Help with 35 Rem dies

[EDG]

The cross hatch honing texture of an engine cylinder has nothing to do with each of passage. The cross hatch holds oil to better lubricate the rings and pistons but does not otherwise reduce friction.
Highly polished dies and brass on the other hand do reduce the force required to size lubricated cases.

Surprising but true, a mirror polish in a sizer is not easier to use. A soft matt finish holds case size lube in place much better than a high shine, that's why the cylinder walls of auto engines are never polished shiny!

[1hole]

The cross hatch honing texture of an engine cylinder has nothing to do with each of passage. The cross hatch holds oil to better lubricate the rings and pistons but does not otherwise reduce friction.

Highly polished dies and brass on the other hand do reduce the force required to size lubricated cases.

How/why? Seems if a high polish is slicker then we shouldn't even need a lube, just a better polish! Nope.

You know "cross hatch" lubes great for rings and cylinders but don't otherwise reduce friction, right? (Actually, I thought holding lube is all the cross hatch is surface is supposed to do. ??) But you believe micro-hatch (matt finished) sizers won't hold lube better than polished? Well ....

I can easily polish my dies to mirror finish if I wish but I've found they're slicker/easier to use when matt finished! That experiment's result wasn't what I expected but that's what happened when I tested it so I have now matted them all using a green Scotchbrite pad on a snug fitting wooden mandrel chucked in a drill; that works great!

I don't care what others do so I give my suggestions and reasoning but I won't further argue the point. Well, except noting that "common wisdom" says shiny dies are slicker but "common wisdom" is often wrong. Remember when the experts told us everything electrical would crash when Y2K rolled over? And remember how sure Algore and other greenie experts were that the world would burn passed livable in what, two years? or five years? or ten years? Or, today, how we're promised that common drug store paper or fabric dust masks are expected to filter C-19 even tho we know shorts and jeans won't begin to restrain a fart? Etc. I do.

I don't know who promised reloaders that mirror sizer surfaces would hold a film of case lube better and work slicker than matt surfaces but I've learned to disagree. YMMV but I know it's not true in my little shop.

[uscra112]

Carbide pistol dies have a mirror finish. And they don't use lube.

[EDG]

There are a million guys out there that will tell you that bright (jewelry finish quality) brass cases size easier than ordinary finished brass.
The same goes for dies. Even the brightest finished dies size easier because the lube has no problem maintaining a good film under the slow sizing and pressure of resizing brass.
The cross hatch improves performance of piston rings but we are not talking about 60,000 miles either....
5,000 cases sized means you have friction for about 10,000 inches. Hardly enough to wear out the dies.
But 80,000 miles plus the non-miles worth of idling in traffic will easily wear out the cross hatching in a cylinder bore. Even with the cross hatching worn out the engine will still run just fine.

How/why? Seems if a high polish is slicker then we shouldn't even need a lube, just a better polish! Nope.


You know "cross hatch" lubes great for rings and cylinders but don't otherwise reduce friction, right? (Actually, I thought holding lube is all the cross hatch is surface is supposed to do. ??) But you believe micro-hatch (matt finished) sizers won't hold lube better than polished? Well ....

I can easily polish my dies to mirror finish if I wish but I've found they're slicker/easier to use when matt finished! That experiment's result wasn't what I expected but that's what happened when I tested it so I have now matted them all using a green Scotchbrite pad on a snug fitting wooden mandrel chucked in a drill; that works great!

I don't care what others do so I give my suggestions and reasoning but I won't further argue the point. Well, except noting that "common wisdom" says shiny dies are slicker but "common wisdom" is often wrong. Remember when the experts told us everything electrical would crash when Y2K rolled over? And remember how sure Algore and other greenie experts were that the world would burn passed livable in what, two years? or five years? or ten years? Or, today, how we're promised that common drug store paper or fabric dust masks are expected to filter C-19 even tho we know shorts and jeans won't begin to restrain a fart? Etc. I do.

I don't know who promised reloaders that mirror sizer surfaces would hold a film of case lube better and work slicker than matt surfaces but I've learned to disagree. YMMV but I know it's not true in my little shop.

[1hole]

Carbide pistol dies have a mirror finish. And they don't use lube.

The effect you cite isn't due to the shine. Carbide slides easier than steel simply because it has a lower friction coefficient, not because it's shiny. And shiny cases don't do a thing to reduce sizing effort, it takes a high film strength lube to do that and matt surfaces holding a layer of good lube makes things slide easiest.

As a point of interest, commercial ammo makers often use costly solid carbide bottle neck dies to form cases but they also use lube or they'll have cases stuck hard in carbide dies, same as us. I mean, even slick carbide has limits!

Even tho carbide sizers can be used without lube it's not a great idea. Before carbide handgun dies became available we just wiped cases off and resized them with their residual film of smoke and bullet lube; that surface film was enough "lube" for the new dies without further lubing but it didn't eliminate the need for some tiny bit of real lube.

Few - if any - of us had case tumblers back then but when they became available it suddenly became fashionable to "clean" cases until they glittered like jewelry. But, deprived of the old smoked case surfaces to help, we began to have galled dies that scratched the pretty cases. Most folk thought it was due to getting a grain of sand on the carbide and scratching it; nope, it was soft, dry brass galling on the very hard carbide ring due to a total lack of lube!

Bottom line, no amount of shine can prevent galling a carbide die.

[Drm50]

The 35Rem is one of first rifle cartridges I reloaded. My 1st deer rifle was a 35 Rem #8 back in ‘62.
My dies are second hand Lymans from before ‘62. I have loaded 358 cast rifle bullets and cast 357 pistol bullets with these dies and all manner of jacketed. Never had any trouble loading. I still have these dies and have always used them on single stage presses. I would say trouble results from dirty brass or dies. If not that it could be chamber in rifle allowing greater expansion than industry norms. 35 is simple to load and all the extra fancy stuff is okay but shouldn’t be necessary to load decent ammo. I’m just recently down to two 35 rifles, the #8 and a 141. The #8 is a beast and would probably work with 36 ammo if there was such a thing. The 141 is less tolerant to ammo, more so than Marlin 336. I’ve never had problems with any except on both 336 and 141, OAL is critical on both.

[1hole]

There are a million guys out there that will tell you that bright (jewelry finish quality) brass cases size easier than ordinary finished brass.

Yeah, probably. I'm sure there are millions who would also assure me the world is flat! But, they would be wrong too.

Fact is, brass is so soft compared to steel that case shine is effectively meaningless during sizing, especially so for straight wall cases; THAT just ain't gonna happen!

"The same goes for dies... the lube has no problem maintaining a good film under the slow sizing and pressure of resizing brass."

At any speed, a mirrored surface simply does not/cannot hold a lube film as well as a matt surface does.

.... in traffic will easily wear out the cross hatching in a cylinder bore. Even with the cross hatching worn out the engine will still run just fine.

I'm just recognising the lube holding value of a soft matt die wall.

Cross hatching in the cylinders of an internal combustion engine certainly wears away but, as it wears, tiny vertical scoring of the cylinder walls and rings appear and grow to replicate the lube holding effects of the initial cross hatching.

Cylinder walls are not mirror polished simply because shiny surfaces can't possibly hold a good film of lube under pressure very well. Ditto sizing dies. Don't just listen to "millions" of others, or even me; try it for yourself.