Thread: Home made Case lube.

Plastic bag. Couple or three squirts for 2-300 shells, then rattle them around and tip into hooper

I got 4 litres of isoprop .... if I find cheap as lanolin , then the cost is very cheap, and last a long time im guessing

I learned the hard way about what can happen with home-made and/or ‘substitute’ case lubes when I first started reloading, close on fifty years ago. I bought a Lyman Spartan press (a C frame job) and a set of Lyman 270 dies, and used lanolin for lube, as recommended by various books, and supposed experts.

My 270 has a fairly loose chamber, and full length sizing cases for it took a LOT of effort! In my ignorance, I thought this was normal. The annoying thing was that after sizing, anything up to half the cases were still a bit hard to chamber. The ‘expert’ advice I received was to screw the die in a bit further. I did this, and after a few reloads, some of the cases started showing incipient head separations. Not good. So I had to re-set the die back to its original position, always try chambering all the sized cases, put aside those that were still sticky, and run them through the die once or twice more, which usually cured them.

Eventually, I got fed up with all this rigmarole, and thinking that the main cause of my troubles was that the press lacked leverage, I bought an RCBS Rockchucker. It came with a bottle of RCBS case lube, and using this (and the old die in the Rockchucker press) F L sizing 270 cases was almost effortless. Later, out of curiosity, I tried using the same F L die in the Spartan press again, but using the RCBS lube. That turned out to WAY easier than with using lanolin for lube, and I got more consistent sizing, too.

Since then, I have only used either RCBS lube or Imperial Die Wax for F L sizing lube, and I have no intention of ever using home-made concoctions again, except as a desperation measure. (and that situation has never arisen) The lanolin was OK for neck sizing lube, though.

I guess it depends on the lube you are using and your setup / equipment.
I have loaded a thousand .223, six hundred .38 super comp, two hundred 308 and four hundred 300 blackout (more to come) so far this week with not a single issue.
I load in bulk once a month normally so applying lube by any other method than by spray takes too long. Liquid lanolin and 100% isopropyl alcohol mixed at 1:10 works well for me.
With the volume I use, I find it cheaper to make myself and works as well as anything else I have tried over the years.

No stuck cases and no dimpled shell necks since I have been using it.