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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.

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?

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

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

JohnG

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

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.

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...

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

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.

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.