Tumble brass before decapping?

[Lazyfaire]

If you deprime first and then tumble it's been my experience that some of the media will lodge itself in the primer pocket which necessitates inspecting each case and poking it out.

I have found that by carefully pouring off most of the water I can use the magnet to pull the pins at the bottom out. Once I spread out the brass I then run the magnet slowly over the brass The magnet is strong enough to pick up a piece of brass with a pin inside. Last 3 times I have had maybe 2 get picked up. And yes I also deprime before I clean. Gets the pockets clean.

 

[Lazyfaire]

Get a good hand held de capper. You can watch TV while de capping. If you decide to get a nice brass tumbler remember most of the vibration type make some noise when set on high. I hate noise. Others do not care. The old fashioned barrel rotating tumblers work with lots of stuff besides gun brass. Also very quiet.

I wait until the neighbors go to work and run the tumbler. 3 hours with no one around!

 

[Lazyfaire]

I pre wash wet as well, but just a 5 gallon bucket and a few drops of dish soap. I reach in and adgigate it around for a bit, then dump the water and rinse with flowing water. I do not dry. They then go directly into the tumbler with SS pins and the concoction car wash w/ wax and citric acid. Only post tumbling/rinse to they go to drying.



Definitely a personal opinion item here. My spent primmer catch can is just used carbon and dead primers so recycle trash for me.

When corn cob vibratory cleaning I used to always get a few corn bits lodged in the flash hole even with the primer in place. Never had an issue with the de capping pin punching out the stuck media.

Since I switched to tumbling wet with SS pins, never had a pin get stuck. Even with rifle case deprimed.

Rifle: I prewash, clean, deprime, trim/resize, reclean, anneal, then prime and load. Loading for 5.56 is done on multi stage, precision loading for .308 final stage is on a D550 with seat and crimp stations.

Pistol: I prewash, clean and load on multi stage press. D1050



Unless Dillon released something new, they do not make a tumbler to use for wet processing brass. All the Dillon brass cleaners I am aware of are dry vibratory cleaners. They do a decent job but wet is what gives us crazy clean looking brass. For wet usually a rotating tumbler is used with stainless steel pins, water and either commercial soap or home brew like most of us use. ANY questions on wet polishing, just search to topic lots of posts on it. Then post up a new question if not on the board.

So,

with the wet method, I can just use my regular Dillon tumbler, but I gotta dump a bunch of water/liquid out when I am done.

Had no idea those things were even waterproof.

I do like the idea of super clean brass. Even if it doesn't matter. Call it pride or vanity.

Edit- After watching a few vids, it don't look like I will be doing wet method any time soon. A lot of effort, time, equipment, space and crud. Clean brass sounds spiffy. But the downsides don't offset that much headache.

So what I am reading from @Flatfish is that he is not rinsing his cleaned brass in water and rolling it to remove the pins from the mix. If he did that the pins would fall to the bottom and be easily picked up with the magnet. Tumbling the clean brass in clear water moves the pins to the bottom.

 

[bikemutt]

What it comes down to is knowing what you want the end result to be, how much effort has to be expended in order to achieve the end result, and the economic cost of achieving the end result. After trying just about every cleaning regimen on planet earth, I landed on wet tumbling with SS pins and drying the brass in a desiccator designed just for this purpose.

I'm a low volume rifle shooter focused on accuracy with a relatively short time window available to shoot, this brass preparation protocol suits me best.

 

[308Tom]

Thanks. I should have clarified I'll be starting out with 9mm and 45. And I'm leaning towards getting a wet tumbler with stainless steel media. For the press it'll be a single stage.

If deprimed the primer pocket will have a chance to have some cleaning as well. And with wet media the drying is simpler when air can flow all the way through. On the otherhand, crud may build up on the dies if depriming uncleaned brass - and need to be cleaned occasionally.

 

[Flatfish]

For clarity,

All I have ever done is dry media tumbling. Just asked a couple questions in middle of someone elses thread. Should have done more research first, and if necessary, started another thread. OP-sorry for hijack.

 

[snarlingdog]

I hardly ever use my tumbler on pistol reloads waste of time. And I dont pick up rocks when I'm picking up my brass so I know it's not an issue.

 

[boron]

I've been reloading handgun, rifle, and shotgun cases using every imaginable method since 1966 and I'd like to say: almost every single method I've ever used works, most of them quite well, particularly with today's carbide dies and lubricants.
BTW:
1. if you start getting scratched cases, toss out the die and purchase a new one - they're just not that expensive
2. and for the handgun and rifle cases I do a quick pre-wash with an organic solvent to remove the lube before I wet tumble with a little bit of liquid dish soap and stainless steel pins.

 

[bsa1917hunter]

You'll find everyone does it differently. Just find a way that makes the most sense to you and experiment with it like someone else said. At the moment, I have some brass in the tumbler calling my name. I'll go out to the shop here in a bit and attend to it. By that I mean, I'll empty it into a sifter, get the loose media out of the cases, poke the flash hole with a torch tip cleaner of the appropriate size, lightly wipe the media dust off of the cases, prime with whatever primer I'm using, and then either load some up or throw them in my green MTM cases:



The way I see it is, my ammo shoots so consistently accurate and my chambers stay clean that I'm not changing a damn thing. Been doing it this way for over 23 years now and it just works. Guys that shoot with me know what I'm talking about...

 

[Rudedog]

As a varmint shooter I have always cleaned and uniformed my rifle cases. I also deburred the primer hole. I have been cleaning the primer pockets on handgun ammo even though it can't matter for accuracy. It is nice to get the primer all the way up to the bottom of the brass. I now have a Franklin Armoury Case Trim and Prep Center. Much easier for the arthritis. I am still using my Rockchucker from 1984. I would like to upgrade to a Redding T7.

 

[DizzyJ]

I have found that by carefully pouring off most of the water I can use the magnet to pull the pins at the bottom out. Once I spread out the brass I then run the magnet slowly over the brass The magnet is strong enough to pick up a piece of brass with a pin inside. Last 3 times I have had maybe 2 get picked up. And yes I also deprime before I clean. Gets the pockets clean.

I like that idea! Thanks for the tip!

 

[Papercidal]

I do a quick run through the wet tumbler to wash the dirt and rocks out.

I then lube and run through a 650 with #1 a Dillon sizer/Decap die #2 a lee size die (sizes far better than a Dillon and reduces my Case gauge failures to 5 or less a thousand but will sometimes crush cases if used in station 1 on a 650 due to the smaller mouth), #3 is a Lyman m-die expander (I use oversized cast bullets) I will then wet tumble with pins to remove the lube and dry.

After the second cleaning I will have my kids separate by headstamp (some 9mm brass is too thick for a .358 155gr bullet) I then load them up, empty and repeat

 

[Lazyfaire]

For clarity,

All I have ever done is dry media tumbling. Just asked a couple questions in middle of someone elses thread. Should have done more research first, and if necessary, started another thread. OP-sorry for hijack.

There is all manner of cleaning brass. People do it the way they were taught. A friend said to me "Why not get the more efficient type? More expensive but you'll only buy one." I find the wet tumbler/pins to be really good at cleaning the brass. This method requires that after the brass has been tumbled that it is the rolled in a cage in a bucket of clean water to remove the pins from the brass. Brass comes out clean and the pins are in the bottom of the bucket. For me, after the brass is somewhat dry I put them in the oven at 200 degrees to dry for 45 min. Put em on a dry towel and sort them out. Done

 

[Tilos]

??

Can't handle a contrary opinion about tumbling?

um, no
Just that YOU quoted ME when 1st posting your contrary opinion, then quoting me AGAIN with some lame bubblegum reason (tumbling media mixed in with spent primers) defending your (contrary to my) opinion.

So I have to ask you, "Can't handle a contrary opinion about tumbling?"

I'll just end this back and forth here... and welcome you to my ignore list
Go find someone else's posts to challenge/ troll/cherry pick.
edited for clarity
Re-edit: Thanks to all others for not piling-on and posting/joining in on either side of this back and forth.
Most members here are of great character and post useful info.

 

[MrRob96]

um, no
Just that YOU quoted ME when 1st posting your contrary opinion, then quoting me AGAIN with some lame bubblegum reason (tumbling media mixed in with spent primers) defending your (contrary to my) opinion.

So I have to ask you, "Can't handle a contrary opinion about tumbling?"

I'll just end this back and forth here... and welcome to my ignore list

You have me confused with @66PonyCar I think. He originally quoted your first post. I quoted your reply to him before you popped off.

I hope you have better awareness while reloading than you do while posting here.

 

[awshoot]

View attachment 598937

Change your handle to YukonJack or something -- that looks like gold! ;-)

 

[RVTECH]

About the only reason I prewash brass is so it's clean for depriming, sizing and trimming if necessary.
I did however try something different the other day. I liquid tumbled a bunch of fired brass with just dawn & lemon juice - but no pins. It actually came out very nice and I think I am going to deprime,size and reload this without a final pin tumble.
I'm thinking I can do this s couple times before 'starting over' with a full pin tumble to clean primer pockets.

 

[HighlandLofts]

A couple of weeks ago i was cleaning a three gallon bucket of 9mm and a five gallon bucket of 223/5.56 range brass.
When i wet tumble i drain the scum water off out of the drum into a small bucket. I hold my hand so all of the pins and brass stays in the drum.
I will pour clean tap in the drum & shake it up a little by hand and drain it again.
Then add more clean water water & tumble it again for about ten aditional minutes.
The water will have more dark crud from this procedure. I will drain this off then pour the cases into the small bucket & add clean water. I grab some cases & hold them in my left hand, grab two cases & hold them with the primer pocket pointed up & swish them in the clean water so any SS PINS come off the cases and drop in the water.
I will then place the cases on my drying racks. Once they are all on the drying racks i put another round of cases in to tumble.
I will then hit the cases with the airhose and let air dry if it is warm outside and really sunny so the brass will completly dry. If not warm & sunny I will heat the oven up to 190 and put the brass in for twenty minutes & shut the oven off and let the racks with the brass on stay in there until they cool down.

On one batch i didn't put the pins back in the drum that I dumped out with the brass, there were a few pins in the drum that stuck to the drum when I dumped the brass, but not many. That batch of really dirty range brass did come out really nice looking.
I use just a small amount of Lemmi Shine Booster and a cap of ArmorAll Wash & Wax

 

[MrElectric03]

Pistol brass I deprime then tumble. Then dry and store until I'm ready to load.
Rifle brass I tumble first(wet tumble w no pins) to save my dies, then I run Tim through the prep head on my 650 and it's deprimed, sized, trimmed, and deburred, then tumbled with pins and dried and stored.

 

[RVTECH]

Tried yet something else over the weekend.
I came back from shooting and needed to clean some brass so I dumped the pile in my tumbler, added dawn & lemon juice and a bunch of SPENT PRIMERS as media. I had read about this before but never tried it.
Well after about an hour the cases were like new but since I considered this a 'pre clean' only I had not yet deprimed them.
Because these cases had a previous, full deprimed cleaning with pins I sized and deprimed a few and the primer pockets were still pretty clean so I am going to load these without a secondary cleaning.
Also primers (as media) are free and easier to handle than the small pins and I don't get too bummed if I loose a few!