Dave (Iron Knees) is doing a beautiful job. The word that comes to mind is "meticulous". (NOTE: Dave... can I send my cases to you for cleaning? Hahahahahaha).
As Dave sez, no single method is "wrong"... it's a matter of "different strokes for different folks". Dave's method is very good, but I do my cases differently.
First, let me say that I have a 40+ year old "Texan Turret Press" I use for metalic reloading... but even though I have a turret press with 7 "stations", I never have used it as a "progressive" reloading press. However, having the 7 "holes", I leave two 2-die rifle die-sets (usually the .300 Savage and the .222) and one 3-die pistol die set (usually the .44 magnum) on my press all the time. That way, I can change from one caliber to another merely by changing the shell holder for the different caliber.
I do the SAME operation to ALL the cases at once before I move on to the next operation. I treat lubricating, resizing and cleaning the resizing lub off the cartridge case as "one operation".
Since I have and use carbide resizing dies for all of my straight-cased pistol cartridges (.9mm, .357 magnum and .44 magnum & .45 ACP), I don't have to use any lubricant on the outside of the straight sided pistol cartridge cases, but I still "lub" the inside of the cartridge case's mouth (see below) to make it as smooth and easy as possible for the expander ball to go into and expand the mouth of the case.
Another secret to having pistol cases give you more reloads is to NOT "bell" the mouth of the cartridge case any more than ABSOLUTELY necessary to enable you to "start" the seating of the base of the bullet in the mouth of the case after you've done all the other reloading operations to it prior to seating the bullet.
Below, I've listed the steps I use in reloading rifle cartridges. I use most of the same operations to reload straight-sided pistol cartridges as well with the exception of the case lubrication (at noted above). However, if you don't have a carbide lined resizing die for your .44 magnum, then the case lubrication shown below is ALSO appropriate for reloading your .44 magnum cartridges.
I hope these steps clarify and help you to make better reloads with greater safety, not only for your .44 magnum, but for any rifle cartridge(s) you may decide to reload in the future.
It is important to note that, using the methods given here, I've never had to suffer the embarrassment of having any of my reloads fail to fire or function properly in over 40 years of "reloading and shooting my own".
FIRST, I tumble my cartridge cases to a very high luster with the spent primer still IN the cases's primer pocket. Since the spent primer is still in the case, there's no chance that any of the polishing medium will end up stuck in the flash-hole.
I use treated, ground nut shells as a polishing medium. This material gives a high polish to the cases and removes any foreign material from the outside of the cartridge case whichs helps protect the inside of your sizing die by eliminating any foreign material from the outside of the case.
Once the cases are tumbled, I wipe the dry, gleaming cases off thoroughly with a dry towel and run an appropriately-sized round brush that is very lightly lubricated with the RCBS Water-Soluble Case Lub in and out of the case-mouth a few times to clean & lub the inside of the case mouth.
One of the primary causes of "case neck-stretching" (together with "hot" loads) is the lack of cleaning & lubricating of the inside of the case neck BEFORE resizing.
If you don't clean & very lightly lubricate the inside of the case neck, this causes the Expander Ball located on the bottom of the Expander Decapping Rod that is screwed into the resizing die to "drag" on the inside of the case's neck creating considerably more friction which, in turn, "pulls" on and lengthens the case neck as the Expander Ball comes out of the mouth of the case after the resizing operation.
Many reloaders don't seem to realize this, but this fact was brought home very vividly to me when I began reloading the .300 Savage cartridge and "worked up" to near-maximum loads for my hunting loads. This short-necked cartridge is famous for having problems with case stretching. I found by cleaning & lubricating the inside of the case neck, I have eliminated at least 50% of the case neck stretching.
Once the inside of the case neck is cleaned and lubed, I "roll" the polished cartridge case on the lub-soaked RCBS Lubricating Pad on which I use the water-soluble RCBS Case Lub, then wipe the lub up and down on the case body and the outside of the case neck to insure it's equally distributed. This helps the resizing go very smoothly and helps eliminate case neck stretching. I use the .300 Savage cartridge in my 40+ year old Model 99 Savage lever-action rifle and, therefore, I must full-length resize.
If you use a bolt-action rifle, you can develop more accurate loads if you "neck-size" ONLY rather than full-length resize. However, if you're using semi-automatic (self-loading), pump-action or lever-action rifle, you must full-length resize in order to insure the cartridge will fit in your rifle without any problems. A bolt-action rifle has a much greater ability to "cam" the bolt closed that the other actions. The bolt-action's ability to EXTRACT the fired cartridge (especially important with "hot" loads) is also much greater than most other types of actions.
RCBS has a newer, much smoother Decapping Ball which is part of the Expander Decapping Rod now available and they were kind enough to send one to me at "no charge" when I called them to ask if they had a carbide Decapping Ball available (they don't) which would be ideal.
After resizing the cartridges cases, I thoroughly wipe off the water-soluble case lub with a very damp towel which I hang from a drawer of my wooden loading bench. Then I wipe the cases dry with a clean dry towel that I lay in my lap.
Once the outside of all the cases are wiped clean and dried, I go through them a second time and wipe out the inside of the case neck to remove any remaining Case Lub using the narrow, blunt tip of a small screw-driver enclosed in a layer or two of the damp towel I used initially to wipe off the outside of the case. I do this to eliminate any powder granules from becoming "stuck" to the inside of the case neck when I put the rifle powder in the case during the reloading phase. By the time I get ready to decap all the cases, the inside of the neck is dry.
Next, I de-cap all the cases. Once they are all de-capped, I clean out the primer pockets with an appropriate tool, "eye-ball" the flash hole of each case to insure it is open and the cases are ready to reload... beginning with seating a new primer in the now clean primer pocket. There is no reason to re-tumble the cartridge cases again.
Unless I'm "working up" a new load or loading for "accuracy loads" or "hunting loads, I won't trim & de-burr the case mouths as long as they don't exceed maximum overall length. Naturally, you measure the length of the cases AFTER they're resized.
To reload, first I put new primers in every case to be reloaded... insuring the top of the primer is BELOW the base of the case. This eliminates any possibility of the cartridge being fired because the bolt or breech was "slammed home" extremely hard.
As I finish re-priming each cartridge, I sit them in a loading block. Once all the cartridges are primed, I set up my Lyman 55 "Ideal" powder thrower for the charge I want and "zero" my RCBS 10-10 Powder Scale... then set the appropriate charge on the Powder Scale, double-check it... then check it AGAIN. And then, I'm ready to start reloading.
I "throw" each powder charge from my Lyman Powder Thrower into the powder scale's powder pan, then weight it. Generally, the Lyman 55 is able to "throw" a charge very close to the charge for which it is set. I prefer to set the Powder Thrower a tad "light", then manually "trickle" powder into the powder pan until the pointer on the balance arm points to "0" on the powder scale's "0" balance point... indicating the EXACT powder charge has been made. Then, I pour that charge into a cartridge case in the loading block and "throw" another powder charge in the scale's pan to be weighed.
I repeat this action until ALL of the cases have a powder charge in them, then I look UP and DOWN the rows of cartridge cases to see if each case has the SAME LEVEL of powder in the case. Once I've done that, I look ACROSS the rows of cases LEFT to RIGHT, then RIGHT to LEFT to re-check the powder levels in each case.
Once I'm satisfied EVERY case has the SAME LEVEL of powder in EACH case, compared to all the other cases, I remove the first cartridge from the loading block, put the powder-filled case in the shell holder, hold the bullet on the mouth of the case and slowly seat the bullet.
I then measure the over-all length of the first totally finished round to insure it is not longer than the "maximum over-all length" allowed for that particular caliber's cartridge. If it is within specifications, I then put the finished round in the cartridge case box. I seat a new bullet in each powder-filled cartridge case, measuring the over-all length of every 10th. round until all the cases are loaded.
If I have changed the seating depth on the bullet seating die just prior to seating the bullets, I measure the overall length of the first five rounds, then the overall length of every 5th. round for the next 15 rounds, then the overall length of every 10th. round thereafter to insure nothing has changed.
If you find a load your rifle "likes"... and you consistently and carefully re-create that load, you will always obtain maximum accuracy out of your rifle as long as you do your part in aiming it. A hunter who is confident that his rifle is superbly accurate rarely misses.
Good Hunting!
Strength & Honor,
Ron T.
