How often should I be cleaning my dies?

[Rustynails]

Thanks for the advice and tips! I didn't think all that crud was building up, but it makes sense if you are pushing dust and lube up in a tube for several hundred or not thousands of rounds. I'll try a couple of the suggestions and see how it goes. Good to know that it seems to be just a fact of life when reloading cast bullets.

[samari46]

When finishing casting boolets the I clean than with Hoppes and leave a light film inside the dies. So when starting reloading they get cleaned again. Just use q-tips I keep a box of 500 sitting on the bench and usually have about 1500 around the house. Frank

[mjwcaster]

For me it depends on what I am loading.
Over lubed cast boolits, seating die might need to be cleaned several times during a reloading session.
Properly lubed boolits, when ever I think about it.
Jacketed or coated bullets, things never seem to get dirty.

But I did just load a batch of 223 where the walnut media stuck to the cases and required cleaning of everything on the press quite often.

Only a few hundred of those cases, the next batch was fine.

So I let my dies and press tell me when to clean.
Or if I am just bored I might start cleaning/lubing everything in the shop.


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[goryshaw]

In 30+ yrs of reloading I can remember cleaning a die one time. Lee Alox built up in a seating die and messed up seating depth, couple of 8 minute sessions in the ultrasonic and it was resolved. Switched over to BLL and haven't had a build up problem with it yet.

[6bg6ga]

A source of air is mandatory in my opinion for ridding the brass of tumbling media. Keeps it out of the shell casings and the reloading dies.

[bedbugbilly]

It all depends on what I'm loading. As someone else said, it's usually if I begin to notice a dimensional change whenI'm randomly checking - and then it's usually the seating die.

The only exception is when I' loading BP cartridges. Mainly I shoot 38 Special or 38 Colt Long in BP. I load on a Lee 4 hole turret and i finally set up a turret plate and another set of dies dedicated to the BP loading. A different lube altogether and it doesn't take long sometimes for the seating die to need a going over. Not a biggie though . . . I just leave it on the press, pull the seating stem and clean out with solvent and Q gips and away we go. I keep several dummy rounds of what I'm loading for a quick reset of the seating stem depth.

I can't help it . . . I keep seeing Glocks mentioned in terms of "how often to clean" . . don't own one but I thought that if they "ever" needed cleaning, since they are like tupperware" - can
t you just run them through a wash cycle in the dish washer?

[pworley1]

When the lube builds up.

[greenjoytj]

Source of air, your going to blow tumbler dust into the room air. That’s not good.
If you dry media tumble, then you must rinse off the tumbler dust under running water.
Spread the wet cases out on a towel and roll them a little to get off the water drops.
If your concerned about water spots on the dried brass a second rinse (dip) in a water filled margarine tub with a few drops of dish washing machine rinse aide in the water.

I only own 1 press a LEE Classic Cast single stage, so I must handle my dies constantly. I always look inside them and wipe them out with a Q-Tip and or a piece of paper towel that I’ve twisted up like rope.
Inspect and clean your dies, it says to do this in their instructions. I clean the dies after use and before use. The before use cleaning is a second chance to get out cruddy stuff I missed on the first cleaning. Oils left in the die continue to work to get under crud and lift it so the next time I clean that crud will be easier to remove.