to adjust in .001" increments, btw.

Running the sizer way down for a rifle with fat or excessive headspace could possibly contribute to the stuck case issue. It can also result in leaving a broken case in the chamber as I found out the hard way.

I prefer to FL size everytime - but only enough for reliable clambering.

 

[TNDave]

One thing I have not seen mentioned is to clean the dies with spray brake cleaner. I always clean them after buying and before using them for the first time and as others have said, use the lube sparingly. I had bought a set of used dies a while back and you wouldn’t believe the crud that came out of them when I cleaned them with spray brake cleaner.

 

[ZG47]

Try using Imperial resizing wax and be sure that your dies are clean. I've been hand loading for over 50 years and its the best case lube that I have ever used.

Same here. I also put graphite on the necks and use a separate neck expanding die (which has the added benefit of minimising case stretch).

 

[Nevada Mike]

i recently had a similar problem resizing some .404J once fired Hornady brass and Redding dies. They seemed to be a bit swollen just above the bottom of the case. Using a Rockchucker Supreme press it took pounding against the handle to move the case out of the die. I solved it after a bit of experimenting.

I cleaned the dies with solvent and removed the de-capping pin from the FL die.

Then I used a Lee de-capping die remove the spent primers and cleaned brass and primer pockets with a reamer.

I then set the die to just touch the cartridge holder/ram and backed off the neck sizing button a bit.

I scrubbed the inside of the case necks with a bore brush and used a dry lubricant to lube the inside of the neck and lubed each case with Imperial Sizing Die Wax using a little on my fingers with more lube towards the base. Then I resize.

It still took a firm push on the loader lever, but it was a fairly smooth operation.