Case Neck Lube - Bullet Seating

[David Christian]

My goal is to spend the most amount of time on the range and the least amount of time reloading. In my pursuit of achieving the greatest level of precision and repeatability, I have been testing which reloading steps provide the greatest benefit versus which ones just take time.

IMO, lubing necks is overrated.

 

[JMayo]

Year old thread awakens !

Hornady one shot before sizing gets the inside of the necks lubed just fine.

 

[dolek]

I like graphite in the neck applied while I run them through the mandrel as the last step.

 

[clunker]

Am I understanding correctly that people lube the necks mostly to make seating easier? I'm new at reloading, but I have never experienced any difficulty seating into a dry case. They just slide right in with very little effort.

 

[comagutsa]

Am I understanding correctly that people lube the necks mostly to make seating easier? I'm new at reloading, but I have never experienced any difficulty seating into a dry case. They just slide right in with very little effort.

For me It was mainly when I used to stainless Steel tumble, it would clean all the carbon out of the neck and I would get huge seating pressure differences, which when mixed up affected my accuracy on the target.. To help combat this I used to dip my necks and base of bullet in graphite powder.. It helped but wasn't perfect.. So I stopped SS cleaning and now I don't clean, just wipe outside of case with a rag and nylon brush in and out of neck, manual clean primer pocket. I don't care for shiny brass anymore
If you media clean you won't need to Lube necks before seating.
BTW when I seat my bullets I'm using a force gauge on my arbor press with inline seating dies so you can tell home seating force you are getting, using ram press you won't really feel a huge difference in seating pressures
Cheers

 

[David Christian]

For me It was mainly when I used to stainless Steel tumble, it would clean all the carbon out of the neck and I would get huge seating pressure differences, which when mixed up affected my accuracy on the target.. To help combat this I used to dip my necks and base of bullet in graphite powder.. It helped but wasn't perfect.. So I stopped SS cleaning and now I don't clean, just wipe outside of case with a rag and nylon brush in and out of neck, manual clean primer pocket. I don't care for shiny brass anymore
If you media clean you won't need to Lube necks before seating.
BTW when I seat my bullets I'm using a force gauge on my arbor press with inline seating dies so you can tell home seating force you are getting, using ram press you won't really feel a huge difference in seating pressures
Cheers

I SST after every firing and don’t use any lube on my bullets and have near identical seating force. Have you played around with your neck tension using gage pins to confirm that your necks are all the same? Lube should not be needed.