Right
It's always interesting to read about what "dirty" brass might do to dies. Of course, if you're picking brass up off the ground (either yours or somebody else's) that's one thing, but just firing brass doesn't make it very dirty.
I bought a set of RCBS .270 Winchester dies in the mid-1970's, but didn't clean my brass other than wiping it down and sometimes using fine steel wool on the necks. About a decade later I finally got a brass tumbler and started cleaning cases, though not always after every firing. Then a few years later started having trouble with cold-welding, and after doing some investigating and testing (including whether cleaning primer pockets had an effect on primer ignition or load accuracy) I quit cleaning cases, except in a very few specific instances.
Kept using those same RCBS .270 dies until just a couple years ago. They were still working fine, but had gotten so "old" looking that a magazine editor suggested they be replaced for photographic purposes, which can be a factor in my business. But I still have them, and the FL die still works great after handloading thousands of rounds for over a dozen .270's, including my very first, an extremely accurate Remington 700 ADL, which had its barrel shot out partly because it was so accurate I couldn't keep myself from shooting tiny clusters. Oh, and the RCBS die also sized the cases for another .270 that got shot out. Probably 90% of the cases it's full-length sized since the 1970's weren't new or cleaned, yet I can detect no meaningful wear on the die, and it doesn't scratch cases.
Maybe a die in some serious varmint or target caliber could get worn out by sizing "dirty" brass, but it didn't happen in this instance.
Exactly!
If some carbon on the neck of my cases is going to ruin my dies, I need to find another die maker.
