Never too old to learn

[Patrick L]

I've been loading for nearly 30 years, and yesterday something happened to me yesterday that proves you've never seen it all.

I've heard that when loading cast boolits, you need to watch out for lube building up in the seating die, causing boolits to seat deep, possibly raising pressures, etc. While I've heard of this, I've NEVER experienced it, in spite of all my years loading. Well, that changed yesterday.

I have been loading a batch of my usual .44 special load, which uses a Lee 200 gr RFP that I run as cast lubed in thinned LLA. I've shot thousands of these over the years. I loaded about 250 or so without incident on Friday, then called it a night. I started up again yesterday, and after about 125-150 I noticed my rounds were looking VERY stubby. Sure enough, boolit lube had built up in the seating die to the degree that I needed to dig it out with a scribe and sharp hook. Boolits were seated a good 3/16ths deeper than normal. I checked all of the rounds loaded the previous day, and they were all fine.

I ended up using my inertial bullet puller to half disassemble the rounds (meaning usually I could tell by feel if the boolit had moved, rather than completely disassembling the round) then run them back through the seat/crimp die.

So the moral of the story is, pay attention and don't assume you know it all. You don't!

[copdills]

I have learned this myself and you are very right when you say you never to old to learn lol

[Hick]

I've had the same problem. I've taken to touching my tub of case lube and then touching the tip of the lead bullet to lube the tip a little before seating. That seems to stop the buildup of lube on the seating die.

[Walter Laich]

One advantage to PC is no lube build up. Did have that problem when I was using lube though

[Scharfschuetze]

Back when I was shooting several hundred rounds of 38 Special WC and SWCs a week in practice and competion, I often used the Speer or Hornady swaged boolits out of convenience and their proven accuracy. They always required the cleaning of the seating stem due to wax lube build up on the stem's face after each loading session.

[Blackwater]

Amen to the "never too old to learn" thing! The amount of info here, both practical and technical, is WAY beyond what any one of us can have. We're so very lucky to have so many very experienced and knowledgeable folks here! I wish I'd had this resource back when I first started casting. I more or less was self-taught from what I'd read, and that and just watching what kind of results I was getting (paying attention) got me going, but boy! Would it have been MUCH easier and a faster learning curve with the info available here! Sure keeps us "old heads" humble!