I was off yesterday after a 8 day stretch and had my mind back in order after my last little episode with trying to resize LC .308 brass that was fired in a machine gun. I have damaged a goodly portion of my reloading equipment during this time in trying to resize the brass. Stuck more cases than I want to admit and used more different types of sizing lube trying to get this stopped. Most people would of stopped long before this and just thrown the brass away.
At this point I need to stop and thank one of you for mentioning something when I said I could not find an immediate source for Imperial sizing die wax. They said try Mink Oil which stuck in my mind and I kept thinking of it as I had exhausted the types of sizing lube at the store and had either borrowed or bought every type they had and really wanted to try the Imperial sizing wax but they had none.
Well yesterday I was off and thought "I'm going to try it one more time as I hate to through anything away. So back to the bench and give it another go. Who knows, Maybe if I can save 350 or so of the roughly 700 cases I will still come out with something. So I very carefully lube up a case and drop the lever until I can just start to feel the case stick and then pull back up and re lube the case and start again. I had found that If I took it slow and careful I could resize a case in 6 strokes. Kind of a mindless task. Stroke and Lube, Stroke and Lube. Well while I'm doing this I start thinking of the last post and of someone mentioning Mink Oil. Well I have done about 10 cases and getting tired of this process and after so long I loose it and drop the lever too hard and stick another case. So I thought what the heck, I haven't tried it yet and remember I had seen a tub of Mink Oil someplace I went to look for it. Well I finally found it and headed for the bench. Opened up the tub and thought OH Crap. This was a tub of patch lube I had made up for lubing the patches for my ML. It contained Mink Oil, Bee's Wax and a few other things that I had added to raise the flash point so it did not burn my patch's with heavy loads.
Well it was the only thing close to Mink Oil I had and it was at least 1/3 Mink oil.
so what the heck I might as well give it a try.
I lubed up the first case by getting some on my fingers and then rubbing it on the case. Put the case in the press and slowly pressed down on the lever and What the Heck?? the case went smoothly into the die and resized the complete case with one stroke non stop. I thought that can't be! I looked at the case to make sure I hadn't grabbed one of the commercial cases by mistake and Nope, its a LC case. I then thought well maybe its one of the cases I had already done and I grabbed it by mistake. So I take another case and lube it up. Again the lever goes down smoothly and no sticking. I take another case and inspect it closely to make sure it had not been resized and nope it hadn't. I lube it up and again it goes in smoothly and completely re sizes the case with very little effort as compared to what it had been taking by a bunch. It even was less than what I get when I do commercial cases. I then start inspecting case that I had resized with this stuff and found no oil dents or anything else I have found with some of the other concoctions I have tried like Vaseline, STP, and some commercial lubes. There was none.
Up to this time I had been resizing with the decaping stem out as I had tried it once and destroyed the capping stem when it stuck in the case and the case stuck in the die. I had to buy another set of dies and bought a cheap Lee die. I put the decaping pin in and adjusted it correctly and also put some lube on it just to make sure. I lubed up another case and gritted my teeth and lowered the lever. Danged if it didn't just resize and DE-cap the case slick as a whistle and easier than a commercial case usually does. In the next hour and a half I resized and de-caped 350 cases without a single problem other than having to dump out the primers from the primer catcher which really sucks on my RCBS press.
Out of the original 680 LC cases I now have 550 cases that are all resized and IF I had used this from the beginning I would of had 680 and spent a lot less money. I called up my buddy to tell him about it and he said good. I have more and won't throw it away and will split it with you. Seems he had a lot more cases and he had given up on it and thought maybe I could figure it out. Well I did and now he is getting me more brass and is going to try to mix up some of this patch lube and try it and see how it works for him.
I'm not sure exactly what makes this lube work and I have to find my original recipe for it to do some research but its my guess its the bee's wax mixed with mink oil that's doing it. And if any of you are resizing LC Machine gun brass find some bee's wax and mix it about half and half with mink oil and give it a go. This stuff is slick.
At this point I need to stop and thank one of you for mentioning something when I said I could not find an immediate source for Imperial sizing die wax. They said try Mink Oil which stuck in my mind and I kept thinking of it as I had exhausted the types of sizing lube at the store and had either borrowed or bought every type they had and really wanted to try the Imperial sizing wax but they had none.
Well yesterday I was off and thought "I'm going to try it one more time as I hate to through anything away. So back to the bench and give it another go. Who knows, Maybe if I can save 350 or so of the roughly 700 cases I will still come out with something. So I very carefully lube up a case and drop the lever until I can just start to feel the case stick and then pull back up and re lube the case and start again. I had found that If I took it slow and careful I could resize a case in 6 strokes. Kind of a mindless task. Stroke and Lube, Stroke and Lube. Well while I'm doing this I start thinking of the last post and of someone mentioning Mink Oil. Well I have done about 10 cases and getting tired of this process and after so long I loose it and drop the lever too hard and stick another case. So I thought what the heck, I haven't tried it yet and remember I had seen a tub of Mink Oil someplace I went to look for it. Well I finally found it and headed for the bench. Opened up the tub and thought OH Crap. This was a tub of patch lube I had made up for lubing the patches for my ML. It contained Mink Oil, Bee's Wax and a few other things that I had added to raise the flash point so it did not burn my patch's with heavy loads.
Well it was the only thing close to Mink Oil I had and it was at least 1/3 Mink oil.
so what the heck I might as well give it a try.I lubed up the first case by getting some on my fingers and then rubbing it on the case. Put the case in the press and slowly pressed down on the lever and What the Heck?? the case went smoothly into the die and resized the complete case with one stroke non stop. I thought that can't be! I looked at the case to make sure I hadn't grabbed one of the commercial cases by mistake and Nope, its a LC case. I then thought well maybe its one of the cases I had already done and I grabbed it by mistake. So I take another case and lube it up. Again the lever goes down smoothly and no sticking. I take another case and inspect it closely to make sure it had not been resized and nope it hadn't. I lube it up and again it goes in smoothly and completely re sizes the case with very little effort as compared to what it had been taking by a bunch. It even was less than what I get when I do commercial cases. I then start inspecting case that I had resized with this stuff and found no oil dents or anything else I have found with some of the other concoctions I have tried like Vaseline, STP, and some commercial lubes. There was none.
Up to this time I had been resizing with the decaping stem out as I had tried it once and destroyed the capping stem when it stuck in the case and the case stuck in the die. I had to buy another set of dies and bought a cheap Lee die. I put the decaping pin in and adjusted it correctly and also put some lube on it just to make sure. I lubed up another case and gritted my teeth and lowered the lever. Danged if it didn't just resize and DE-cap the case slick as a whistle and easier than a commercial case usually does. In the next hour and a half I resized and de-caped 350 cases without a single problem other than having to dump out the primers from the primer catcher which really sucks on my RCBS press.
Out of the original 680 LC cases I now have 550 cases that are all resized and IF I had used this from the beginning I would of had 680 and spent a lot less money. I called up my buddy to tell him about it and he said good. I have more and won't throw it away and will split it with you. Seems he had a lot more cases and he had given up on it and thought maybe I could figure it out. Well I did and now he is getting me more brass and is going to try to mix up some of this patch lube and try it and see how it works for him.
I'm not sure exactly what makes this lube work and I have to find my original recipe for it to do some research but its my guess its the bee's wax mixed with mink oil that's doing it. And if any of you are resizing LC Machine gun brass find some bee's wax and mix it about half and half with mink oil and give it a go. This stuff is slick.
