new 45acp starline brass and the Lee 45acp Powder Thru Expanding Die

[PrestoColumbus]

Greetings Masters,

As a novice I seek wisdom and/or correction.

I'm loading 45acp, and up to this point I have only loaded fired brass.

Today I figured it'd be a hoot to buy some brand new shiny Starline .45ACP brass. I read somewhere that it would make me shoot better and solve world hunger at the same time.

I noticed when I ran the case up into the Lee 45acp Powder Thru Expanding Die (with Lee case activated auto-drum attached and dropping my powder charge) it felt a little gritty then took a seemingly unrealistic amount of effort to pull back out of the neck expander. So much that it was lifting my Lee reloading stand with the cinder block underneath off the ground.

This was a consistent experience. I thought maybe something was wrong with the die, so I tried a random fired case I had laying around and it worked just fine. Back to the Starline and it was really getting stuck hard in there.

I thought maybe the die was too aggressive, but when I backed it out I noticed it was not flaring enough (tore up a boolit figuring that out) so I'm flaring just barely enough for the boolit seating to function without ripping the copper jackets off my boolits.

Maybe it's just Starline? Maybe it is just the way new brass "is" and I've just never tried it before?

So I pulled my Lee 45acp Powder Thru Expanding Die apart and observed the plug was covered in brass debris. I've never bothered to clean it after the initial cleaning/setup so I don't know if all the debris was from the Starline or collectively from many cases. I gave it a good rub down with alcohol and reassembled it. Still the same issue.

Next I got my handy Redding Imperial Sizing Wax and started lightly wiping the case mouth of each case before running it into the Lee 45acp Powder Thru Expanding Die and the operation started to get a little smoother.


Is my experience typical with new brass, is there a better way to solve the "problem", is there even a "problem" or am i just doing it wrong, am I gonna blow my face off at some point, all of the above?

thank you for any advice (good or bad), entertaining war stories, and for not trying to sell me anything (the war room is currently not approving any future spending for this year)

[JimB..]

If you have a dry tumbler you could run it through that for a bit, just to get some dust and lube on the case.

[Kosh75287]

I'm not sure if "brand new", unfired brass arrives to the new owner already resized, or in NEED of resizing. It might not hurt to wash the brass as you would if they were once-fired or range pick-ups, then resize them, and THEN try the steps that come next.
I think the "washing & resizing" ritual may be necessary to activate the "makes the owner shoot better" and "cures world hunger" features completely, but that's just a guess.
Since I already shoot "perfectly" and am "not altruistic", such things mean very little to me.

[PrestoColumbus]

thanks guys, I did not think of tumbling. I still have 100 cases of Starline, I'll try running them in the tumbler and see what happens.

[ReloaderFred]

The final process for new brass is washing in a strong detergent solution to remove the lube required in the forming processes. That leaves completely bare brass. When bare brass (as in no lubrication at all) comes into contact with steel under pressure, it results in galling, which is simply the transfer of brass to the steel. In some instances, cases will stretch if there's too much friction when pulling the expander out of the case.

With that said, it takes some type of lubrication, or the expander stem will stick in the brass. I've pulled new .38 Spl. Starline cases in half, with the top half stuck to the expander stem, which had to be cut off the expander by carefully cutting a slit in the surface of the brass and then peeling the stuck portion off.. There are several ways to mitigate this, but the easiest way is to either tumble the new brass first in some used media, or lightly spray some case lube inside the cases, which can them be removed by tumbling after sizing.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Winger Ed.]

Of the small amount of new brass I've ever had, most seemed to have a burr around the case mouth, or it felt real sharp.
I've had trimmed brass do what you describe if the inside of the case mouth wasn't deburred properly or enough.

I'd run 'em in a tumbler with dry corncob media & car polish awhile and it fixed them.
Let them bang around on each other enough to smooth out the edge of the case mouth.
I don't know how long it takes, I just let 'em go all night. The next day--- nice dull edges and the problem solved.

It'll also work better and maybe faster the more full the bowl is.
The media doesn't really do the work. It's more nearly the cases banging into, and rubbing on each other.

[Prairie Traveler]

I recently prepped a batch of new Starline, 357 mag. and .45 Scholfield brass, using my old Rock Chucker press, and found that they all needed to be FL sized, deburred, and flared. I use a small amount of Lubriplate, on the tip of a finger, to lube each case. By this method I can control the amount of lube, and put it just where I want it. I've never had consistent results with a "lube pad", or any of the "sticky" lubes.

[Walter Laich]

Starline is a 'bit' thicker than some brass and coupled with no lube can be a bear to size as well as expand the neck

also plays havoc with the powder funnel on a Dillon SDB.

I use a quick spray of Hornady One-Shot Spray Lube to solve these problems. With two shoulder surgeries, I don't need to unduly stress it more than necessary.

[tja6435]

I tumble new brass in walnut shell media with a couple squirts of Meguiar’s car polish. Eliminates the sticking on the expander.

[jetinteriorguy]

First of all, take a dremel with a polishing wheel, then impregnate the cloth wheel with some polishing compound like Flitz. Then polish the heck out of the expander. This will eliminate about 75% of the sticking. Then trim, deburr, and chamfer the case’s. Finally adjust the expander to just flare the case only as much as it takes to facilitate seating the bullet. Once the cases have been fired they will have some carbon on the inside that will act as a lubricant for future loadings. By the time you’ve done all this you should have very little stickiness.

[lawdog941]

First of all, take a dremel with a polishing wheel, then impregnate the cloth wheel with some polishing compound like Flitz. Then polish the heck out of the expander. This will eliminate about 75% of the sticking. Then trim, deburr, and chamfer the case’s. Finally adjust the expander to just flare the case only as much as it takes to facilitate seating the bullet. Once the cases have been fired they will have some carbon on the inside that will act as a lubricant for future loadings. By the time you’ve done all this you should have very little stickiness.

Do this! The plug in the die needs highly polished. This eliminated a lot of stickiness on my Lee Pro1k.

[ReloaderFred]

First of all, take a dremel with a polishing wheel, then impregnate the cloth wheel with some polishing compound like Flitz. Then polish the heck out of the expander. This will eliminate about 75% of the sticking. Then trim, deburr, and chamfer the case’s. Finally adjust the expander to just flare the case only as much as it takes to facilitate seating the bullet. Once the cases have been fired they will have some carbon on the inside that will act as a lubricant for future loadings. By the time you’ve done all this you should have very little stickiness.

I did this to the point I could actually see my reflection in the surface of the expander. The first new .38 Spl. Starline case it was used on stuck tight, and pulled the case in half. I still have both halves on the shelf above my loading bench as a reminder. Several other cases were stretched by friction to the point they had to be scrapped.

It takes a form of lube, whether dry or wet, to keep bare brass from galling to bare steel.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[243winxb]

https://www.starlinebrass.com/faqs/

[PrestoColumbus]

all these replies are helpful. i have respect and appreciation for the wisdom on this form


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Taterhead]

As others have said, the squeaky clean cases cling to expanders. Good advice above to dry tumble with an additive. All the new Starline cases are like that in my experience. Some folks who wet clean also experience sticky expanders.


Great news is that after the first firing they will feel normal through the expander.

[GWS]

Taterhead, that's very true. Never used Starline, but I have resurrected machine gun 7.62 LC brass, which was wet tumbled to perfection. It too was too clean to size.

First try to remedy it was Imperial, outside and with a scrape across the neck hole. It just didn't do the job....almost stuck a case. At least I was smart enough to stop before it happened.

I tried Dillon spray......just wasn't slick enough....going in was hard and pulling out was harder.

Then I tried RCBS's lube pad with a neck brush rolled in it. It worked so much better, but still a little harder than usual to pull the expander out.

Finally I settled on the same pad but used white powder lube (powdered mica) on a brush on the inside necks. That worked the best for me.

I also tried STP......it worked as well as the RCBS stuff, but it was way messier.....the RCBS lube is water-based.

Oh, BTW, I discovered with MG'd brass, that a second sizing right after the first, made concentricity nearly perfect....I just turned the brass in the shellholder 90% and ran it in again. Concentricity worst case was only 2 thou off, but usually perfect or 1 thou off.

What I didn't try was dry tumbling with corn cob with or without a polish......corn cob clean leaves a white dust on the brass that is pretty darned slick.....so maybe that does help. Did not know that new Starline was as bad as tumbling MG brass tho......good to know.

[Bmi48219]

I haven’t purchased new Starline brass for a long time but never experienced OP’s issue. Then again, I always lube before sizing, carbide dies or not.

[Taterhead]

I haven’t purchased new Starline brass for a long time but never experienced OP’s issue. Then again, I always lube before sizing, carbide dies or not.

If you look again you'll see that the OP has an issue with the cases clinging to the powder- through expander when withdrawing from the die. Not a hard sizing problem. Perhaps you alao lube the inside of the necks on your handgun brass? That would certainly give a different experience that that posted in the OP.

FWIW, I too like a touch of Hornady One Shot when using carbide dies. Makes things much smoother and easier going.

[asdf]

Would a lube, like One-Shot for example, inside the case contaminate the powder in any way?

[jakharath]

Would a lube, like One-Shot for example, inside the case contaminate the powder in any way?

I have not had any issues. Usually spray One Shot on brass added to the case feeder.