Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Brass Prep question

I am considering changing my brass preparation procedure.

What I have done for years is: lube with the RCBS pad and lube including inside the neck, size, trim deburr and chamfer, tumble and then wipe down brass. Special attention is made to clean the inside of the neck to make sure no lube or dust from the tumbling media remained.

What I am considering doing now is to remove the wipe down after the tumbling and to replace it with washing the brass in hot water and dish soap to remove the residue from tumbling, followed by a hot water rinse and air dry.

Is there any flaw in my thinking?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

George

I've not been doing the extra tumble and wipe, and not seen a problem in 20 years. Therefore, I think the whole wash and dry thing is a bit overwrought. YMMV.

Hey George ..... I'm gonna answer a question with a question.

Have you ever used Lee Collet dies? No Lube required and neck size only. Cleaning is easier and accuracy improved. Will cut out a couple/three steps from your plan.

My new-brass "prep" consists of (1) pushing the necks over an expander ball or similar tool, to remove any dents and make sure they're round

(2) Measure to see if the cases aren't longer than the specified maximum length. If they aren't, I chamfer them. If they are, I trim and chamfer.

I have mentioned many times before that sizing new cases is almost always a waste of time, and make make them worse: If you resize in a typical expander-ball die, the expander may pull the neck out alignment with the case body. Generally, new brass is very straight, because it's formed in a die WITHOUT an expander ball. But an awful lot of handloaders apparently believe that brass factories don't know how to form cases correctly.

Your brass prep sounds like way overkill to me. First, I second the neck sizing with a Lee Collet die. Eliminates the lube completely.
If I need to FL size I remove the expander as MD says above or use a smaller caliber expander to decap, lube with the pad and lube the inside of the necks by just sticking the case mouth into the lubed pad then size and expand in separate operations. After that tumble to remove lube and load.
I use walnut media and can't imagine how a little walnut dust could be detrimental to the loads.

Long ago I stopped using RCBS lube & pad and also Spray lube, been using Imperial Sizing Wax for the past several years with complete satisfaction. Wipe on the case exterior with fingers and inside the neck with a Q-tip, after sizing a quick wipe with rubbing alcohol on the outside and alcohol moistened Q-tip inside the neck and I'm good to go. Tumbling before sizing is accomplished with hot water, Dawn dish detergent and Lemi-shine. Rinse with hot water after tumble and let air dry.

Imperial makes a dry neck lube which I use for that area of the case. Just dip the neck into the media and its "lubed". I wipe it off the outside once the case is sized.

I've often used a sonic cleaner to get the inside of my cases clean but am starting to rethink that. The last couple of batches have been fine without worrying about the inside of the case other than using a brush to knock any loose powder out of the neck and cleaning out the primer pocket.

My brass goes straight from the tumbler to loading. I don't see a reason for any of the wipe down/hot water wash stuff.

This⬆️

Like a big dummy, I used to dip into the neck lube after wiping on the wax, which allows the little beads to stick to the case🤦‍♂️ at times. Don't think I want those going in my die, (or rocketing down my barrel at 3000fps) so I reverse the order. Since all the talk about cold-welding here, I don't tumble my rifle brass, period. Once it's sized, I wipe off the lube with high-test isopropyl alcohol. Ends up pretty shiny and the inside of the necks nicely contaminated to fend off the molecular migration.

I bought the 16 oz bottle about 15 yrs ago. I still have 3/4 of it) $35 for 16 oz. $8.00 for 2oz.

Corbin Swage Lube (CSL) is a clean, semi-solid paste that can be applied with the fingers or a cloth pad to bullets, jacket material, lead wire, or cartridge cases. (Very little - next to none is needed) It washes off with hot water and soap, as well as most organic solvents, leaves no residue, is clear and pleasant to use, and is made of 100-percent natural ingredients of cosmetic grade, including highly refined lanolin and castor oil. (I just wipe it off with a rag)

Corbin Swage Lube forms a tough film between the die and the part being formed, and withstands very high pressures without dieseling (unlike most common oil-based lubes, which detonate at swaging pressures). It is not a "bullet lube" for shooting down the bore: (IOW, it is not cast bullet lube, and has to be cleaned off) It is a forming lube that serves to protect the dies and tools, extend their life and prevent corrosion when they are not being used.

I'm not understanding why you have to "wipe down" or wash and dry after tumbling? Its not necessary. After tumbling, you brass should look like this every time:


The brass I prepped from last weekends shooting... 324 pcs of 223 rem. A good day at the range..

What sort of Sorcery affects that stack of brass?!

I do a fair amount of PD shooting and lots of informal target shooting to develop loads.
My brass procedure is-
Tumble fired till clean
Spray lube
Resize (RCBS or Redding)
Tumble to remove lube
Measure length
Trim if needed
Chamfer inside and outside of mouth if trimming occurred
Load.
I’ve never cleaned brass in water in 40+ years of reloading.

Sorry for taking so long to respond, I've been busy the last couple of days:

Supercub, I tried the Lee Collet dies once years ago and had numerous problems (can't recall exactly what they were) and haven't tried again.

Mule Deer; brass is once fired factory I got from a buddy close to 30 years ago.I will have a look at sizing without the expander ball.

Joezone; I use the powdered Imperial lube for neck sizing, this was full length sizing.

Steve; I'll check out the Corbin lube

In general I was using corncob media in the tumbler and getting large amounts of media inside the case and neck, Enough of it in some cases to impact powder volume. A recent switch back to walnut shell media has improved things.

Use the cheap Lee trimmers which act as measurement and trimmer in one step.

Thanks to all for your response. Happy father's day to all you fathers.
GRF

For my hunting rifles I load and fire. In my 6PPC I have a fire forming barrel. I take my 220 Russian, fill to bottom of the neck with Bullseye, plug it with candle wax, and fire. Leaves very little to expand before trimming to length and neck turn. I'm ready for a match.

When I tumble my brass they don’t get blurry. What are you using for media?




P

I lube with Imperial, run through resizing die, clean brass with Thumblers tumbler, check for length, chamfer, then load.

Stainless pins make brass look new.

Imperial Sizing WX on the outside and then wiped off with a rag dampened with ammonia free glass cleaner. The Imperial graphite neck lube on the little bb’s. Never had a problem since I went this way.

Same here except I just wipe them off with a paper towel after sizing. I usually only do steel pin tumbling on range pickups.

Wax and neck graphite for shoulder bumping / neck sizing or (rarely) fl sizing, stick em in a Lee lock stud on a cordless drill, whiz for several rotations through a fistful of paper towel to wipe off, do any trimming with a Lee trim gauge, chamfer and debur, done.