[darbo]

Do you do regular maintenance cleaning of your reloading dies?

 

[olfarhors]

Not really!
I do very occasionally take them down and spray them out with gunscrubber and reassemble them!
Now I only use carbide resizer dies as well.
carbide simply isn't going to be affected by anything other than resizing a diamond, so dirt and grim actually works as a lubricant with them.
Now the dirt and grim may scratch the case but it isn't likely to hurt the carbide sizer at all.
Even when i would load rifles which require a lube I only broke the dies down once or twice a year ot clean them.
your cases will tell you if you need to clean in my opinion.
lets face it reloading dies area made from pretty stout material to take all that pressure over and over again and not bend or break.

 

[rexherring]

Haven't had the need to but I live in a fairly low humidity area with a dry basement so rust isn't a problem. If I get bullet lube forming in my seating die, I'll use a parts cleaner to clean them and run a dry patch through the unit.

 

[Fishinkeylargo]

Haven't had the need to but I live in a fairly low humidity area with a dry basement so rust isn't a problem. If I get bullet lube forming in my seating die, I'll use a parts cleaner to clean them and run a dry patch through the unit.

Same here bullet lube needs to be cleaned from the seating die it starts to change the OAL if you let it build up to much.

 

[glenwolde]

Every 1,000 rounds or so I'll clean out the seating die and the crimp die (I do those separate) just to keep bullet lube from building up too much. But I shoot lead bullets almost exclusively.

 

[CB236]

Haven't even considered it. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[jimb1972]

I spray them with WD40 if I think I am not going to use a particular set for a while, then hose them out with brake cleaner before I use them again.

 

[volfan]

Every now & then (few times a year) I run a patch with Hoppes or Prolix around the innards & wipe the surface down. I generally don't take them apart, because I have them all set up for the cartridges & guns that I load for. I tumble my brass before & a little after resizing, so they are only used on clean brass - don't really get very dirty.