dry lubing the case neck. i understand the purpose, but out of a question for conservation of motion, what would be the practical difference between lubing the bullet base instead of lubing the case neck with dry mica?
the not so easy question.....
silly me, i ended up buying some CCI magnum small rifle primers, #450 instead of the normal #400. yeah, i know....stoopid me.
i normally reload 62gr green tip pulls with 25.5grs of surplus W846. knowing that magnum primers are hotter and create more initial pressure, i have to reduce my powder charge. would dropping powder charge down to 25grs be a good enuff reduction or something more around 24.5grs?
cases are milsurp LC full length resized and trimmed to length with a Lee trimmer. cases are then checked with a Wilson case gauge prior to priming and assembly. rifle is a 581 series mini-14
i've done lots of pistol reloading, but the steps and attention to the extra details for rifle reloading is still a learning experience for me adding steps and refining my process. this is the reason why i'm seeking some opinions from the experiences of the old guard in this instance.
Since w846 is a ball powder you will get better ignition, I doubt that you will know or see any difference in the pressure especially in the long throated rifle like the mini 14, you might see a pressuer sign in a tight chambered bolt gun.
I have used magnum caps in an ar with H335 with the same loads as with standard and saw no difference.
my Lyman book lists Remington 7 1/2 primers were used in their test tables. the primer cross-reference chart that i printed from handloads.com shows the Rem 7 1/2 primers as magnums.
i went from the BLC-2 tables and loaded 25.5grs with CCI #400 primers.
i wasnt sure if it would make a ginormous difference besides ignition pressure. but the more i think about it, with Lyman developing their loads with magnum primers, i dont think i'll have much of a problem either. the old&wise part of me says to back it down anyways to err on the side of safety.
The easy question is easy; we don't lube case necks to make it easy for bullets to go in, we lube so the expander ball can get out without so much drag.
for a good lube that has very few motions and is rediculously easy to use, try One Shot spray on case lube. I load up a full tray of cases, spray em at a 45 degree angle from one side, turn the tray, and hit em again. Allow ample drying time; it gets slicker as it evaporates.
As for buying magnum #450s, I did the exact same thing the very first box of primers I bought. I bought #400s only after the #450s ran out, and haven't noticed a difference (for my needs).
I'm sure it makes a difference somewhere, but maybe only to the benchshooters.
I agree with most here in that magnum primers wont be a big deal. I use them all the time. I have in the past gone dowm in powder charge to make sure but after not ever seeing any pressure signs I just load em up. I dont ever load to max powder charge though. I like my bullets at about 2850-2900fps in the 55-65gr bullet weight.
I use a RCBS pad and lube and when I run up on cases that are hard to get the expander ball back out I keep Q-tips on my bench and just rub them on the pad and into the neck of the case and the expander ball just slips right out. I always tumble after resizing so the residue in the neck is never a issue.
i do tumble my resized cases in corn media to take the lube off. tryin to handle slimed up cases is like tryin to pick up a fish with tweezers.
there are very few sources of reloading info that talk about the step of neck lubing and for me, it was a ask and learn thing. i knew it was a stupid question but i couldnt find an answer in a book or in a search.
i know using magnum primers in pistol loads can be a really bad thing and i carried that safety point into my rifle reloading. bad like catastrophic failure bad.
W846 burns painfully slow when compared to burning off scrap pistol powder like PB. i knew it was slower, but didnt realize it was THAT slow. contained and under chamber pressures, it probably burns a little quicker.
"...tryin to handle slimed up cases is like tryin to pick up a fish with tweezers."
Yeah, but we have case lube options that aren't slimey. And they don't work very well on common (dirty, gritty) lube pads.
Few loading manuals mention lubing inside necks because it's really not very helpful but it does reduce the drag of pulling expanders out of bottle neck cases. Inside neck lubing does little or nothing to reduce case stretch either.
I think lubing the inside of the neck is important for the .223. It is the only caliber i full length size. I have actually pulled the base off when i forgot to lube a case neck.
"I think lubing the inside of the neck is important...I have actually pulled the base off when i forgot to lube a case neck."
That's odd since no part of a sizer has any contact with the inside of a neck until the case is fully released from the die and then only the expander remains to be withdrawn.
Exactly. Let me clarify...the entire base is not what came off..just enough of the "rim" to pull free of the shell holder and be stuck on the expander ball...with soot inside the case ( I can't afford the fancy ultrasonic cleaners or stainless steel tumblers) it is enough to make driving it apart necessary. I follow the manufacturers instructions on case neck lubing and found out the hard way why they say to do it. Inside lube with a q-tip and almost no lube....easy does it or you cause a whole new set of issues.
The old timer that got me started reloading drilled into me to reduce my powder by 10% when useing mag primers with non mag loads. After that you can start working the load back up to what you like. Its worked for me and I have had no troubles so far (17yrs worth). but like its been said above, better err on the safe side.Hope this helps others. (I load mostly 308 and 30-06 hence the 10% reduction start with mag prims)
guns vary with what load is "max-safe" in them, quite a bit, in some cases. IF your original load is max in that gun, hell yes you'd better back off quite a bit. It sort of depends on how much time you want to spend at it, but loading 5 rds each, with .5 gr more powder, starting 2 grs under the current load, is just a hour's work. put them in marked envelopes, mike the cases at the web after each shot, compare to your old load, and to fired cases from factory loads..
I've never lubed anything but the inside of the case neck, never the bullet,and always full length sized, with lanolin, with small base die, for autoloaders.
Don't lube the case neck directly, and no lube on the shoulder, especially on small cases like .223. This can and will cause lube to accumulate on the shoulder inside the die and dent the case walls around the shoulder.
two questions, one fairly easy, the other not so
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