Not sure how long they will last. Hopefully this is a good sign that carbide dies will be more available soon.

Grafs Website

Holy Cow. $127.00 for a 3 die set?

That's twice what Lee and Hornady dies cost and almost twice what RCBS dies sell for.

Yeah, they are crazy expensive now. But, you don't have to lube the casings.

Looking at the Dillon website, .45 dies are 10-12 weeks out. Other calibers are up to 60 weeks out.

I'm still waiting on .380 dies that I ordered last May.

quote:

Originally posted by ugeesta:
Yeah, they are crazy expensive now. But, you don't have to lube the casings.

Looking at the Dillon website, .45 dies are 10-12 weeks out. Other calibers are up to 60 weeks out.

I'm still waiting on .380 dies that I ordered last May.

You don't have to lube with the other brands either as they are also carbide except for Hornady who uses something other than carbide but says you don't have to lube.

Most of my dies are Lee or RCBS, next are Hornady then Redding, Lyman. At times there are certain features with some I find useful.

I’m mostly on my turret press or the single stage, plus I change around a good bit, cartridges.

Over the years I gravitated to using a touch of lube at times with straight walled carbide dies. With clean brass it’s not really essential, but doesn’t hurt & slides a little better. I may do every 4th or 5th case.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
Most of my dies are Lee or RCBS, next are Hornady then Redding, Lyman. At times there are certain features with some I find useful.

I’m mostly on my turret press or the single stage, plus I change around a good bit, cartridges.

Over the years I gravitated to using a touch of lube at times with straight walled carbide dies. With clean brass it’s not really essential, but doesn’t hurt & slides a little better. I may do every 4th or 5th case.

I do this also as my progressive press performs 5 actions simultaneously on each stroke so every little bit of ease is welcome.

Huge Dillon fan and I tripped over a set of .45 ACP carbide dies in a shop.

I find that I’m not using any Dillon Dies on my 9mm and .40 S&W set, or maybe only the size die.

However, even with carbide dies, I use case lube. Either Hornady One Shot or Brass Juice. It makes thing smoother. I don’t find it necessary to remove the lube either.

Okay, thread shift.
I haven’t used the lube I have since having Dillon Carbide dies.

The deprive and straitening of the cartridge is fine but I notice the expanding due sticks on the inside of the casing at times.

Is it okay to use the lube on the inside of the casing or just deal with the sticking on the casing expansion.

For me, it’s been fine. I spray a bit in the mouth of the cases. If need be, a bit on the powder funnel works too every so often.

Also, polish the powder funnel.

Yes, even a touch of lube on the inside of the neck, every 5th case or so. This way, those cases without lube have that bit of residual that helps.

Of course one doesn’t want any excess lube inside the case as powder is added. If you have any, could contaminate the powder, using to much.

Even though reloading has the required steps, we all have particular ways to do various processes. As an example, any discussion of ‘crimping’ brings out all sorts of opinions. With that in mind, two can do it differently but still each doing it the ‘correct’ way.

quote:

The deprive and straitening of the cartridge is fine but I notice the expanding due sticks on the inside of the casing at times.

Do you tumble/clean your fired brass before reloading?

I've noticed occasional sticking with the expanding/powder drop die if the brass has much internal residue. The problem goes away when the brass has been tumble cleaned.

^^^^ Yes, I use corn cob media with dryer sheet and Nu Finish car polish. I used to run the tumbler 30 minutes but have been going 45-60 minutes lately. This last batch may have been a shorter tumbling time.

I'll have to look at polishing the powder funnel. It's got about 4,000 rounds produced and might need some TLC.

45minutes is not a long time usually. I tumbled a few hundred in a Dillon CV700 in a mix media with Hornady case polish.

I’ve found the powder drop sticks more with super clean cases vs slightly dirty.

I’ve loaded 20k plus on my powder funnel. It may getting worn a little but works fine.

I upright all my cases in a plastic grid in a baking tray and spray at an angle giving a quick pass of Hornady One Shot or several squirts of Brass Juice. I try not to douse the inside of the cases but no issues with a little.

A little Flitz or similar on a rag and chuck the powder funnel in a drill to spin will clean it right up.