newbie seeks advice on primer pocket cleaning

I do. Because I have experienced misfires when the pockets weren't cleaned. It is, in my opinion, necessity if you prime with a hand press, it makes it much easier to seat them well if they are clean. Hence, no misfires

I don't do it for accuracy, or to feel good. I do it because 4 of my first 100, 44 mag that I did without cleaning them, didn't go BANG. I'm tickled I only loaded 100. And they were stubborn getting the ram to bottom out when hand priming them. The misfires prove that some didn't. I have since shot that box of large pistol primers and never had a another misfire. I reckon we can all speculate that my conclusion isn't scientific. But, it is proof enough for me. God Bless
 
Five rounds? That'll do it.
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Look at the photo in the OP, mixed headstamp 44 mag brass, sorting at least by head stamp will make a lot more difference than any amount of cleaning in a primer pocket. So yeah 5 rounds is more than enough, the op can load as many as he thinks he needs to realize he is waisting his time.
 
Seems most think cleaning the pocket is a waste of time, while a few either think it is important or are just OCD about how clean their brass looks.

From all the discussion, I've arrived at the conclusion that I can have my cake and eat it too.

I went ahead and back-ordered one of those wet tumblers that gets your brass clean enough to drink outta...

I also ordered a Lee universal decapper and a dedicated turret to mount it on.

When all this arrives, I intend to remove the decapping pins from all my resizing dies and make decapping with the universal my first step in prepping used brass.

From what I have heard here, the wet tumbler will clean even the primer pocket whether it needs it or not. So I will never have to go through the tedium of doing it by hand. And my brass will be cleaner for easier inspection. Seems no downside and no additional labor.

Win-win, right?

Anyone wanna buy a slightly used dry tumbler?

(And yes, I will go back and sort by headstamp.)

Thanks again to all for the great feedback.

Best,
Frankly
 
One thing, (I didn't read the last 30 or so posts), I want to warn about. With those stainless pin tumblers, the result is CLEAN BRASS. Did I say clean? That results in the need to lube the cases more than if tumbled in dry media.

Handgun--,,straight walled, brass will result in more effort required to size the cases. Most are spritzing with a liquid case lube, even though you are using carbide dies. Excessive force to size can cause the brass to shorten.

Bottle necked brass will cause trouble if you DON'T lube the inside of the neck. Now you have the really CLEAN brass with lube inside the neck, your next question will be "how do I deal with that nasty lube inside the neck, will it contaminate my primers/powder?"

One solution to a non-problem causes other problems. Welcome to the reloading art!:)
 
lube.JPG


Snuffy,

Just when I thought this thread had played out...

When I dumped everything out of the reloading kit box and found this, I thought someone stuck a tube of toothpaste in by mistake and was gonna chuck it...

Do I really have to lube my brass?

I had read in the books (I thought) that you didn't have to if you had carbide dies... is it time to start a new thread, or can we cover this one quick and easy?
 
I go with jepp2, I uniform my primer pockets every time, cleans & cuts them to a proper depth. Never had a problem priming.
 
I don't do it for accuracy, or to feel good. I do it because 4 of my first 100, 44 mag that I did without cleaning them, didn't go BANG
Click to expand...
I had a similar experience man and now I clean them pockets too,the result is no more of that nonsense.I tried all kinds of tools for that,the little brush worked best but it wore out in a hurry so now I make my own and that works even better and it's free.
 
Wet tumbling: your stuff will be cleaner and shinier and your primer pockets will be clean. Down side? Yes! The brass you pull out of there will be WET and let's not forget that you are adding not only a step by decapping all of these first-- but it's a grungy, dirty step because none of it has been cleaned yet. I have no desire to deal with that... obviously, others don't mind it. If those downsides are not dealbreakers, then you should be good to go.

Dealing with the wet, ensuring that it is 100% dry, and handling all of the dirty stuff for decapping (decapping and pocket cleaning that I have proven to myself to not need), all of that adds up quite easily for me.

But I still default to what I said clearly in a post up above--

If your process gives you pride & confidence in your ammo, it will benefit you greatly and amongst other positives -- your shooting will improve. That makes it worth it if it works for you.
 
Mine get cleaned when I tumble my cases, which is after I fire them 5 or 6 times, like I told a friend at the range it's to tell my dirty cases are mine next all the clean factory brass on the floor
 
it's to tell my dirty cases are mine next all the clean factory brass on the floor
Click to expand...

That's why I prefer shooting revolvers-- I don't have to crawl around on the ground to retrieve my brass. ;)
 
I'll quote myself, with better explanation;

the result is CLEAN BRASS. Did I say clean? That results in the need to lube the cases more than if tumbled in dry media.
Click to expand...

Tumbling in dry media, especially corn cob, will leave traces of oils on the brass. Some, like me, use car wax like NuFinish to add to the sparkle. This leaves a minute layer of wax on the cases. For handgun straight walled cases, this is all they need to glide through our modern day carbide sizer dies.

Brass cleaned in the SS pins will be too darn clean, dry and lacking ANY kind of lube to help it go through a sizer die. Can you still size them without lubing??¿¿ Yes, but it will take more force to do it!

Now I don't have or have access to a SS tumbler. BUT I do have an ultrasonic cleaner. I just got an order from Amazon for 1K 9mm brass. This was range pick-up that had obviously been cleaned by an ultrasonic cleaner. They were bare bones dry and clean inside and out. Feeding them into my dillon 650's case feeder, I noticed how much harder the brass was to size. I simply sprayed all the brass in the feeder a couple of squirts with Midway case lube in the sprayer bottle. The action of the feeder distributed the lube to all cases.

Much easier to resize. I may start doing that with my dry vibratory cleaned brass as well.

All I can say is; try it. Once you have them dry after SS cleaning, try sizing a few. If the force needed is okay with you, then no need to lube them. The extra drag on the outside of the case may push the side of the case down so hard that it shortens the OAL, (Over All Length), of the brass. Especially the high intensity brass like 9mm, 40 S&W, and 10MM. It expands more because of the higher pressure.
 
Snuffy,

The brass I showed in my original post pic is how they came out of the dry tumbler. This was using walnut shell media. It did not make the shells look like new, and I really didn't care. My understanding was that the point was to get them clean enough to inspect for splits or other defects. I imagine corn cob would have a much greater amount of lubricating properties than walnut shell, but what do I know. I had not added lubricant of any kind because I was under the impression that lubing the cases was unnecessary with carbide dies. I may have misinterpreted Lee or Lyman on that. If it is as simple as adding something to the media at time of tumbling, I can certainly do that, but of the thousand or so shells I have decapped and resized before and during this discussion, the only ones giving any real resistance in the die are the foreign ones. The US made brass is offering very little resistance in the resizing die. I had mentioned that a couple times now in this thread, hoping someone would weigh in that, but nobody has. My theory was that the foreign made stuff had thinner walls and so was expanding more when fired. Please correct me as necessary on my hypothesis. Hmmm. Anyway, this lubing issue does create a new wrinkle...
 
This is a very simple question to answer.....Don't bother cleaning them....it's a waste of time to do it unless you have time to waste.
 
Plus 1 on Bart's post #16....I don't bother with pistol, but do clean them for rifle...a small screwdriver tip with one circular sweep. Rod
 
How about:

pistol is short distance, far less precision and high volume

rifle is long distance, high precision and low volume
 
Bull. It's all logical, just maybe doesn't fit your view.

Most folks put hundreds of rounds through a pistol in one session... with a bolt action rifle one can have a full day with 40-60 rds.

Action pistol or IDPA shooters drop a steel plate or punch holes in the "A" zone of cardboard, they don't need nor wouldn't notice a tenth of an inch difference in their group size at 10 to 20 times the distance.

If none if that jives for you, no problem. I'm sure your needs are different.
 
I clean the pockets because it it feels more consistant when priming than when priming dirty. It's reality, not theory. I'm not hard core about it but I feel the difference (smoother) and like doing it this way it better. I normally deprime and tumble the pockets clean...but on really dirty ones I use a lee hand tool to knock the crud out. I tumble (not vibrate) with walnut and check the flash holes after. When I first started reloading I didn't clean the pockets but a few years later noticed the difference and changed my style.

bc
 
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