Interior case cleaning

B

BearChillz

Member
Rating - 100%
7   0   0
Location
Edmonton
Hello all,

As I eagerly await for my Lee Challanger kit to arrive in the mail I've been spending a lot of time researching different methods of reloading. Most things I understand well and I have a pretty good idea of the process.

One thing I haven't quite made my mind up on is case cleaning. It seems like plenty of people use all sorts of tumbling, ultrasonic cleaners, and even soap and water to clean.

I'd like to try and focus my budget on components right now and try and clean by hand. In the first edition Lee manual, Lee mentions using steel wool to shine the outside of the cases while trimmimg them with a drill. This seems like it would be a sufficient method for my needs. The only worry I have is the inside of the cases.

Do the conventional methods such as tumbling do much for the inside of cases? Will carbon buildup affect the case capacity? Should I instead use vinegar/soap/water soak?

I'd love to hear your thoughts,

Bear
 
Cleaning by hand gets old really quick. I started with dry tumbling with various media, works fine, no issues. However, I did switch to water tumbling with stainless pins, Dawn, and Lemi-Shine. Everything gets sparkly clean, including primer pockets and inside the case. If you plan to reload for many years, and you shoot a lot, do yourself a favor and automate the brass cleaning and prep time.
 
BearChillz said:
Hello all,

As I eagerly await for my Lee Challanger kit to arrive in the mail I've been spending a lot of time researching different methods of reloading. Most things I understand well and I have a pretty good idea of the process.

One thing I haven't quite made my mind up on is case cleaning. It seems like plenty of people use all sorts of tumbling, ultrasonic cleaners, and even soap and water to clean.

I'd like to try and focus my budget on components right now and try and clean by hand. In the first edition Lee manual, Lee mentions using steel wool to shine the outside of the cases while trimmimg them with a drill. This seems like it would be a sufficient method for my needs. The only worry I have is the inside of the cases.

Do the conventional methods such as tumbling do much for the inside of cases? Will carbon buildup affect the case capacity? Should I instead use vinegar/soap/water soak?

I'd love to hear your thoughts,

Bear
Click to expand...

What are you going to be reloading?
If it's pistol, I can tell you right now that a couple of hours in a dry media tumbler will get your cases more that clean and shiny enough for any type of shooting that you're going to do.
 
I use steel wool myself, but I'm reloading for precision in small volumes, usually less than 30 at a time. I haven't noticed any issues in the year I've been doing that.
I may eventually get a tumbler but it's low on my list.
What did people do before there were tumblers and ultrasonic cleaners?
 
Chas59 said:
Cleaning by hand gets old really quick. I started with dry tumbling with various media, works fine, no issues. However, I did switch to water tumbling with stainless pins, Dawn, and Lemi-Shine. Everything gets sparkly clean, including primer pockets and inside the case. If you plan to reload for many years, and you shoot a lot, do yourself a favor and automate the brass cleaning and prep time.
Click to expand...

This. I did the exact same thing. I use the dry tumbler now to clean off the exterior of rifle casings after resizing.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone,

So I'll be reloading for a .308 bolt gun on a single stage press. Likely in batches of no more than 200.

I'm not totally opposed to a stainless media tumbler, it's just that it's hard to justify paying more than my entire press setup for cleaning at this stage of the game.

Is the interior of the case that nescessary to clean?
 
BearChillz said:
Thanks for the replies everyone,

So I'll be reloading for a .308 bolt gun on a single stage press. Likely in batches of no more than 200.

I'm not totally opposed to a stainless media tumbler, it's just that it's hard to justify paying more than my entire press setup for cleaning at this stage of the game.

Is the interior of the case that nescessary to clean?
Click to expand...

No. Special efforts to clean inside other than the neck area are a waste of effort. Case neck interiors get clean enough with ordinary tumbling.
 
rral22 said:
No. Special efforts to clean inside other than the neck area are a waste of effort. Case neck interiors get clean enough with ordinary tumbling.
Click to expand...

So if I was to clean the case necks with a brush and use steel wool for the exterior, that would suffice until I can afford a tumbler?
 
Probably best to save and get a wet tumbler. It shines all the nooks and crannies of the case. Most importantly, any carbon or lead residue will be contained. Scrubbing will likely get residue spread.
 
BearChillz said:
So if I was to clean the case necks with a brush and use steel wool for the exterior, that would suffice until I can afford a tumbler?
Click to expand...

Yes.

Pretty, shiny cases are nice, but the level of clean absolutely necessary for reloading can be achieved with a damp cloth. You don't want crud on the outside of cases that might scratch a die, and you want the inside of the case necks clean enough to not grab the expander ball on the way out and stretch things, and to provide consistent neck tension on bullets, but most of what happens in a tumbler is purely cosmetic. I loaded for years without tumbling anything, and had no problems. My cases looked "used", but they worked just fine.
 
If you're doing anywhere close to 200 at a time, spend the money and buy a tumbler.. wet, dry, or whatever.. your fingers will be killing you otherwise. Any more than 20-30 cases and you'll learn to hate reloading.
Any more than 10-15 is a pia, to be honest, but I'm both cheap and stubborn. I'll eventually break down and get a tumbler for doing my usual volume of 20-30 at a time.
One potential concern is the lead from the priming compound being deposited in the cleaning media when you tumble cases. I don't know how valid that concern is, but a few of the guys I shoot with take it pretty seriously.
 
Last edited:
I dry media tumble clean the outside of the case so that my hands stay mainly clean while handling the case. I do whatever sizing and trimming is required so the case is ready for the rifle. Then I put a primer in the smaller hole in the bottom, some dark usually shiny greenish grey powder in the hole on top which I then cap off with a bullet. Can't see the inside any more. Done.
 
Drop a used dryer sheet into your dry tumbler when tumbling.
It will pick up most of the nasty stuff, and you can discard it after.
It is absolutely NOT necessary to have cases sparkly, shiny clean,
inside and out. They will shoot no differently if you merely wipe
them off and clean inside the necks with a brush [if you don't tumble]
I lube necks with powdered graphite when sizing...that make bullet
pull more consistent. Dave.
 
I loaded for 30 years before buying a dry tumbler. All I did was run a bore brush through the necks and twirl the neck-shoulder in some steel wool.

A dry tumbler is not expensive, and a 50 pound (5 year supply) bag of fine walnut media from Princess Auto and Shooting Supply is only $30

Now that I have a tumbler, I lube all the cases, size them and then throw them in the tumbler for 2 to 6 hours. This takes off all the lube and makes the cases clean, inside and out.
 
I would just wash the cases in hot, soapy water. Another alternative is to put the cases in a strainer over the garbage (in a well-ventilated area!) and spray them with brake cleaner. Either will get your cases clean enough to resize, though not nice and shiny. This should tide you over until you get a tumbler; my recommendation is a rotary, wet tumbler without the stainless media.

I am sure that you will soon find that cleaning cases individually will drive you nucking futs.
 
I didn't buy a wet tumbler with stainless steel media until I bought my first AR15 and started scratching my dies and brass. Meaning getting embedded dirt and grit on the cases and inside my .223 full length die. And wet tumbling would scrub the cases free of any embedded dirt and grit and no more scratched dies and brass. I didn't have this problem with bolt actions or revolvers because they didn't throw perfectly good brass away and make you go look for it on the ground.

When I first started reloading and before any type tumbler I cleaned the cases like Ganderite did with steel wool and a brush inside the case. And if the cases were really dirty I would wash them with a home made case cleaner. Much later I went through two vibratory tumblers before buying my wet tumbler.

Bottom line, you will get to a point when cleaning cases by hand, and getting sore fingers and fighting boredom you will get a tumbler.
 
I have tried dry, wet tumblers, ultrasonic cleaners. As its been mentioned dry tumbler is relatively cheap, won't make the insides of cases sparkling but frankly it doesn't matter as its purely cosmetic. That said I really enjoy using my wet tumbler now, the contained mess is a big deal for me. I can tumble inside of the house instead of the garage.
 
Cleaning by hand will make you want to reload a single ammo to shoot yourself with it. If you spend 2X as much time cleaning as reloading, you're a cleaner, not a reloader. You can do it, but you'll either quit reloading or buy a tumbler pretty quickly.

-Dry tumbling is cheap. The tumblers are cheap and the medias are cheap. That's the only pro. The excess of carbon and lead is projected in the surrounding area, the tumblers are big, noisy, and you need some room to store those 50lbs bag of media. It's ok if you tumble outside or in the garage, but it's literraly a health hazard inside a living area. If you live in a multi-unit, forget that.

-Wet tumbling is expensive. The tumblers are kind of expensive (unless you make one yourself), but at least the medias are infinitely reusable. They clean a lot better than dry tumbling (if you wet tumble brass that has been dry-tumbled, you can see how much crap is still left), but it doesn't really matter. The real large advantages of wet tumbling is that they're a lot quieter than vibratory (they make roughly the noise of a small dishwasher), and the mess is completely contained. Every particle of whatever was in there is flushed down the drain, leaving only clean brass and clean SS pins. Another advantage is if you're reloading for precision, you can deprime the brass before cleaning and you get clean primer pockets, with no media stuck in the flashholes (dry media can get stuck in there if you deprime first).

You don't really ever hear about anyone who went back to dry tumbling after trying wet tumbling (there's always that one weirdo...) but moving from dry to wet is pretty common. It's kind of frustrating that such a simple machine as a wet tumbler cost so much; if Lee wanted to take some market share with an inexpensive product, they'd have one right there. Some people have posted here on how they built their own wet tumbler for a lot less than the price of a FA.

On the plus side, if you quit reloading, both dry or wet tumblers can be sold used for only a small loss. You'll never get back the time you've spent cleaning by hand though.
 
Thanks for all the input everybody! I appreciate it.

I'm feeling much more assured that simple hand cleaning will suffice until I lose my sanity and break down and buy myself a stainless tumbler. Maybe I'll be able to find one of those harbour freight tumblers for a good price. We shall see what the future brings.

Now if canada post will hurry up...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom