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Joined: Oct 2008
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Oct 2008
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i bought a load of primed 308 LC LR brass. the stuff is filthy, by my standards. is there a way to clean it with out clogging the flash holes?
the only thing i can think of is to load it and tumble the loaded rounds in small batches.
TRUMP- GABBARD 2024
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Campfire Regular
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Use Krazy Kloth if you want to wipe each one separately. You can buy it at the kitchen department of most super markets.
Used to be bobski, member since '01
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
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I know some people do it, but there's no way I'm putting a loaded round in a tumbler.
It's tedious if you must do a large batch in one sitting, but 000 or 0000 steel wool works wonders.
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I would be seriously inclined to either fire them or de-cap, then clean using your usual process. Particularly if the interiors require cleaning.
As the cases are cruddy, I would tend to have doubts about the viability of the primers, so would consider them no loss.
Imagine your grave on a windy winter night. You've been dead for 70 years.
It's been 50 since a visitor last paused at your tombstone.....
Now explain why you're in a pissy mood today.
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
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I was thinking along those lines too.
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Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
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“When Tyranny becomes Law, Rebellion becomes Duty”
Colossians 3:17 (New King James Version)
"And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."
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Joined: Oct 2008
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Campfire Ranger
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OP
Campfire Ranger
Joined: Oct 2008
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the primers are solid. the previous owner just didnt care to really clean the cases to a shine.
TRUMP- GABBARD 2024
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Joined: Jan 2005
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Campfire Regular
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I would not tumble loaded rounds for this reason, with some powders you will wear small flecks off of the powder granules and create powder dust and you might change the burning characteristics of the powder. In other words you might end up with a slightly faster burning powder that may generate higher pressure than you may want. My vote would go with the polishing wool. If there were any signs of corrosion on the interior of the cases, I would knock the primers and clean the cases any way you want to. I would not worry with saving the primers, I say that because I know people that use to save live knocked out primers and reuse them. A practice that I don't even want to think about.
Good shooting,
Marcus.
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Campfire Tracker
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Are you sure you want to deprime live primers?
I have done a few, with never a mishap, but with a greatly increased pucker factor each time I did it. I finally decided that the fear of one going off was not worth it.
I am a firm believer in if there is a way for something to go wrong, sooner or later it will.
If the inside of the case is clean, then I would just clean the outside as suggested above and load the cartridges normally.
I don't know of a way to make sure all the tumbling media is out of the flash hole, if you decide to go this way.
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Campfire Regular
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1234567,
I have deprimed, I would guess 10,000 or 15,000 live primers over the past 35 or 40 years. Never had one go off, but I always wear a face shield, gloves, ear plugs, and use to wear forearm guards turned around to protect the inside of my arms. I have inherited many of my Dad's friend's reloading stuff before or after they have passed away and have incorporated a lot of their brass, dies, presses, and a few of their guns along with my loading and hunting hobby. A few years ago I got a couple of cases of 10mm brass from Blue Star before Gerald (Mr. Garrett) died for nothing because rats had gotten into the brass and set up house keeping and raised a family. It was all primed brass and other than rat pee and dust it was fine. I used a Lee tool, a plastic hammer, drilled a hole into a 2 by 4 and set the base in the 2 by 4 put it over a 5 gallon bucket with about a gallon of water in it and knocked out live primers for days. Then I took the brass and ran it in a display dishwasher and it was ready to use. But, I would agree with you one will go off sooner or later, but I have set them off on purpose just to see how much they will do and it was not as much of a pop as I had expected. I will state I do not recommend this as an everyday practice, but I do it when I need to.
Good shooting,
Marcus.
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Campfire Tracker
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Use Krazy Kloth if you want to wipe each one separately. You can buy it at the kitchen department of most super markets. This stuff REALLY works. Sinclair also carries it.
I should have just
bought a [bleep] T3...
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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I use the Lee Precision Three Jaw Chuck 90608 and Case Spinner Stud 90607 chucked in a cordless drill with 00 steel wool to clean loaded ammo and exceptionally dirty brass. Goes fast. Don't see any reason why it wouldn't work with primed brass.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
Which explains a lot.
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Campfire Tracker
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Marcus:
I haven't deprimed near that many, but I have deprimed a few, and never had one go off. It is just the fear of what might happen every time I do it that makes me nervous, and the reason I don't do it any more.
I do not like to waste anything, but now I fire them in tmy rifle. Cuts down on the anxiety.
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The ones I deprimed, I used the full length sizer and decapping rod. With the end of the die being closed by the decapping rod, whatever pressure it puts out is going to come back through the primer pocket, blowing the primer out.
I laid a thick cloth over the press, but the primer could still come back out through the slot for the primer arm, with enough force for the cup to penetrate your skin, if your leg was close to the slot.
Your way sounds safer.
I had a large quanty of shotgun shells that were messed up for one reason or the other. I cut them open and salveged the shot, wad, and powder, but I didn't want to mess with the primer.
I had a 55 gallon steel barrel that I used to burn trash in. I built a hot fire put some primed shell bases in the barrel. Where I did it, even if a battery cup came out the top of the barrel, there was nothing around for it to hurt, and I don't think it would have enough force to penetrate the sides of the barrel.
I didn't put but four or five in the fire at one time, so I could count them as they went off, then after the last one, I would pitch four or five more into the barrel. I did it this way so I would know when they all fired. I didn't want to accidently leave a live one in there to go off while I was burning trash, and perhaps looking into the barrel.
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1234567,
I have deprimed, I would guess 10,000 or 15,000 live primers over the past 35 or 40 years.
But, I would agree with you one will go off sooner or later, but I have set them off on purpose just to see how much they will do and it was not as much of a pop as I had expected. I will state I do not recommend this as an everyday practice, but I do it when I need to. I've done EXACTLY the same thing, only my time has been over a period of 57 years, and maybe a few more than 15K. Never had one go off accidentally. When I did set one off there wasn't any noise to speak of and nothing flying in the air. It also took some effort. The die and shell holders contain the few gases. Only thing I don't recommend is putting them on concrete and popping them with a hammer. They are louder and some shrapnel can get away, don't ask how I know.
Used to be bobski, member since '01
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"Only thing I don't recommend is putting them on concrete and popping them with a hammer. They are louder and some shrapnel can get away, don't ask how I know."
Yeah. You can do the same thing by laying one on top of a bench vice and hitting it with a hammer. Better than the concrete floor, because you don't have to bend over.
Or, your wife can suck one up into a vacuum cleaner if you load in a spare room with carpet. Not only does this produce a loud bang, it also produces enough mouth to last a lifetime.
It might have been a .22 rimfire instead of a primer. I'm not sure. I am sure about the mouth, though.
Don't ask how I know.
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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1234567,
I have deprimed, I would guess 10,000 or 15,000 live primers over the past 35 or 40 years. Never had one go off, but I always wear a face shield, gloves, ear plugs, and use to wear forearm guards turned around to protect the inside of my arms. I have inherited many of my Dad's friend's reloading stuff before or after they have passed away and have incorporated a lot of their brass, dies, presses, and a few of their guns along with my loading and hunting hobby. A few years ago I got a couple of cases of 10mm brass from Blue Star before Gerald (Mr. Garrett) died for nothing because rats had gotten into the brass and set up house keeping and raised a family. It was all primed brass and other than rat pee and dust it was fine. I used a Lee tool, a plastic hammer, drilled a hole into a 2 by 4 and set the base in the 2 by 4 put it over a 5 gallon bucket with about a gallon of water in it and knocked out live primers for days. Then I took the brass and ran it in a display dishwasher and it was ready to use. But, I would agree with you one will go off sooner or later, but I have set them off on purpose just to see how much they will do and it was not as much of a pop as I had expected. I will state I do not recommend this as an everyday practice, but I do it when I need to.
Good shooting,
Marcus. OK I have to ask why would you have to deprime that many live primers over the years? Don't doubt it just don't understand it. Mike
God, Family, and Country.
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Many reasons;
1. You reloaded brass that needed to be annealed and didn't realize it when you loaded it.
2. You got a batch of primed brass and had no knowledge of the primer. No sense in wasting bullets as the primers might not work, or they can't be duplicated if you don't know what they were.
3. After checking primers in your loads you've loaded a batch and they didn't pan out after all, need to go back to the other primers.
4. Any of a bunch of reasons primers in loaded rounds need to be changed out, like misfires.
5. You screwed up by not paying attention and primed a bunch of cases with the wrong primer.
6. Corrosive primers you don't need to fire in your firearm.
I'm sure there are more judging from all the questions you see on forums about depriming live primers. The case of the original question here is a case in point.
Used to be bobski, member since '01
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bobski,
Ditto to all of those plus cleaning soiled cases! For example, one of Dad's friends gave me one of his Drillings and about 1500 pieces of brass that were sized, trimmed, and primed ready to load. Not knowing what primer or how long they had been primed, I wanted a known primer to start out with. I used a RCBS depriming die that the decapping rod was smaller than the inside of the neck, so it made sense to me to remove the live primers to preserve the cases for future use.
Good shooting,
Marcus.
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Campfire Tracker
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As long as it doesnt have any build up that would prevent it from chambering or serious enough corrosion that case integrity is an issue, I would load it up, shoot it and then clean it. No point wasting primers in todays times.
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