Probably shooting 9mm major loads. The guys that compete know how many loadings they can get before the case splits. If he wasn’t shooting an open gun I would have moved away from him to be on the safe side.
As far as lubing straight wall cases goes. If you don’t have carbide dies you need to lube them. And while you don’t need to w/ carbide dies, it reduces resistance a lot. I don’t bother when loading on a LCT. But when I’m using a 550 I lube the cases. Things work a lot better this way.