Cleaning brass

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fleabaggins

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So, I bought several hundred rounds of once fired brass. I decided to clean it, and threw the first couple of hundred rounds into my tumbler along with green Lymans corn cob tumbling medium. At this point I noticed some of the rounds had already had the primers removed.
After it was done, I noticed that every single round that had no primer, had a piece (or three) of tumbling medium stuck firmly in the primer hole.
No amount of shaking, banging etc would dislodge it.
Short of taking a toothpick or paper clip to each individual casing, is there an easy way to clean these, and avoid this in the future?
 
nope, if u clean the cases with no primer your goin to get madia stuck in the flash whole (unless your useing stainless media in a rotating tumbler) its not that hard to get out with somthing to poke it with, i did 100rnds today and only had about 10 with media stuck in them
 
The media gets stuck in the hole, thats the way it is. It comes out easy with a pick or whatever is small and pointy. Its nice to tumble them with the primers still in but I like to tumble them after I resize them as well to get the resizing lube off.

I think Lyman makes a primer pocket tool that also has a flash hole cleaner on the opposite end. I made my own. It works well and it only takes a few seconds each case to clean the primer and flash hole.
 
"...once fired brass..." Hi. Rifle or handgun brass? You'll have to full length resize once fired rifle brass anyway. It'll come out when you do. The decapping pin will poke the media out of handgun cases too. Cleaning before you resize/decap will prevent it.
 
I use a dental pick (you can often get them from a friendly dentist, and some tool places carry them -- I've seen them in Princess Auto). This is because I prefer cleaning after re-sizing to get the lube off. I inspect the brass and ream the primer pocket while I am cleaning out the media with the pick.
 
Been there, done that, never again. Dental pick worked for me.
Even when I decap after tumbling I sometimes find a peice of media swaged into the side of the flash hole by the decapping rod. I watch for it when cleaning primer pockets and again when priming.
 
Start up the compressor and blow everything out either from the primer or the case mouth. Walnut media stings on exit if lodged in the flash hole so point in a safe direction.
 
I used to do batches of about 2k at a time by hand, it would take several hours... until sombody told me it was safe to run them through the decapping die again. :pf:P:

Never again.

Into the casefeeder of the 1050 with all the dies except the decap die removed.

-Decap.

-Tumble

-Back into casefeeder with all the dies in place.


I have to clean my press a little more often due to the media, but it is well worth it due to the time saved.
 
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