Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Brass Prep question

I like sonic cleaning, then spray lube outside of cases and use a sizing die set up with carbide expander. With the inside of necks clean, carbide expander eliminates the need to lube the inside of case necks.

I use Redding neck bushing dies for most of the ammo I plan on shooting for in my bolt guns. I think the Redding die is far superior to Lee. I have found it best to make sure case neck walks have equal thickness when using bushing dies.

I used to use media all the time for cleaning cases. With a good sonic cleaner, it has been over a year since I used media to clean cases.

I don't load as many rounds as most guys do, but here's my regimen. For Rifle cases, I use Imperial sizing Wax applied with figertips. On new WW,RP, and such I uniform the Primer pockets/deburr the flashole, and chamfer outside with an RCBS cirket, Sinclair VLD inside. On Nosler, lapua and RWS, I just chamber inside neck & load. On fired cases, I wipe the necks off with 0000 steel wool, brush the inside neck 3 strokes, lube & size ( to fit my rifle's chamber, so "partial size" ), every 4th case or so I wipe a little wax on the inside neck, but only enough to keep them from pulling too hard over button. I then wipe them off with a dry rag. Prime/charge/seat/FCD. For decades.
If I have once fired cases I bought somewhere, I vibrate them in a Walnut Medium, and remove each case by hand, holding it against the bowl rim while vibrating to empty the case of Medium. I them wipe them off with a dry rag or towel. Repeat above. Its rare I use it.

When I shot alot of .45 Auto for training, I used a Dillon Square Deal B. I vibrated my fired cases, dumped them in media seperator, rolled them all around in a dry towel. I used Dillion Carbide dies so no lube. No cleaning the primer pockets, just an empty fired case on one end , primed, bullet seated, taper crimped and a loaded round out the other, 500 at a time. I loaded alot of 45 Colt later but used the above Rifle method on them.

I wet tumble with stainless pin media, a pinch or two of Lemishine, and a squirt of Dawn. I de-prime with a universal deprimer die, and toss them in. My cases are shiny as new inside and out for the most part, and after they dry I lube and size them. I can then use a vibrator and plain walnut shells to clean off the lube, or wet tumble them in Dawn and no media.

Guess I am not nearly as anal-retentive about brass "prep" as many. Have written about all of this before, but aside from loading for my 6mm PPC benchrest rifle, quit "uniforming" primer pockets and flash-holes years ago.

Also quit tumbling/cleaning brass years ago, even in the 6mm PPC, and have never noticed any difference in accuracy, brass or die life, etc.

You've had better luck with primer pockets than I have.

Well, I might have quit using certain brands before you did.

The only primer pockets I've had real problems with in recent memory were some .308s that were unexpectedly crimped-in--and one early batch of .17 Hornady factory-ammo brass that had the "short" pockets. (Have yet to understand where they got the "short" primers to put in them.)

But long ago solved my problems with crimped-in primers by power-chamfering the edges slightly, rather than trying to swage them.

What problems have you had?

For one example I recently opened a box of Hornady 308 Winchester Match I picked up a while back. Lot #2316441. When I primed them with CCI 200's (from a batch known not to be "tall" like a couple of bricks of Rem 9 1/2's I have) I had to get on a number of them to seat them flush. I'm using a priming tool that lets me feel when they bottom fully, and I had to press them after that with more force than I care to.

For their second loading I decided to skim cut the pocket bottoms. As it turns out the bottoms of the pockets all cleaned up completely at a depth of .127". A good number of them took some real cutting to get to that depth. I know you know JB, but in case someone reading this doesn't the minimum proper depth of a large rifle primer pocket is .128".

According to the SAAMI site, the depth of large rifle primer pockets is .125 inch minimum to .132 inch maximum.

The minimum LR primer thickness is .125 inch, with a maximum of .132.

Has that spec changed? I was informed of the .128" figure many years ago when I was buying tools and I haven't had reason to look it up since.

How are we supposed to stick a .136 primer into a .125 hole?

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

I do all the Gucci brass prep stuff even though Mule Deer has proven to me it's not needed. I just love the bling of shiny cartridges and feeling like I did everything I could to make it perfect. I have the time and I enjoy it.
Cheers,
Rex

You're not supposed to. That was a typo on my part, now corrected: .125 minimum, .132 maximum.

I'm into another box, same lot, and they're .123" before cutting. Skimming these to .125" and my 9 1/2's won't be used in them. They just fit in pockets cut the full .132".