What did you do in the reloading room today?

[Irving]

I loaded up 20 rounds of 9mm to find a load. Problem was that I couldn't get a consistent charge weight two times in a row. I loaded 20 rounds, but must have measured over 100 loads. It took me hours. Everything seemed to be going wrong. There was moisture of some kind in the flaring die, so then powder would stick to the case. Then when I stopped flaring right before powder charge, the bullets weren't sitting in the cases correctly. Sometimes you have to just stop and come back another day. I just wish I made that decision several hours ago. What a waste of a night.

[DenverGP]

hours[/I]. Everything seemed to be going wrong. There was moisture of some kind in the flaring die, so then powder would stick to the case. Then when I stopped flaring right before powder charge, the bullets weren't sitting in the cases correctly. Sometimes you have to just stop and come back another day. I just wish I made that decision several hours ago. What a waste of a night.

I've had a couple times like that in my short time reloading. I figured out after the second one that just like I need to clean my guns after a certain amount of usage, I should be cleaning my reloading press and dies the same way.

[Irving]

Now you have me wondering about cleaning my dies. I only put clean brass in them, and have not had this issue before. I'm wondering if the temperature swings in the garage might have been causing moisture to build. How do you go about cleaning your dies, and when you clean them, do you have to reset them each time?

[DenverGP]

I've only cleaned them once when I first got them, and once after a couple thousand rounds. I took the decapping parts out of the sizing die, blasted it with some cleaner, put a drop of oil on and then wiped the parts down and reassembled. Same basic thing with my bullet seating die and crimp die. For the charging/flaring die, I disassembled, cleaned it, but didn't put any kind of lube inside it. Yes, I had to reset everything afterwards.

I use the lee auto-disc powder measure, and I do remove the riser and measure every session or two and just wipe them down and run a barrel mop thru them.

I'm pretty new at reloading, so this is probably overkill, but I did notice the sizing die and charging die ran smoother/easier after doing this. Also, i'm using a cheap lee turret press, so it might benefit more from this than a higher end press would.

The auto-disc measure also benefited from a "fluff and buff", cleaning up rough casting areas, oiling up the lever, etc.

[Irving]

You know, now that you mention it, I've done all my previous reloading with .40 dies, and this is the first I've used the 9mm dies. I wonder if I shouldn't clean them to start. Good info, thanks.

[Hound]

Ummmm....... Yes

You know, now that you mention it, I've done all my previous reloading with .40 dies, and this is the first I've used the 9mm dies. I wonder if I shouldn't clean them to start. Good info, thanks.

[KS63]

I disassemble and wipe down all my new dies. Some have had machining oil on the inside and outside.

[MarkCO]

Loaded 1500 rounds of Xtreme bullets 55 FMJs for the first few matches and some practice.

[TheBelly]

You know, now that you mention it, I've done all my previous reloading with .40 dies, and this is the first I've used the 9mm dies. I wonder if I shouldn't clean them to start. Good info, thanks.

Hornady makes a die cleaner. I use it on my 9mm and .223 dies for the Lee Progressive presses. I always disassemble and clean the dies before the first use and then every thousand or so, just to remove any crud that may accumulate. I know that cleaning that often might be overkill, but I only reload about 1500-2k per month these days.

[Slapps74]

Added an Inline Fabrication mount to the 650 and to my surprise it made a difference. Very glad I did it.