Did I just ruin once-fired Lapua brass?

[pcswann]

It's been awhile since I had to prep new brass (my Lapua 6BR lasts FOREVER), but I just recalled that I completely stopped chamfering the outside of necks because the results were so awful, in fact counterproductive. Scotchbrite followed with the Dremel polishing wheel is all you need.

When you polish out the galling in your die, you will actually be able to see the flecks of brass on the sandpaper (be sure to keep the sandpaper well lubricated). It's quite revealing. And DON'T use WD40. That stuff is fine for household and automotive use, but it contains silicon which leaves a sticky residue that is extremely difficult to remove. When I trained on the M16 in the Air Force in 1969, we dunked the whole bolt carrier assembly in a vat of WD40. There is a good reason why the military switched to Break Free.

Thanks for the WD40 tip, ASbobcat. Headed to Home Depot at lunch to get some red scotch brite.

 

[Jackal2016]

I had a similar issue in the past with either new or once fired 308 Lapua brass. I ended up polishing out the neck area of my die with a bit of Scott's blue shop towel wrapped around and undersized brush with Flitz polish attached to a drill to clean up the die. I think I was using a neck die to uniform the necks on virgin brass if I recall.

 

[pcswann]

Are they new dies?

Did you use them to size the cases before the first firing, or just loaded the new without sizing?

What kind of sizing lube did you use?

If there’s scratches inside the die then you can either send it back to Wilson, which is probably your best bet, or polish it lightly with 300 grit to get the scratches out.

Yes, brand new LE Wilson sizing die. I loaded the new cases without sizing them. I figured they'd be the smallest they'd ever be right out of the box from Lapua. I'm using Hornady One-Shot lube. I think I'll give the "home polish" a shot and if I'm not satisfied with the result then I'll send it in to Wilson. Thanks!

 

[pcswann]

Thanks, everyone, for helping out a new guy. Some great advice here. I'm going to work on the die with some 300 grit on the dowel, as per the well-known Redding instructions. But if that doesn't work I'll send it in to Wilson. I'll report back on this thread what I find out. Thanks again!

 

[ASbobcat]

I just recalled another issue that can be a problem with virgin or freshly annealed brass.

The discoloration you see on the neck/shoulder is a combination of copper and zinc oxides, created in the high temperature of annealing. You can feel the difference in friction with your finger. These oxides are highly abrasive (zinc oxide is a commercial abrasive). If not removed, this residue can and will scratch dies and bushings (especially TiN bushings).

The residue is easily removed with Break Free (that's one of the things it was designed to do). Apply CLP to a soft cotton cloth. Wipe down the discolored area (it will remove tarnish from the rest of the case too) and let it "work" for 10-15min. Wipe off with another CLP wetted cloth. The residue will be very apparent. Wipe with a dry cloth and let air dry for 30min.

With virgin brass, it may be necessary to use #0000 steel wool as well.

 

[divingin]

New dies should be (at the very least) swabbed out with a good degreaser (I use Berrymans B12), and thoroughly wiped down to get any machining detritus out.

For bushings that get brass embedded, I use a small piece if 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper rolled onto an appropriate bore mop with a light oil lubricant, and hand turn it for a minute or two. Usually cleans it right up. While you could do this on a FL die, I don't know if you'd want to risk changing the dimensions. I would think a bushing is harder than the die steel (just a guess there.)

 

[Webster]

I don't know why, but chamfering tools do a reasonable job on the INSIDE and a HORRIBLE job on the outside. You can feel the sharp edge left after outside chamfering. As some have suggested, Scotchbrite does a reasonable job of removing this, but I use a hard rubber conical polishing wheel with my Dremel after the Scothbrite (NOT steel wool!) on both inside and outside.
You are experiencing galling caused, as you suspected, from chips coming off that sharp chamfered edge. The only way to fix the die is to polish. Redding has a procedure for this with Breakfree CLP and medium grit (400) wet/dry sandpaper. Or you could send the die to Wilson.
I stopped using Redding TiN bushings because the coating on those is a virtual magnet for those brass chips. I got tennis elbow from having to de-gall those so frequently.

If you chamfer the neck o.d. and lube the neck before sizing you should not have any problems. The photos of the cases look like the o.d. was never chamfered. Been reloading since 1970, only once I had a die with copper streaks, it was caused from not chamfering before sizing.

 

[Ned Ludd]

Thanks for the thoughtful response, Ned. I was worried that I'd post too much information, but now i see I left some critical info out. The scratches are indeed on the case body, not the neck. The scratches begin right at the shoulder and continue toward the base a little more than halfway down the case length. I'm going to try to attach some photos.View attachment 1493450View attachment 1493451View attachment 1493452View attachment 1493450View attachment 1493451View attachment 1493452

This doesn't look like a mandrel problem to me. Or at least, the scratches you're observing on the case body are probably not the result of treating the necks with a mandrel. Given your description of the brass streaks inside the die body, I suspect you would have observed those marks whether you used a mandrel first or not. Give Wilson a call and they'll take care of you.

 

[memilanuk]

Unless the cases are some raggedy-a$$ crap, i.e. Winchester straight-out-of-the-bag, you shouldn't *need* to chamfer before sizing. Typically when you size, the case grows in length, you trim it, and *then* you chamfer to break the edge of that freshly cut cas mouth. Doing it twice just seems... silly.

If you chamfer the neck o.d. and lube the neck before sizing you should not have any problems. The photos of the cases look like the o.d. was never chamfered. Been reloading since 1970, only once I had a die with copper streaks, it was caused from not chamfering before sizing.

 

[pcswann]

Unless the cases are some raggedy-a$$ crap, i.e. Winchester straight-out-of-the-bag, you shouldn't *need* to chamfer before sizing. Typically when you size, the case grows in length, you trim it, and *then* you chamfer to break the edge of that freshly cut cas mouth. Doing it twice just seems... silly.

Thanks. I'm learning every day. This whole rifle cartridge reloading thing is a lot different than pistol. You should have seen me trying to figure out how to measure shoulder bump

 

[pcswann]

If you chamfer the neck o.d. and lube the neck before sizing you should not have any problems. The photos of the cases look like the o.d. was never chamfered. Been reloading since 1970, only once I had a die with copper streaks, it was caused from not chamfering before sizing.

Thanks, Webster. I chamfered the necks with a Lyman VLD tool, but I agree with you, it sure doesn't look like it. Everything I read advised that it didn't take much at all to chamfer that edge, so "don't got too crazy" on it. I guess I didn't go crazy enough.

 

[Zero333]

Always clean the sizing die before first use and after every sizing session.

Make sure you got the One-Shot CASE LUBE spray and the the One-Shot gun cleaner. Plenty have made that mistake.

Use mandrel after sizing.

 

[Slowrunning]

More lube! I use Hornady One Shot and I've scratched cases like that simply from not using enough lube. The "ziplock bag and roll them around" method definitely does not work in my experience. I lay the cases out on paper towels with the necks facing toward me and then spray them so the lube gets inside the case neck as well as the outside of the body. Spray LIBERALLY, roll them 180 degrees and spray again LIBERALLY. I don't think I'd go taking sandpaper to my die at this point. If it's actually scratched, send it back and get it replaced. If I were a die maker and you tried to return a die to me after you took sandpaper to it, I'd probably not replace it. The likelihood that the dies have scratches all around the inside that are leaving marks like what are on your brass seems really unlikely. If you were consistently getting a scratch in the same place, then I'd suspect the die. I would clean up the inside of the die and make sure theres no brass stuck in there and that the die surface is smooth and scratch free. Douse the cases in one shot, and run them again.

 

[ASbobcat]

Unless the cases are some raggedy-a$$ crap, i.e. Winchester straight-out-of-the-bag, you shouldn't *need* to chamfer before sizing. Typically when you size, the case grows in length, you trim it, and *then* you chamfer to break the edge of that freshly cut cas mouth. Doing it twice just seems... silly.

You've obviously never bought a new box of "raggety-a$$-crap" Lapua brass.

 

[memilanuk]

You've obviously never bought a new box of "raggety-a$$-crap" Lapua brass.

I've shot many, many thousands of pieces of Lapua brass. I've seen some that were not as good as the norm... but even those were better than the average Winchester brass I used before that, and I've seen range pickup brass that I'd trust further than the most recent bags of Winchester crap I picked up a couple years ago.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

Get some sizing wax( Imperial or Hornady) and do each case by hand.

 

[K22]

Ive seen this before...send your Die back to Wilson and have it polished to get the brass that
is imbedded in the die removed. Running dirty brass or brass with brass flakes on them will in some casses will do this and once its embeddid in the die its a brear to remove,
( Size first before brass prep )

Had this exact same thing happen to me with RCBS F/L dies many years ago. Somehow, I got brass particles embedded in the neck portion of the die. RCBS polished the die for me, no charge and it was fine after that.

While those scratches cosmetically don't look nice, they had absolutely no impact at all of performance or case life.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Lapua is still the very best brass there is and if you load hot, it's also the cheapest because nothing I've found holds up anywhere close to it yet. Fingers crossed that that changes. They've been crossed for about 30 years now.

 

[Rset]

1. Did you clean the "new" sizing die before letting it go to work? New dies need to be cleaned before use. 2. While I know many who think one shot is the best lube there is, I would personally never use it again. (been there, had issues) So many other options (pretty much anything else) that are both better and cheaper to use.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

1. Did you clean the "new" sizing die before letting it go to work? New dies need to be cleaned before use. 2. While I know many who think one shot is the best lube there is, I would personally never use it again. (been there, had issues) So many other options (pretty much anything else) that are both better and cheaper to use.

Agreed, especially on cleaning a new die. I've had no complaints with One Shot but I've see on bigger cartridges, there are several better options. For my use, it's great but I don't shoot big, honking cartridges anymore either. You can easily tell that it's not close to say Imperial on big cases, though