Lee 308 win Resizing die trouble

[highmountaincaster]

Hey fellas, die anyone else have a resizing die from Lee that scratches the heck out of the neck of your brass??? I bought a set of Lee ultimate 4 die set for 308 Winchester and the resizing die must be rougher than a corn cob up in the neck. It leaves a rough scratched finish on my brass. I tried chucking it up in my lathe and polished it until it was nice and shiny. When I looked up in the die there appears to be tooling marks in the neck of the die. I got it smoothed out but still leaves a scuffed finish and is unacceptable for a die to do such a thing. I never had any problems with RCBS or Hornady dies doing this. I only bought the Lee set because it was the only one I could find at the time.

[Joe504]

Contact Lee, they will make it right.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[jim147]

Have many Lee dies have never had that happen.

[mdi]

Did you resize any "dirty" brass or use a contaminated (sand/grit),dirty lube? Was the die bad from the first case resized?

Not saying the OP is guilty, but many reloaders will blame Lee for their own screw up...

[MostlyLeverGuns]

Bunch of heavily used Lee full-length resizing dies, no problems.

[Cast_outlaw]

I have new 308 and 444marlin 4 die set and am having real troubles resizing both 308 and 444m lubed cases have James and I had to drift them out of the die with a hammer and drift they bind up engulf I was able to rip 3 1/2” lag bolts out of the 2x4s on my bench

[mdi]

I have a 308 Winchester and a 30-06 die kits from Lee. I have reloaded a few thousand rounds for my Garand in 30-06 and about 400-500 rounds for my Ruger bolt 308. I use Mink Oil Boot Dressing Cream as a case lube and have never stuck a case, never scratched and case or any other problems. I also have 6 more Lee die sets mostly handgun work just as well as my 2 RCBS, 2 Hornady and an assortment of Pacific, Lyman and Herters dies, all work just fine...

I even used my Lee dies to reload some 308s on my old Pacific "C" (lightweight) press (size/deprime, prime, charge, seat bullets, and choot 'em up!). No problems at all...

[1hole]

I have new 308 and 444marlin 4 die set and am having real troubles resizing both 308 and 444m lubed cases have James and I had to drift them out of the die with a hammer and drift they bind up engulf I was able to rip 3 1/2” lag bolts out of the 2x4s on my bench

You ripped 3 half inch bolts out of a 2x4 but didn't pull the case rims off? That's puzzling. I wonder, were they indeed 1/2" diameter bolts (meaning with nuts) or were they just short lag screws?

I have a lot of sizer dies of several brands (some which are no longer made), including the often denigrated Lee's but I've never noted them to be any less effective than the most expensive dies on the market (Redding).

For your stiff extraction, I wonder if you've tried applying a bit more case lube on the lower/thicker half of the cases, down where the lube is really needed?

[1hole]

Did you resize any "dirty" brass or use a contaminated (sand/grit),dirty lube? Was the die bad from the first case resized?

Not saying the OP is guilty, but many reloaders will blame Lee for their own screw up...

It's much more difficult to scratch the inside of a sizing die than many folk believe. In order to scratch anything requires one thing to be harder than the other; sizers are case hardened harder than a file; sand, grit and dirty lube are nowhere near hard enough to imbed or scratch our dies.

What commonly causes scratched cases is poorly lubed brass bits galling onto the sides of the die. Thus, scratches on sized cases are due to tiny bits of galled brass, not a "scratched" hardened steel sizer.

[1006]

I have a 223 die from Lee that I purchased as a “used” die; it scratched cases when I bought it. I had to polish the inside of the die to reduce the scratching. I used an oversized gun barrel cleaning swab —looks like a giant q-tip— mounted in a drill and Maas metal polish. It seemed to work pretty well after a few minutes of polishing.

[jim147]

I have new 308 and 444marlin 4 die set and am having real troubles resizing both 308 and 444m lubed cases have James and I had to drift them out of the die with a hammer and drift they bind up engulf I was able to rip 3 1/2” lag bolts out of the 2x4s on my bench

What case lube are you using?

[Polymath]

Was loading 38SPL today and suddenly a few cases came out scratched. Took the die out and ran some CPL through it and swabbed it. It came out black. Must have got some crud in there. Took a wooden dowel, split at the end and chucked it up in the power drill and slipped a 400 grit emery cloth in the split and lapped it out for a few seconds and it was shiny clean again. Back to the press and finished the loading. Not sure what it was but it's gone, and did not harm the die.

[Stephen Cohen]

I have a couple Lee dies that do just that and it was from me sizing shells before I cleaned them. I now remove primers with a lee Universal die and was and clean all shells before they go near my dies. Regards Stephen

[DougGuy]

I got the same die from Lee, the neck portion was rough drilled and never honed. It would near break your arm to resize cases, and it would buckle some of them. The ones that didn't buckle were all scratched up and undersized in the necks.

I sent the die to Lee with an explanation of the problem, and also precision measurements by pin gage showing the neck was .001" under size, and Pete sent the die back saying there was nothing wrong with it, he sent back a case that was halfway buckled as an "example" of the fact that he thought there was no problem with the die.

I ebayed another Lee 308 Win sizing die which came with a polished neck, .001" bigger in the neck section than the other die, and it was smooth to operate, didn't scuff or buckle the cases, and necks are correctly sized.

Conclusion? "Pete" in Lee's Customer Service is a DICK.

OP just get a new die, b/c nobody at Lee could be bothered with the fact that another one got past QC. If there is any QC.

To this day I am still VERY tempted to use a thin cutoff wheel in a 4" grinder and split both dies longways, send them to someone at LEE who might actually give a ****, and tell them that "Pete" needs a refresher course in dealing with customers and offer him a Dillon Precision "Salesman Of The Month" award.

[ioon44]

I really like my new Hornady dies.

[Loudenboomer]

carful use of a split wooden mandrel (dowel) spinning a fine scotchbrite remnant with a cordless drill works well for a quick polish. If the machining of the die is off I'd follow the above advice and junk it.

[highmountaincaster]

Yes I used clean brass, I always clean my brass before running thru the resize die, even new brass gets the same treatment before ever going near my dies. I put the die into my Rockwell lathe and polished the neck portion. While it made it SLIGHTLY better it was still unacceptable because the was tooling marks that could not be polished out. I borrowed my dads RCBS die and it works great. Already have a set of Hornady 308 Win dies on the way, no more Lee dies for me. I am not making this up fellas, look at the pic below and this was AFTER polishing.

[country gent]

The big thing with a new die thats doing this is to clean well and measure see if theres enough stock to polish lapp it out. If its to size and the surface is rough it may not be worth it.

I normally when I need to resize or clean up a neck make a lapp from a piece of fine grained hard wood. turn close to size drill pilot hole in end and split then a small wood screw to open to size. as needed. I make the working section about 2" long. Coat this with yellow diamond compound and roll between 2 flat plates. I then start working on the die at a low rpm and high feed, you want the polish lines to cross in a figure 8 pastern. This will make a fine finish maintain roundness and follow true.

I have opened necks up to reduce the drag on the expander ball coming out to save on work hardening and to keep things truer.On case forming dies a finish that can "hold" some lubricant may help ease the force to form and make make a better case.A to smooth finish ( mirror ) may burnish cases do to lack of lube holding and increased surface

[Three44s]

Yes I used clean brass, I always clean my brass before running thru the resize die, even new brass gets the same treatment before ever going near my dies. I put the die into my Rockwell lathe and polished the neck portion. While it made it SLIGHTLY better it was still unacceptable because the was tooling marks that could not be polished out. I borrowed my dads RCBS die and it works great. Already have a set of Hornady 308 Win dies on the way, no more Lee dies for me. I am not making this up fellas, look at the pic below and this was AFTER polishing.

By now, I hope you have Lee on speed dial?

This does not bode well for folks just now taking up handloading and buying new tooling in this era of pandemic.

Three44s

[highmountaincaster]

By now, I hope you have Lee on speed dial?

This does not bode well for folks just now taking up handloading and buying new tooling in this era of pandemic.

Three44s

I don’t know if this is typical for Lee or what because this is the first time I have ever purchased Lee stuff in 20 yrs and so far from my experience they seem to be of decent material quality but there QC sucks big time. Still really like my Lee CLassic Turret press though. It runs perfect after Lee had to send me a new ring because my original one wasn’t machined right. Really like my App press after my 1st one had to be replaced because of a bad die carrier. My ACP has been fine since day one. My other 2 die sets from lee for pistol have been fine aswell. I did have to polish out 2 bullet sizing does that were really rough on the inside. The 3 bullet molds I have work great and I only use their case lube. It seems to really be a gamble when you buy lee stuff, either you get a good one or you have to call Lee and pay shipping to send it back. I would rather just spend the extra money from shipping and buy something that I will have a less chance of getting a bad one.