Deprime or tumble FIRST?

m777

m777

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Just got a tumbler and 5000 asst. brass at auction on the weekend and was wondering... Do I deprime first or tumble? The tumbler came with media in it and it looks similar to kitty litter and greenish in color. threw some brass in and took them out after an hour but there's a film of dust on them. Is this normal?? or is the media starting to get worn down?
thanks
Clint
 
dinsdale said:
Deprime after as the media gets stuck in primmer pocket.
Throw a used bounce sheet in to collect the dust.
Click to expand...

I keep hearing this, I have maybe 1 out of 25 cases get media stuck in the flashhole. A quick poke with a dental pick and no more problem. That's if it doesn't just fall out from being handled too. Small inconvenience for clean pirmer pockets.
 
I always use a cheap lee decapping die to de-prime first - tumble to polish and clean next, THEN the now clean brass is allowed to touch my precious sizing dies. The red tuffnut media also cleans out the primer pockets a bit...that's my SOP at least.

I use an air compressor set at 35# with rubber tip on air chuck up against neck of shell to expell any media lodged in the flash hole (which is about 1/ maybe 30 shells I guesstimate)....of course - media seperator to get the media OUT of the case FIRST before air compressor comes in to dislodge offending media.
 
I am no expert on this, I've only just gotten into reloading.. but I've had the best luck with tumbling brass to clean any debris first. then I resize/deprime then quickly tumble again to clean off all lube before loading.
I use a fairly fine walnut shell media for tumbling and have no pronlems with primer pockets, however, I used to tumble in a corn cobb media and that was a PITA to pick bits of media out of primer pockets
 
Tumble first for me. I don't want to run dirty cases covered in mud, dirt, sand, burnt powder ect through my pistol or rifle dies, so I tumble first.
 
If the primer pockets look dirty, you need to use a primer pocket cleaning tool. I'm not convinced it makes a difference whether I deprime first or tumble first. Some still need the pockets reamed out.
 
I always deprime first with a Lee decapping die, then tumble. The corncob pieces that get stuck in the flash hole get removed by the trimming process :D. I still clean the primer pockets after tumbling as they still seem to be dirty. I would be a bit nervous about putting dirty brass through my expensive sizing dies :eek:
 
B said:
I keep hearing this, I have maybe 1 out of 25 cases get media stuck in the flashhole. A quick poke with a dental pick and no more problem. That's if it doesn't just fall out from being handled too. Small inconvenience for clean pirmer pockets.
Click to expand...

Was more like 10 out of 25 for the one time I deprimed 9 mm first. Considering that I tumbled over 3000 cases, that's 1200 extra efforts to remove the media which were stuck in tight and would not fall out from handling.
I failed to see any difference in primer pocket cleanliness either so the effort was a complete fail.
Never again.

Maybe with Large pistol or large rifle you may see some cleaning effects but unlikely.
 
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