Inside neck cleaning

[tomapleleafss]

Just wondering if I am wasting my time or not. I have been cleaning the inside of the necks on my brass. I then dip them into dry lube and neck size. Does anyone else do this? Thoughts and/or opinions please.

 

[bigedp51]

I wet tumble with SS media and this cleans and removes the carbon inside the case neck.
And by dipping the case neck in powdered graphite which is nothing more than fine powdered carbon the neck is again lubed.

So to answer your question there is nothing wrong with brushing the neck and lubing again with powdered graphite.

 

[Chilly807]

I don't think you're wasting your time at all, depending of course on what your definition of "cleaning" entails.
I'm probably the exception in this respect, but I don't tumble or ultrasonically clean my rifle brass. It gets a light polish on the outside with 000 steel wool, then I brush the inside of the neck with a nylon brush before lubing both the outside of the case and the inside of the neck, then resizing.
I've had good accuracy with this method, I also don't shoot enough volume to feel justified in buying a tumbler. Maybe I'm missing something?
What did people do to clean their brass before tumblers and ultrasonic cleaners were available?

 

[tomapleleafss]

I tumble (dry) as well and was wondering if that would be sufficient in cleaning the inside of the necks. I have heard ultrasonic and s.s. does a real nice job of cleaning the inside but I haven't justified the price (I have other stuff I want before one of those). It is not very time consuming to run a brush thru the necks, which is half the reason why I still do it.

I was in the why do we tumble at all just to have shiney brass, but then I thought about the inside of the cases. That, and I hate the mess steel wool leaves behind (I'll touch up some the worst necks with steel wool).

 

[Lastgun]

I don't think you're wasting your time at all, depending of course on what your definition of "cleaning" entails.
I'm probably the exception in this respect, but I don't tumble or ultrasonically clean my rifle brass. It gets a light polish on the outside with 000 steel wool, then I brush the inside of the neck with a nylon brush before lubing both the outside of the case and the inside of the neck, then resizing.
I've had good accuracy with this method, I also don't shoot enough volume to feel justified in buying a tumbler. Maybe I'm missing something?
What did people do to clean their brass before tumblers and ultrasonic cleaners were available?

I do the same as Chilly minus the inside neck lubing...As long as the brush is tight and does a good job on the inside of the neck I can most times get away with out neck lube.

You will know pretty quick if you are doing a good enough job cleaning the inside of the neck when you pull the sizing button back out of the resized case.

 

[bigedp51]

Many benchrest shooters do not like removing the carbon from inside the case neck after the case has been fired. They say removing the carbon effects bullet grip and wet tumbling and ultra sonic cleaning returns the inside of the neck to bare brass. They say a bullet can bond to the ultra clean bare brass in the neck and add to bullet grip.

When I first started reloading and only reloaded a box of 20 rounds I would clean the outside of the case with steel wool. And use two different size brushes to clean inside the case neck and body. Much later I bought brass cleaning chemicals to wash the cases in and started vibratory tumbling with treated walnut media.

And last night I wet tumbled 200 Lake City 7.62 cases and did not have sore fingers from polishing the cases with steel wool or brush the inside of the cases.

Bottom line, the method of cleaning cases depends on how many cases you have to clean and what your time is worth. And how much abuse your fingers can take cleaning and prepping the cases.

I still use a soft brush inside the case body and neck out of habit to make sure nothing is inside the case before priming and loading. And I dip all my rifle cases in dry powdered graphite to make expanding the neck easy and re-coat the inside of the neck with carbon.

So keep brushing your cases, you never know when you might find a nesting spider or dead bugs.

 

[Chilly807]

My volumes are often less than 20 rds at a time, so hand cleaning the cases isn't so bad. I'll do a dozen or so, then leave it for a bit, maybe do another dozen the next night. Once all the cases are cleaned and neck brushed, the next sitdown sees them resized, trimmed if necessary and deburred.
People that say brass prep is most of the work associated with metallic reloading are correct.
If I shot pistol or higher volume rifle, any more than 25-30 rounds at a time, I'd be set up with a tumbler.