Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Tumbling Primed Brass

I traded for some primed brass that had been pulled down because the guy just couldn’t develop a good load for a particular rifle. Is there any reason why I couldn’t/shouldn’t dry tumble them? I don’t really care if they’re shiny as long as they’re clean. My only thought is to use untreated media if I decide to do it. I can’t imagine there’s a genuine danger of setting off primers. Seems like a freak accident would have to occur. Thoughts?

Waste of time. Dampen a cloth with some isopropyl alcohol and wipe them off to remove any grit, surface dirt, or case lube the seller may have left. Dries immediately. That’s actually all I typically do to all my brass, and I look them over for defects while I wipe.

Interesting as I put some kroil in a case for a couple days to kill the primer as folks say WD40 but I was out of that. For chits and giggles I chambered it and pulled the trigger, it went bang.
Now how much damage is untreated media going to do? Waste of time maybe, damage doubtful.

That’s kinda the way I’m leaning. I traded for the primed as opposed to the non-primed to snag 100+ free LRP’s still in them. I’m not necessarily hung up on shiny. As for wasting time, the tumbler and media separator does the work so that’s not really a drawback.

Interesting. My thought around using untreated was just to keep any polish from being present. Doesn’t sound like that’s a real issue either based on what you’re saying.

My biggest concern would be getting the tumbling media stuck in the primer flash hole and how that would affect the ignition timing.

oh it will affect things for sure

I think you hit on the biggest concern. I guess I’ll just inspect, hand clean and roll with them.

Wise decision.
On another note, had an interesting thing happen on a 220 Swift, evidently I missed a case that had a clump of corncob media stuck in the bottom of it. Went bang, velocity was off ~80-90 fps when i extracted the case some little black clumps fell into the action. Cleaned that up went ahead and inspected the bore and had some burnt corncob residue in the barrel pushed a swab through it and went back shooting.

Maybe that little explosion of the primer is stronger than you think

Many years ago I bought several hundred Federal 270 win brass that was factory pull down.......
the necks needed sized so I de-primed them all with no issues sized the necks, cleaned them then re-primed them all.
You sure that your necks are OK ????? most pull down brass needs neck sizing

I’ll probably just set up the die and resize. Or, carefully decap and build from scratch.

Pappy is right, in my opinion.

I have a couple of tumblers and I’ll use them sometimes. Mostly before I sell the brass. Buyers like shiny brass. The other time is when using BPCR cases. In which case, I’ll use a wet tumbling method or clean with soap and water then tumble after dry.
Part of the issue with tumbling is the inside of the neck gets too clean. A jacketed bullet and the neck of the case will exchange molecules and ‘weld’. Some people are offended by the term weld and will want to use the word bond, btw. The thing is the bonding of the bullet and the case gets stronger as the loaded round stays loaded. Maybe using a nylon brush loaded with graphite brushed inside age neck before loading will slow the welding/binding process, IDK.

Tumbling can have an affect you might not like.

Yep, that is the biggest issue. A no go for me. If I really wanted to tumble the brass, I'd pop the primers out, resize and just tumble it.. End of story..

I always re-size pulled primed brass. I would hand clean them, load them up and then tumble them.

As in, tumble "loaded ammo"??

Yes sir, many many times my boy

I’ve heard about the wive’s tales along with the engineer’s responses to those tales. I’ll side with the engineers if I ever feel the need to tumble “loaded ammo”. I haven’t found the need to do that but, I wouldn’t be scared to do it.

Carefully deprime them with either a Universal decap die or use a regular die, but extend the decap pin way out from either die. Make sure primers there is room for gas to escape should one go off. I have done this many times reclaiming unknown reloads. Slowly, smoothly, carefully and the Primers will be fine to reuse. Then do whatever you want to the brass.

A friend of mine tried that and the media did get into the flash hole. He ended up using NEVR Dull found on Amazon. He chucked up a bullet in a drill and it had enough friction when pushed into the case mouth and then would just spin the case in the container of EAGLE ONE NEVR-Dull. Having the bullet in the case mouth kept the inside clean. I do believe he chucked the back of the bullet up. Hope this helps. Memory serves he said they cleaned up real nice.

I've tumbled brass with primers in them, lots of times. Never saw a failure...

Maybe ignorant is bliss..... who knows.. but I'm sure someone will be along to tell us.

With the usual campfire slander included, of course!.