stuck cases 308

My favorite case lube was passed on to me by Sierra Bullets ballistic tech decades ago. A 40%-60% mix of Hoppe's No. 9 bore cleaner and STP engine oil treatment. Thinner than most commercial case lubes but cleans off easy.
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I would like to give him credit for the mixture but there is no mention. Jack O'Conner on the other hand took the time to write it down. His hands hurt most of the time, he said he got relief with Lanolin, when sizing cases he said he used extra lanolin, lanolin went from his hand to the case.

I use a no name lube that was available then, I work with a few reloaders that do increasable work, one only uses Imperial and has absolutely no interest in a no-name lube. reloaders will not believe how much work is required for me to make Imperial look good.

F. Guffey
 
Recently read many old posts here about home made case lubes. Some mentioned Mink Oil. Hummm! Knew I had some somewhere for my dress shoes. Found it! Its Red Wing brand. Has both silicone and lanoline. Tried it on some 308 L.C. cases. Cases were loaded outside SAAMI specs (C.O.L. & powder charge) and fired in an experimental barrel. (This was just for testing purposes and inside the barrel MFG parameters) They had 2 or 3 firings for each case with only neck sizing between firings. Last firing had cases which were hard to rotate the bolt during extraction. So this was not anticipated to be an easy full length resize. Used RCBS full length die with the decap pin and expander ball removed. With just a touch of the Red WIng Mink oil mixture on the tips of my fingers I rubbed the case down and inserted into the die. Had to work the first case gradually a couple times then every case after that went smooth as glass. The cases were resized but the necks were now .299" I.D.. Next I ran them through my Lee neck size die to decap and expand the I.D. of the neck. To lube the inside of the neck I just rubbed a cue tip over the outside of the case to pick up a little mink and applied that to the inside of the neck. Worked out great. They are all now a very uniform 0.304" I.D. (My die mandrel has been turned down) later in the process they will take a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner. Hope that works out as well as the Red Wing Mink Oil has.
 
Did you degrease the inside of the dies? You said you air cleaned them. Some are shipped with oil that has to be removed.
 
Degrease the dies? Yes. I have had these dies for a long time. They get cleaned regularly. Set a bullet in an uncharged case to test the 0.304" neck ID. Loaded OK. The range and chrono will tell the reat of the story. I have data on these same cases so it will be easy to see what a change in neck tension produces.
 
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