Primer Pockets

Bronco Boy

Bronco Boy

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Another in a string of total noob questions; many thanks to the good and patient folks answering the endless mundane inquiries. Here goes:


If I tumble my brass before I resize and remove the spent primers I have to deal the filthy primer pockets after I resize AND I have to remove the case lube. I find using soap and hot water spoils the nice polish the brass has when it come out of the tumbler. Silly I guess but I like taking the nice shinny stuff when I go to the range.

The “solution” I have is a huge pain. I have been giving the spent brass a quick rinse (to remove any loose dirt that might scratch my dies and get my lube pad dirty) lubing and resizing, thoroughly washing in hot water and soap, drying and THEN tumbling. The brass looks great and it very clean but it take forever the get the walnut media out of the primer pockets!

My question is, what is the “best” method? What do the experienced (assuming shiny brass is important) guys do?
 
If the brass is dirty, I tumble before sizing. I wash after sizing, and tumble again.
Poke the media out of the flasholes.
I don't worry about getting the brass really shiny, I just like it clean.
 
I'm definitely no expert, but....

I always tumblw with primers in. My brass also comes out of the tumbler clean, not dusty, etc. I leave primers in to avoid clearing primer pocket holes of media. I also use a primer pocket uniforming tool to clean my pockets, or sometimes a pocket brush. I don't mind brushing out pockets, but hate picking out media.

I sometimes take an old towel I have on had and dampen it with rubbing acohol (not too much) and roll a bunch of lubed and sized cases very briefly around likely polishing a bowling ball. This takes care of the lube.

I have beem teased a bit about it, but I like shiny brass too. I know it's not necessary, but I like the look.
 
I have a little Lee Primer pocket cleaning tool, works nice but doesn't get into the "corners". If they're really bad I'll use a small flat tip screwdriver.
 
I'd recommend the Lee. I picked up the RCBS primer pocket cleaner for $20-ish last week and wasn't all that impressed, I mean it worked, but just OK. For the $2.50 it cost for the Lee, I grabbed one up and think RCBS now owes me $20...
 
Not sure why you are concerned about the residue in the primer pockets. I tumble or wash my brass with the primers in. Any media stuck in the primer hole gets pushed out when I reload, and I seat the primers without worrying about the residue that is in them. No problems so far.
Perhaps if you were benchresting a rifle and trying for .10 inch groups at 200 yards, but it sounds like you are talking about pistol cases fired out of a semi-automatic handgun.
 
A little residue in the primer pockets isn't worth too much effort in my book. After several firings it would probably be a good idea to give them a quick scrape if there looks like build up.

Black powder can leave a lot of junk and make it hard to seat new primers but I've seldom had that issue with smokeless.
 
In a recent article in, I believe Reloader magazine, the author suggested that his research indicated that the reloading activity that least improved accuracy was cleaning primer pockets. He felt it was a waste of time, generally.

I clean primer pockets if I am doing some match or benchrest loads in rifle calibres. I don't clean primer pockets in pistol cases especially if doing a thousand at at time. Takes too long and interrupts the progressive cycle.

It doesn't mean that I don't like shiny, new looking brass. It should look new and shiny and certainly doesn't hurt when you want it to feed smoothly in the chamber. How dirty is your brass? I tumble mine with ordinary walnut media for a while and it comes out looking new.
 
I think it depends on how dirty the brass is to begin with, to whether I'll clean it first before punching out the pocket. Getting a case stuck in a die because of grit can be a pain as breaking a pin.
Crimped Military primers can prove to be even a bigger headache unless you catch it on expecting. Crimped primers punch out of most cases with the same amount of effort as non crimped ones, but try to seat a new primer and you may well run into a bit of trouble. A pocket cleaner then won't help much as you'll either have to swaged the pocket to reform it or ream the ring out, as Military spec ammo cases are a bit more work but still reloadable as most others.


Driller
 
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