Lubricating carbide dies

[meles meles]

Do any of you oomans find it necessary to lubricate carbide dies?

We reload 9mm Luger and .45 ACP pistol cases and find that unlubricated carbide dies (Lee) don't work smoothly - to the extent that a case will occasionally get stuck in the die and can be a real faff to remove. (Big hammers, lots of uncouth language). The instuctions accompanying the dies say they need no lubrication but we begs to differ and so occasionally coat a case in a drop of water based lubricant to smooth the process. We find that a single drop of lubricant on about every 20th case eliminates all problems.

[ColinR]

I have RCBS carbide die for 38/357 and have never had sticking problems over thousands of uses and would never think of using a lubricant. Could it be a quality problem?

[Daryll]

Nope... in 30 years of using the same set of Lee carbine dies for .38, I've never lubed them...

[johngarnett]

I have a set of NDFS .38 carbide dies and never used any lube. Sorry!!

JohnG

[Andy632]

Nope never needed any lube. Are you sure they are Carbide????

[dromia]

I have had issues with 9mm in the past, all a carbide sizer is, is a thin carbide ring to the diameter of the sized case. As such it works at its best with straight walled cases, the 9mm is a tapered case as well as a high pressure round and therefore if it hits the ring at an angle that doesn't correspond with the rings, combine that with a slack chamber, minimum tolerance carbide ring and Lee's non existent quality control and I can see the odd case problem. I used to prefer steel sizing dies for the 9mm as they would fit the taper and lube every tenth one or so.

As for the .45ACP I have never experienced and problems with carbide sizers and I have loaded 100s of thousands of them over the pistol years.

It might be worth having a close look at carbide ring in the mouth of the die to see if it has lost its "shine", if the dies were bought new I would return them.

[meles meles]

Hmm, the problem affects the 9mm Lee dies far more than the .45 ACP. Maybe we 'as got a duff die, though that said it's not a huge problem to lubricate the odd case now and then...

[dromia]

The 9mm always has been and always will be a nasty little round in every respect.

[meles meles]

We rather lies it Dromia, 'speshully when fired from our Armalon carbine, but we'll pass on your comments to Herr Georg Luger next time we sees him at the Club.

[dromia]

Examples of many of the guns that chambered it were once prized possessions of mine which is the only reason I struggled for years with the damned thing, was to feed them.