My Lee .223 decapper and resizer die started puting scratches in my brass. The scratches are easily seen with the naked eye and can be felt with my finger nail. I also see grooves inside the resizer. I tried to buff them out of the die with 000 steel wool but it did no good.

Are these grooves / scratches in the brass going to cause a problem? Is it ruining my brass. Do I need a new resizing die? Or is it ok to use.

Thanks for the help.

Pics:

Take the die apart.  That means pull the stem out.  All major dies have instructions online.

Now use a GOOD copper removing bore cleaner.  NOT Hoppes, CLP etc but Butches, Sweets, Pro Shot..anything that will pull green patches from a dirty bore or turns  a brown range case light in 5 minutes.  Clean the die until all patches come out clean, not green.  Then DRY the die, reassemble and use a proper case lube on a polished case.  If still scratched, disassemble and polish with a plug of 0000 steel wool.

Thanks. i'll try that.

Here is a pic of the inside of the die.




I guess that looks like brass. I had several cases that got stuck due to lack of lube. It looks like it started scratching the cases after the last one I had to pound out. I don't have any good bore cleaner. Just the cheap stuff, so I will have to wait until tomorrow to get some and see if it cleans up.

you could try ammonia.  what ever you decide to use make sure you clean the die, inside and out, with some hot soapy water to remove all traces of ammonia based cleaners.  ammonia will ruin your brass.

Green scotch brite is good for polishing. It can be rolled up and chucked in a drill and turned to help maintain a polish. I do a lot of hard turn (heat treated parts) where I work, and I use that when a part needs polished to meet finish standards. It can put a decent finish (<32 ra) on steel when turned at speeds of 600 rpm or higher. Best part is it will not remove metal w/o a lot of work.

After cleaning inspect the sidewalls for damage.  If they are gouged, you should probably just get a new die.  You can polish off the burrs but you will still have the grooves.  The grooves ill also leave a mark.  Why bother, just get a new die.  They're cheap.  You might even get a replacement for free from the maker.

Use Dillon spray lube and apply enough.

After you get that brass cleaned out of your die, you can polish that rough area with a dremel tool, felt tip bob and some polishing compound. I sent a die back to the factory during my early days of reloading, I thought something was wrong with the die. It came back, the invoice said "cleaned and polished".

+1
My rcbs comp die had the same problem and I did exactly this to fix it.  Now it's GTG!  Dremels are great.

Thanks everyone for the help.

I polished the inside of the die with a felt tip dremel and some polish. It cleaned it right up and put a mirror finish on the steel.

having never reloaded before and never used anybody elses equipment. I just thought it was normal to have to lift the bench up when using a full length resizing die.

It is so smooth now. I also found a thread that talked about Hornandy One Shot' lube being a problem and people getting stuck cases with it which is what I WAS using. I went back to the lee tube of lube and now with a polished inside of the die it is a smooth operation and no more scratches on the brass.

The last case that got stuck due to not enough lube. I ended up bending the die pin that puches out the primer and resizes the neck. I had to carefully straighten it. So I may just buy a new die anyway. It seems to work ok, but it does have a slight bend I can't straighten completely. I took care not to damage the neck area.

Thanks for all the help again, and now I know to keep some quality bore cleaner on hand also. I didn't know there was a difference in brands.


EDIT: seems like I'm asking a lot of questions with this reloading stuff.

Make sure you cases are clean before you resize them, dirty cases imbed crap onto the die wall.  Next, time you get a new set of dies...take after them with a bit of Flitz and polish FL sizer after you cleaned.....then clean after polishing!

Try some JB bore paste on a split dowel chucked in a power drill in conjunction with Sweets.

get yourself some of this and never look back