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They aren't any more so don't go lubing up cartridges that were never design for it , is all I'm saying . I did not want to imply I don't think oiled or creased cases were ever used .
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The foremost reason I am firing lubed cases is to save money. Money is important to me, I do not have vast reserves of the stuff, and what I do have is not growing as fast as the rate of inflation. I have noticed that cartridges and brass are increasing at several times the rate of inflation. Has anyone priced the cost of 300 H&H Magnum cases or found cheap 257 Roberts brass? I waited for years, till this year, when I was able to buy new 257 Roberts brass at $2.00 a case! Ugh! I don't want to stretch the stuff so much that it develops case head separations on first firings. Only air heads are so rich to be profligate with their money.
If you don't know what a case head separation looks like, this is what it looks like:
On the way to earning my Distinguished Rifleman Badge with an M1a, I took a set of 100 LC 64 cases 23 reloads without a single case head separation. I rubbed Johnson paste wax on the outside of the cases and buffed the rapid fire rounds. Sometimes I left the case lube on the cases, but I did not like the greasy feel, and of course, no range I shot at has hot and cold running water, or a bathroom! I did have cases that developed neck splits or body splits. I sectioned those cases. R stands for the number of times reloaded. No case developed any case head necking. The usual advise for cases in M1's and M1a's is to load them five times and toss them, because these rifles are very bad about stretching cases. I saved a lot of money by not ruining good LC NM cases. I stopped using them when the primer pockets enlarged.
I have this Marlin 336 that has a huge chamber and the base to shoulder distance of the chamber is way out of spec. If I had not lubricated my 30-30 cases on the first firing, they probably would have been stretched so much that I would not have been able to use them again, or at most, a couple of times, before the case head detached. Instead, the case slid to the bolt face, the side walls were not stretched, and the shoulders folded out to produce a stress free perfect fit to the chamber. As it was, I lubed them before firing, and they shot well. I challenge anyone to shoot ten shot groups at 200 yards with their 30-30 lever action and keep all the shots in the seven inch ten ring.
