Brass Cleaning Questions

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zoomage

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Do you remove the primer prior to cleaning the brass? Also, which tumbler would you recommend?

I noticed that in most of the videos I've watched they show the primer getting removed during the reloading process after the brass has been cleaned. However, I was talking to a guy and he mentioned removing the primer using the Franford hand de-primer tool and then clean the brass in a tumbler/vibrator for a better result.
 
Depends...i deprime first, then wet tumble. Gets the primer pockets squeaky clean. If you use a vibratory tumbler with media, I don't find it gets the primer pockets very clean.
 
Deprime first, then ultrasonic clean for 10 minutes with one shot cleaning solution. They come out looking like brand new. Can only do 50 .308 at a time though.
 
gcoy19 said:
Deprime first, then ultrasonic clean for 10 minutes with one shot cleaning solution. They come out looking like brand new. Can only do 50 .308 at a time though.
Click to expand...

Just did some very dirty ultra mag brass in the sonic cleaner with one shot last night. Impressively clean.
 
Depends. Rifle.or pistol. Pistol cases I just tumble then load. Rifle will often get tumbled to clean them up a bit, size and deprime, then cleaned some more. If it's just blasting ammo for the AR, I don't worry about the primer pockets.

Auggie D.
 
Size/deprime, wipe, trim to length, tumble, clean primer pockets, then clean the necks with case neck brush. Works for me.
 
Every piece of brass that comes across my bench, first passes through a Lee de-capping die, and then off to be wet tumbled.
I tried the vibratory/media route when I first started but I wasn't happy with the results. Got a Frankford arsenal kit from Cabelas for 160 bucks and I've been thrilled with it since. Something about pristine clean brass.
 
legi0n said:
does it improve precision or accuracy?
I found that sizing/depriming dirty just gunks up my dies.
Click to expand...
I wipe them down before sizing to get any powder residue off. Every so often I'll clean the inside of the sizing die with G96 Solvent
 
When I use my vibratory tumbler I just leave the primers in since vibratory tumblers do nothing to clean the primer pockets anyway. When you size/deprime the depriming punch pushes out any tumbling media in the flash hole along with the spent primer.

When I wet tumble I deprime first for two reasons:
1. wet rumbling does a nice job of cleaning the primer pockets which can't happen if the primers are left in
2. A friend of and I have had the following issue. After wet tumbling with the primers in the tops of some primer cups pop off during depriming leaving the rest of the primer body in the primer pocket. These are extremely difficult to get out, rendering the case junk. I attribute it to corrosion forming between the primer and the primer pocket as the cases dry, exacerbated by the various chemical agents like Lemishine being added to the tumbling solution. This forms a bond between the primer pocket wall and the primer so only the weaker primer cup head is punched off by the depriming rod.

Mind you this is only my subjective observation but when I dry tumbled I can't remember this happening more than once or twice in my 40+ years of reloading, When I wet tumbled and air dried the cases I had several of these "ringers" in one batch. I friend of mine had the same experience. Obviously YMMV but given that clean primer pockets are a bonus and you're going to deprime the cases anyway I can't see any reason why one would not deprime first before wet tumbling.
 
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