Resizing .357 Mag. Brass

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WSM MAGNUM

New member
A few months ago I bought some Imperial Sizing Die Wax. I really liked this lube. I`ve used it for sizing .222, .22-250, .45ACP. and 9mm so far. Works beautifully without much effort through the size dies.
But, today when I started to size .357 Magnum brass it was horrible. Felt like it was dragging, screeching, and scratching like there was no lube on it. There`s no scratching in the die. Just feels like it is scratching the heck out of it.
Then I tried the old RCBS lube pad that I had for years. You know, the old sticky crap that always works. It`s just the stickiness that I don`t like.
Well, with this old lube the case goes right in the die nice and smooth without much resistence.
Why is the Imperial lube so difficult with .357 Mag. and not with all the other calibers I`ve loaded? Now I know that neck sizing on some brass that I size for would not put much resistance in the die, but .45ACP has almost the mass .357 has.
Do any of you guys that uses Imperial have this problem?
 
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joneb

New member
This maybe of no help to you, all of my straight case reloading dies(.38spl/.357mag,.44spl/.44mag. and 45acp have a carbide sizing ring and lube is not needed I just tumble and load.
 
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WSM MAGNUM

New member
I know that you don`t need lube for carbide dies. I have a set of carbide dies for .44 Magnum. I just want to know of any ones experiences with the Imperial lube on larger caliber cases with standard dies. It appears to me that Imperial lube does not work well for larger straight wall cases.
 
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stinger

New member
I have zero experience with this product, but have thought about purchasing some for the future. I can't imagine what difference it would have made using the pistol cases as opposed to the rifle cases, especially since you only lube the body on the rifle cartridges.
 
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WSM MAGNUM

New member
I can`t understand why the lube is so difficult with .357Mag. brass, but the lube makes .22-250 brass glide right through full length size dies easily. :confused:
 
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Al Norris

Moderator Emeritus
The only time I have had this problem (and I like and use Imperial, also) was about a month ago. Did the same exact thing with some of my .44 brass. Not all of it, mind you, just some.

And yes, I used the old RCBS stand-by lube and everything went ok.

Long story short. I went back and looked at the headstamps of the "hard" brass... It was some magtech brass that I had loaded... umm... a tad heavy using some 180gr. XTP's over an unmentionable load of H4227.

Even though there were no outward signs of over pressure, no particularly hard extraction problems (and my SBH simply loved this load!), I'm guessing that the shell caseing was stretched further than my RCBS die liked.

Don't know if that was your problem, but it was mine.
 
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