Reloading dies making brass flakes

[Dafapa]

I've had this happen before, but its become an issue again. The last time I reloaded .40 S&W I had brass flakes all over the place from the reloading dies. This got on the ammunition, and some of it was visible in the gun after use. The best I can tell this is being caused by the case flaring die. I'm using a Lee carbide 4 die set. The best I can come up with is to try and polish the case flaring die somehow, but I'm not sure how to go about that.

Has anyone ever polished a reloading die before or know how I could do it without getting them out of spec? Is this likely to even solve the brass flake problem? Could I avoid the problem by purchasing higher quality dies?

[ROCK ME AMADEUS]

"flakes" or specs of brass all over the insides of the flaring die?

all my lee flaring dies have brass on them until I clean them up once in awhile.



You're pressing a SOFT metal against Carbide, guess which one is going to leave remnants.






take a brass brush and scrub a piece of steel with it and it does the same thing.

[Schuetzenman]

I would concure, clean the expander button. A photo would be useful to see if you have something really bad going wrong vs. just usual amounts. You could always flare all your cases and then run them through a polisher for 15 minutes for clean up.