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Message: <blockquote data-quote="okietom" data-source="post: 2381051" data-attributes="member: 18710">Carbide pistol dies will rust. The cobalt will leach out of the carbide alloy. I can show you some rusty carbide right now. Only a small insert in the sizing die is carbide anyway. Some Lee dies have a carbide sizer in the crimp die too. The rest of the carbide die is steel like the rest of the dies that aren't carbide. For seven years I sharpened carbide slitting knives in the factory I worked in. We sharpened some for our pilot plant in St Paul, MN and our sister plants in Tucson, AZ and Camarillo, CA. At times when a set was urgent it would get air shipped. Riding in the cargo bay of a jet plane they would get cold and when it landed they would warm up again. This would cause them to sweat. In one days time the high grade carbide we used could turn red with rust. We started packing them with desicants inside of vacuum bags. That stopped the sweat and rust. Just saying that carbide can and does rust.</blockquote>