Restoring Dies

[trapperP]

I have a set of Redding dies that scratch cases when I resize them. Is there anyway to restore these dies or do I bite the bullet and buy a new set?

[kungfustyle]

Try to pollish them out with a dowel and rag and rubbing compound or some 1000 grit sand paper. Just take it slow. If you mess up you are no worse off and you still can get another set of die. I had a 357/38 RCBS set that scratched and sent them back to RCBS they polished them out and I'm up and running again.

[kungfustyle]

I've done this several times with Lee push troughs. Works fine.

[ReloaderFred]

I do mine this way: http://varmintal.com/arelo.htm#Polish

I've restored numerous dies for myself and others using Varmint Al's method.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[country gent]

It is a sometimes a simple build up of hard build up from many sizings. Star cleaning the dies good with a bore solvent. Look in them with a good light even better is a bore scope. See if there are and where scratches are. Alot of times its a rough area on the mouth radious of the dies that flow into the body. This can be worked out easily with a snug dowel patch combination and polishing compound.On straight walled cases this area does most of the work normally, On bottle necks not quite so much. If its a die for bottle necked rounds then things get trickier polishing as you dont want to increase body diameter or change shoulder angle in the die. I would start by cleaning the die good and seeing where the issue is then going from there working slow and carefully. Red or green jewelers rouge works good so does flitz or simichrome metal polish. Diamond paste does great but isnt needed unless its a carbide die, and even then the other polishes will work just much slower. To do this the nature of the scratch needs to be understood. A fresh scratch has a depression and 2 raised edces one on each side and maybe a third at the end. The depression isnt the problem its the raised edges that are. You only need to remove the raised or sharp edges. The depression can be there and will simply hold lube. Slowly remove these edges and give it a try

[EDG]

I have polished dozens of scratchy FL sizer dies. I take care of my dies and cases so I never cause this myself.

I buy a lot of used die sets and many of them will scratch the brass. It is simple to correct.

Use a light gun oil or WD-40 to lubricate 400 to 500 grit wet or dry silicon carbide paper wrapped around a wood dowel.
Spin the die in a lathe or use a threaded mandrel and an electric drill motor.

It take 2 to 3 minutes and almost no metal is removed. Just polish enough to change the surface appearance a little.

I once got a set of .35 Rem dies that were significantly rusted inside especially the sizer. The rust was heavy enough to pit the interior of the die some leaving alligator skin.

After polishing about 5 mins there was still about 50% of the alligator skin left. I sized some cases with this rough looking die and it worked fine.

After this example I don't think there is any minor scratching issue you cannot repair by polishing.

[skeettx]

http://redding-reloading.com/how-to-return-products-for-warranty-repair

[trapperP]

Many, many thanks for the replies and advice, you guys are the best! I took the die apart, cleaned with bore clean and then polished it out with dill motor and the Simichrome polish. Ran it for 50-60 seconds and cleaned it again - what a surprise! It was like looking doen the barrels of my O/U. Tried a few cases just for drill and the came out looking like new - no scratchs. Thanks again.

[plus1hdcp]

Glad it worked out and a nice thread to read

[Legion489]

Well I was going to say send them back to Redding, which really is a great place to deal with, as Redding actually does stand behind their stuff, unlike Lee. But if it worked out for you and got them working, congratulations on a job well done.