Lubricating cartridge cases prior to resizing is imperative. Neglecting lubrication will cause cases to become stuck in the resizing die and cause excessive stretching of the case even if it doesn’t become stuck. There are several spray on cartridge sizing lubricants on the market today. Some of the advantages of the spray lubes are ease of use, minimal mess, and most of them will not contaminate the powder charge. To use them, the cases are stood on their rim and a light coat of spray is applied to the cases. It is important to hold the can at about a 45-degree angle to allow the lubricant to get inside the mouth of the case. If there is no lubricant on the inside of the case mouth, the expander button or mandrel will drag and cause excessive force to be required. The case will be stretched more when the inside of the case mouth isn’t lubricated. Once all of the cases have been sprayed, they need to be allowed to dry. once dry they can be resized. Drying time is short. We used Hornady One Shot case lubricant in our test. This product was fast to apply, didn’t leave a mess, and didn’t have to be cleaned off of the case after resizing. Effort required to resize the case was minimal, indicating that the lubrication was good. No excessive stretching of the case was noted. This product is fast, easy, and works well.

Resizing Wax

For Full length case resizing and forming cases, Imperial Sizing Die Wax is the heavy-duty lubricant that I like to use. This lubricant is applied with a finger. very little lubricant is needed. Swiping a finger across the wax and then wiping the lubricant on the case is the easiest method that I have found. Be cautious about applying too much lubricant, or you will get a lube dent in the cartridge case. For resizing cases, you can dip the case neck in the dry neck lube and the rub a small amount of the wax onto the case. This will lube the inside of the case neck with a little bit of finely powdered graphite and the rest of the case with the sizing die wax. This process is not as fast as using the spray lube, but it is still pretty quick once a bit of a rhythm is acquired. The Lube does have to be wiped off after the case is sized. This process is still easier than using the old case lube pads, and it provides exceptional lubrication. The dry lube in the case neck will not contaminate the powder charge and doesn’t have to be cleaned out.

For case forming, I will lube the outside of the case with Imperial Sizing Die Wax and put just a very small amount of the wax inside the case mouth with a cotton swab. This seems to give better results when forming cases. The case mouth does need to have the lube cleaned out of it after forming the case.

The Imperial Dry neck lube consists of small beads and powdered lubricant. The jar has to be replenished with lubricant periodically. I have been using finely powdered graphite to recharge the media balls, as it is cheap and available. A small jar of powdered graphite lasts a really long time.

Lots of different lubricants have been used over time to resize and form cartridge cases. STP was supposed to be excellent for forming cases. It is very slick, but very messy. The old case lube pads were also messy and are dust and dirt magnets. The newer spray lubes are fast and easy and don’t require much if any cleanup. The Imperial Sizing Die Wax is still hard to beat for case forming and full length resizing.