Do you lube your 45 Colt casings before loading?

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

NEVER seen a manufacturer or loading manual state that preservative is present, which they would recommend removing before loading. Can you tell us what authority recommended this? I've never cleaned new brass before loading.

 

Good luck, GJ

 

As a followup to this, I contacted the largest volume brass manufacturer for Cowboy shooting (based on case headstamps from brass recovered at Winter Range and EOT), and they told me this about their new brass coating process:

 

Our final polish does include a protective product that also acts as a lubricant, but it does not require removal prior to loading.

 

So, you CAN tumble your new brass, but there is no NEED to do it based on the coating being detrimental to the loading process (or firing of the completed round).

 

Coating also sounds like it is fully compatible with any sizing lube you want to apply to the case, too.

 

Good luck, GJ

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

As a followup to this, I contacted the largest volume brass manufacturer for Cowboy shooting (based on case headstamps from brass recovered at Winter Range and EOT), and they told me this about their new brass coating process:

 

 

 

So, you CAN tumble your new brass, but there is no NEED to do it based on the coating being detrimental to the loading process (or firing of the completed round).

 

Coating also sounds like it is fully compatible with any sizing lube you want to apply to the case, too.

 

Good luck, GJ

 

Thanks for the info - always wondered why they tasted weird as new

 

GG ~

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

GG - Now that is funny, but weird too.

 

GJ

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

Howdy

 

I read this post when it first popped up a few days ago.

 

Just finished loading 150 rounds of Starline 45 Colt brass, so I wanted to chime in too.

 

Normally, the only brass I lube is 44-40, because there are no carbide dies available for it. With 45 Colt I mostly use Winchester brass and I have felt any need to lube it. I use a set of RCBS carbide dies and I load on a Hornady L&L AP. The loading goes smooth enough that I never lube straight cases that I am loading with a carbide die set.

 

I had read this post, and I knew I needed to load up some 45 Colt, so I set up a little test. Like I say, I usually load Winchester brass, but it has been getting hard to find recently. So a couple of months ago I bought a box of 500 pieces of Starline 45 Colt. Just got around to loading some today. I had plenty of well used Winchester brass on hand, so I loaded up 50 rounds of Winchester first, to have something to compare to. Then I started loading the brand, spanky new Starline brass.

 

Yup, more effort required. Although it seemed to me it was not the sizing die where all the resistance was happening. A good amount was happening in the expander die. Makes sense. First the sizing die squeezes the brass down. Then the expander tries to expand the resized brass. Running one round at a time through the press, it definitely took more elbow grease to expand them than to size them. Going full progressive just added to the burden.

 

Like I say, I always lube 44-40 with a squirt of Hornady One Shot. And I hate wiping lube off of my finished rounds when I am done. I wipe them off because I don't like greasy rounds, but I really hate wiping off my 44-40 rounds that have been lubed. So I just kept cranking with dry brass. Not really too big a deal, just a little bit more effort. Mush better than wiping lube off of 150 rounds.

 

I'll see what happens next time with this brass, whether it is back to normal size and I can get by without lubing.