Clean Your Taper Crimp Die...

Greetings,

Was busy loading some 32 WadCutter ammo and I noticed a "crack" in one of the loaded rounds near the mouth. Turns out to be a scratch. Very bad!!! Now I have introduced a "stress riser" into several hundred rounds of ammo.

It was a progressive event. The first loaded rounds show no marks. By round 475, the scratch was quite prominent.

Using my bore scope, I could see a small piece of metal in the taper of the crimp die.

Off to the lathe with some very fine polishing cloth and Kerosene and now all is well.

I attribute this to brass being "too clean". With the rage to use Stainless pins, dish soap, and "Lemishine", the cases are coming out nearly chemically clean. I recently cut back on the amount of Citric Acid when I also had issues seating primers.

Overly clean brass has a tendency to pressure weld itself to the expander plug. Another item to watch and keep clean.

Well, it's back to the Mann Kave to see what other damage I can impose before dinner time.

Cheers,

Dave

Dave I use car wash because of the wax in it.

http://www.meguiars.com/content/global/product/2818_lg.jpg

Works great. No dragging on the expander, primer seating, or the crimp die.

Ditto on the soap with wax. Always measure your lemi shine too. A little too much and it will turn the cases dark. I also use the s/s pins after decapping everything.
No issues like you describe so far....knock on wood.

Greetings,

"Car wash", clever idea.

Since I make the boy wash the car, I do not come into contact with it...

Reminder to self, add car wash to the shopping list....

Cheers,

Dave

So how does your brass being too clean lead to a piece of metal in the taper crimp?? I also stainless pin tumble and love it. Even though I use carbide dies I still use case lube, reduced the effort quite a bit.

Brass is very "stickey" meaning no self lubricating properties. It can friction ( from being really clean) aka ( no lube) bind, bend, distort or shear a piece off if the opposing piece is of harder material.

I clean my seater die, seater die insert, & crimp die often to prevent lube build up.

I'll say one thing, the more I use Dillon pistol dies the more I appreciate how well they come apart for cleaning. I'm a die hard Hornady LNL AP press user but if I'm buying a set of pistol dies you bet your ass it's going to be a set of Dillons.

One thing I've learned from this, is I'm glad that I still tumble my brass in a Lortone with ground walnut shells and a little liquid Flitz.

Mike, don't fear the SS pins, they're superior and pretty much last forever or until you lose them. The clean primer pockets and nearly never get lodged in flash holes which you can't say for walnut/corn cob media. Also no hazardous dust all over your shop. Takes 3 seconds to with a case lube spray bottle to slick them back up if you're worried about it.

I can say that I have have never had 20/40 corn stick in flash holes or primer pockets.
You have to learn to inspect things as you go along. More than about three rounds with racing stripes means you need to improve your QC/QA.
Never put speed before safety and INSPECT everything, every time..
I have several taper crimp dies that have NEVER been cleaned after the initial cleaning.
The only time I got "racing stripes" was from sizing a few nickel-plated cases and a piece/flake of nickel got impressed in the carbide. Took about two minutes with a brass brush and Hoppe's #9.

As I only shoot lubed lead my seater die & insert get pretty lubed up as I don't use a large bell. It's just as easy to verify the taper crimp die is clean by running a rag through it at the same time.

zanemoseley wrote:Mike, don't fear the SS pins, they're superior and pretty much last forever or until you lose them. The clean primer pockets and nearly never get lodged in flash holes which you can't say for walnut/corn cob media. Also no hazardous dust all over your shop. Takes 3 seconds to with a case lube spray bottle to slick them back up if you're worried about it.

Probably not an option for me. I load in an unfinished basement with no water faucet. I'm too old and lazy to go up and down the stairs to get water and empty it out. Of course then I'd have to dry out the cases. If that system of brass cleaning works for you, then keep at it. They do get super clean.