Pandemic Cleaning - Reloading

[Muddyboots]

So I cleaned up bench, went through my rifles and was thinking Now What? The I realized, I haven't cleaned my dies in a long time. Boy was I shocked and embarrassed on what I found! I couldn't believe how ugly they were deep inside just out of sight until I ran a patch into them with solvent. I can't even understand how I was getting good ES and SD numbers or consistent CBTO measurements. SO just sharing if you are looking for something to do during idle time that a lot of us are under at this time, look at your dies for potential cleaning.

I am a lot more fastidious than what I found and it was a slap in the face on what I do so it was a really good lesson in humility to realize that I forgot something very important part of reloading consistency.

So my bad is maybe your reminder or ignore if you do this and can't understand how anyone could forget to do so?

 

[ButterBean]

I forget all the time

 

[Savage 12BVSS]

I agree with your suggestion for idle time filler's. I've extended my reloading bench and reorganized everything as well. My dies were never in danger of rusting inside (though I did go to those desiccant pac's in each die box). They were however a little lube encrusted, I did notice since I removed the expander ball's and spindles from the sizing process, the amount of lube deposit's greatly decreased and it was nothing to cleaning them. Collet expander's are so easy to take apart and keep clean it don't seem right , with the lee's I don't use lube at all in that process.

Waiting patiently for my Gunsmith to finish my action and barrel, it was a week and a half job at the start but it's now going into it's second month and no closer . It will happen at some point I'm sure and then there will be gun assembly and load work. Ranges are closed at this point and non-essential, thinking about building one where I've been cutting wood of late behind the house and be done with the drive and lugging everything. Used to be a gunshop here when I bought it and the big earth berms are still in the back to shoot into. Always something to do I suppose......

 

[RT2506]

Yep, having more idle time at home I headed to my loading room. I have actually found about 6 feet of more loading bench and quite a few more square feet of floor space after cleaning up my PILING system. I have worn calluses on my hands in new spots from sizing, trimming, loading. Lost count but I have loaded over 1000 rounds of assorted ammo. I have sized, swaged crimp out of primer pocket and cleaned ready to load a 50 cal. ammo can that was full to the brim with 223 cases. Yesterday afternoon I turned fifty 300 Savage cases into 30x47. Had not really thought about cleaning all my dies. I have cleaned individual sets at times over the years but never just sat down and cleaned them all at one time. May have to do that next week.