Lee Loader

In the past I loaded primarily 40 + 45 pistol ammo but now that I'm back into it I'm also loading 357 Magnum and 38 Special. I've noticed 357 Magnum brass as being harder to resize and some sticking in the flaring and powder charging die. I attributed this to the longer brass and was wondering whether I would see benefit lubing longer handgun brass.

As long as your resizing die is carbide and adjusted up from the 38 special setting to handle the 357 brass you should not be having those problems. Lubing is unnecessary .

If the cases are hanging up in the thru powder charging die lubing wont help as it's the case hanging on the expander/flairing insert. There have been some discussions about this maybe a year or 2 ago. Couple thing to try a quick pass with a brush to clean the inside of the neck and/or polish the insert.

As long as your dies are adjusted "up" from 38spec to process the longer .357 case, the hang up in the powder through die is normal.
With carbide dies, lube is not needed but, a bit of lube on a case now & then won't hurt a thing.
Not needed but does smooth things out a bit.

Yep, there can be some benefit lubing 357 Mag brass. While it's not necessary, and needn't be every case but one out of 5 or so, it does make sizing easier. For me the most "difficult" handgun caliber to size, is my 44 Magnums. While I can and do size many with no lube, it does go easier lubing every fifth or sixth case, especially after the 50th...

There's a lot of surface area on the 44 mag case. I find 45 Colt somewhat harder to size I suspect for the same reason.

the only pistol brass I "partially" lube is 9mm Luger. All the other parallel, straight wall brass does fine with just the carbide dies. The 9mm, being tapered brass, may have something to do with the die itself. I know the Lee dies are advertised as "carbide", but I also think it may be cost prohibitive (brand relative speaking) to taper cut carbide dies. I really don't know what the issue is, but I do have to send a lubed case in every 4-5 rounds to keep things running (only on the 9mm).


jd

After Lee sent me free APP parts for items that wore during my 3K+ 9X19 brass processing they told me to lube the cases when sizing. They knew I was using Lee carbide dies too. I have never lubed pistol brass before this. And I figured out to put some imperial on about every tube full on the case loader before I ever reported the damage to the APP.

I do lube cases but I'm now loading 38/357 , 380 , and 45 Colts/Schofield in steel dies .
9mm ,45 ACP/AR , and 40 are carbide and I'm dabbling in wax type lubes for those and the flair dies . Getting dry spray in the necks should be providing enough lube to not be sticking provided the expander is reasonably smooth .

After I installed a mini mr. Bullet feeder on my press I decided to go ahead and Lube a few cases a 357 Magnum and they ran much smoother. The only Lube I had on hand was Hornady Spray Lube so that's what I used. I gave the brass a quick shot from One Direction and then the other and let dry completely. . Not sure what Lube while using the future but I used what I had and it worked