By Duane Thomas
All bullet types have their own specific requirements, things you have to pay attention to, when loading them. Bare lead bullets are no exception. One such area to monitor is seating dies getting clogged with bullet lube thus reducing loaded rounds’ overall length.
Bare lead bullets will feature one or more grooves around their circumference, into which is placed a soft material referred to as bullet lube. The purpose of bullet lube is, as the bullet travels down the bore, and friction of the lead against the steel bore heats the bullet, the lube melts, thus coats the bore. The lube, ideally, cuts down on barrel leading, and keeps what material does deposit there softer so it can be more easily removed during cleaning.
When the bullet is seated in a round of loaded ammunition, the lube grooves, and the lube, are down inside the casing, covered over and thus not exposed, so the sticky lube won’t attract dirt and other fouling. This means that, at the bullet seating station, you’re going to wind up with lube smeared up and over the case mouth during seating. Over time, this builds up inside the seating die, so much so the overall length of loaded rounds begins getting progressively shorter.
Some loading machines seat and crimp at the same station, some split these operations into two different stations. On machines with two separate stations, built-up bullet lube over time in the crimp die can be a slowly-progressing, minor issue that eventually needs to be dealt with. But where it swiftly begins to cause problems is at the seating die – whether it’s a one-function die or multi-functional, i.e. it just seats or it seats and crimps all at once.
Bottom line, eventually you’re going to have to get that “plug” of lube out. The problem is, if you just remove the die from the machine, so you can turn it over in your hand and easily get at the lube, you’re going to have to reset your OAL afterward, and that’s a pain, especially if you’re a high-volume loader. You’re going to have to insert something up inside the die to remove that lube plug. Back when I was loading lead bullets hot ‘n’ heavy, I had to do this about every 600 rounds.
Most knives will be too long overall to fit into the window of the machine, you won’t be able to get a straight-up angle into the die. What I found works well is to take a set of eyebrow tweezers, compress them so the jaws are together, then stick them up into the die; with the jaws held together into a point, that will cut into the lube plug, a quick circular “sweep” around the die will cause the plug to pop out. If you want to be really nitpicky (Moi?) you can then get in there again and clean out any remaining bits of lube.
Voila! your lead bullet reloads are now at the correct OAL again. Until the next time you have to do this, a few hundred rounds down the road, of course. This is simply something with which we have to live if we want to load bare lead bullets.
