RCBS X-die leaving scratch marks on the case neck, remedies?

[skyfire1201]

I recently got a set of used X-die for my 308. Last night, when I set them up to resize some once fired LC brass, I got the results below. The top pair was resized by the RCBS, and the bottom pair by Forster FL die. As the picture shows, the die really scratched the neck portion of the brass, I can feel the scratch marks with my finger nails.

I already cleaned the inside of the die with q-tip and paper towels, didn't solve the problem. So now my questions are:

• Is this normal for X-die? If not, what can I do to remedy the situation?
• Does this mean my die is defective?
• What can happen if I use this brass as is?

 

[spife7980]

Contact RCBS and see if they will polish the neck for you under warranty. I know redding will.

You can try to clean it with chemicals and polish it with lapping compound or steel wool but I didnt have much success for the effort when my redding did that. To be fair my redding still does it; its only the external part of the neck and seems to shoot fine so I just deal with it on my ugly ar brass etc that I use the die for.

Its reported to be cause by untrimmed necks with ugly brass shards that get pulled off and galled and embedded in the die to then cause more issues with it. Not sure of that in every case though because it happened to me and my brass is always nicely chamfur and deburred.

 

[Foul Mike]

I have a set of RCBS 6.5 Creedmoor dies that were scratching the walls of the cases when I re-sized them.
It was not as bad as what your pictures show but I knew it wasn't right none the less.
I called CS at RCBS and listened to elevator music for quite some time before I got to talk to someone and explain my problem. Gotta love these Goddamn answering machines. It took quite some time to speak to a person but I hung in there.
Making a long story shorter,
Step 1. "Send the die back and we will polish it." I sent it in with a case for them to examine and waited for 2 weeks to get it back.
It came back and the first 5 cases went OK then the problem was back.
Step 2. Call CS again, listen to the music again for quite a while and they told me to send it back again and they would re-polish it.
Step 3. Die comes back in short order and now works just fine, no problems.
Step 4. Called them back and asked them what they had done to correct the problem and was I doing something wrong to cause this problem and was told, "We just re-polished the die."

Bullshit- I had put a small dimple on in their stamping at the start of Step 1 so I could tell if it was the same die or not, no way they could have removed that dimple without loosing their stamping.

They just replaced the die with a new one. I wish they had done that to start with as I had already bought Reddings as I needed to re-load. I like them better anyway.

RCBS CS is not as good as it used to be.

 

[spife7980]

That sounds like good customer service to me

 

[Foul Mike]

It is somewhat good I will give you that.
In years gone by a call to them got you a tech on the phone in short order, a lack of listening to elevator music for 20-30 minutes and when you sent the die in with a case so they could see what the problem was, a new one came back to you right away.
They didn't stretch you along for 3+ weeks. They were on it like Blue Bonnet.
Times have changed I guess and had I not marked that die with that dimple I would have believed I had the same die back, just re-polished for the 2nd. time when the first time didn't work.
I just don't appreciate anyone blowing smoke up my ass.
I am not down on RCBS and use a lot of their products and will continue to do so, but as I said, I need no smoke up my ass.
Why didn't they just tell me, "We sent you a new one."???

 

[supercorndogs]

Contact RCBS and see if they will polish the neck for you under warranty. I know redding will.

You can try to clean it with chemicals and polish it with lapping compound or steel wool but I didnt have much success for the effort when my redding did that. To be fair my redding still does it; its only the external part of the neck and seems to shoot fine so I just deal with it on my ugly ar brass etc that I use the die for.

Its reported to be cause by untrimmed necks with ugly brass shards that get pulled off and galled and embedded in the die to then cause more issues with it. Not sure of that in every case though because it happened to me and my brass is always nicely chamfur and deburred.

When I called Forester about a 243AI die that needed polished. They advised me to use 400 or 600 grit sand paper. They said you could go top town on the tool steal they used with those and not have to worry about dimensions changing.