Happy New Year!
Last night I ran into a problem I never had before. After powder coating the boolits were much harder to size than I have ever experienced.
The facts I can think of that might be important:
1. Using a Star lubrisizer, sized to .401" with a Star/Magma die.
2. Using Smoke's lube as always. Same color as in the past.
3. Same mold as I have used many times before for PC - .40 RCBS 10MM-170-SWC
4. Shake and bake with ASBBs
5. Alloy: 20 lb COWW Since I was planning on PC I didn't add the 1/2 lb of Monotype that I usually do. These boolits should be softer than COWW+Monotype. The boolits sat around for a couple of weeks before PC/sizing so there was probably some age hardening. I have not tested hardness yet but I usually do not PC immediately after casting so they always have some resting time before coating. I'll try to do that later today.
My typical experience has been that powder coated boolits size more easily than when using a wax based lube. This time they started out OK but got harder to size quickly. I eventually bent my roller handle's shaft that I made from stainless steel. (I know that stainless isn't generally as tough as carbon steel but it's what I had on hand at the time.) I considered the boolit stuck at that point and had to get it out. When it was finally pushed through, I took a Q-Tip and swabbed a touch of pure lanolin into the die. That helped immediately and by the third boolit they were sizing almost effortlessly. After 15-20 I had to renew the lanolin and repeated this cycle several times with great success but it really slowed production. If I wanted to go slow I could use my Lyman 450.
The 'not quite a solution' was to spray Dillon case sizing lube on the remaining boolits. They sized with more resistance than when using pure lanolin bit I got through the batch of about 600 boolits. Some of the first boolits to be sized had a little conventional lube in the grooves so no doubt that was helping but once that was gone and the die was really dry is when the sizing got difficult. In the past I've PCed 9mm, .357, .40 and .45 and sized them all in the Star without issue.
Any ideas?