Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles cleaning cases in the tumbler-primers in or out

do you remove the spent primers before or after tumbling?

Before

After

Either way, if they are too dirty to size, tumlbe 'em first... If they are clean, resize then tumble to get all the lube off to keep from tarnishing. It's just a pain to clean the flash holes. A dry lube may be better, I've never used any....Roger

I use a Lee universal decapping die to avoid grime in my resizing die and tumble after depriming.

I do a long tumble before to clean up, then deprime & size and then a short tumble again to clean off the case lube.

Resize first, then tumble. Poke media out of primer pockets with a flash hole uniformer.
Polishes out the fine scratches from resizing and cleans lube off.

I usually resize, then lert tumble for 8 hours. I find it weird that the primer pockets never come out of the tumble clean.

I have tumbled, then resized once. My die didnt like that. It was very tough to get them through the die for some reason.

I tumble after sizing and derpriming. I hold a small flat bladed screwdriver between my thumb and forefinger and a small nail between the first and second fingers.

I use the screwdriver to scrape out the black crud from the primer pocket. Part of the time, that will remove the media from the flashhole. If not, I shift my hand a little and poke the point of the nail into the flashhole and the media falls out.

Dale

I uniform my primer pockets, and then use the uniformer tool to booth clean the pockets and get the media out. 1 half twist and it's all done.

I clean the primer pockets manually for that very reason as well. After deprime/sizing (and manually wiping off lube) and before the tumble.

Well, I tumbled first, I'll just have to see first hand, I guess if it was a good idea or not, thanks for the advice.

It's a good bet that there was a layer of abrasive material left on the surface of the brass. Some of the media treatments/additives will cause this.

I deprime first with Redding decap dies then tumble, for a couple reasons...

1.) My fired cases might not be anything I want to run through my nice clean and pristine sizer dies. I don't exactly baby anything after it's fired. Mud, blood, ect....

2.) I expand my necks on the upstroke with a floating expander ball in a seperate die that's only for expanding necks, so it only makes best sense to get the primers out before anything else happens in the sizing process...I'm not into double working the necks each reloading, so I punch primers via the decap dies.

I decap, tumble in Lyman Green, size, neck expand, then tumble again in plain corn cob to remove the One Shot residue.

IMO, tumbling knocks enough junk out of the primer pocket to make it a non-issue, at least to where I don't care any about it. So decapping first is again a benefit to me that way in the order that I do things.

The media I use might gets stuck in a primer pocket 2-4 times out of 10, but I think the RCBS rotary seperator I use clunks out all but the really stuck stuff. I use a small allen wrench, IIRC the little one that's the size for Leupy target turrets, and just pick and poke the ones that are stuck. Not a big bother really.....

Should the toilet paper go over the top of the roll or from the bottom???

Decap with a Lee universal, clean the primer pocket with a RCBS pocket brush then tumble. After that I size and check case length. Probably not neccessary but I like the cases to be clean as possible before sizing. Need to try the bore brush in an electric drill trick JB has described to clean the inside of the necks before sizing but haven't gotten quite that "retentive" yet. But I'm close.

I always tumble before any sizing or depriming.
Any left over abrasive from the tumbling is minimal compared to the crud from firing and they get lubed before sizing anyhow.
A little dry neck lube and/or regular case lube.
I'm trying to save the dies, and a decap step.
Old habits die hard I guess.

Most of the time I clean the neck and shoulder with a little wad of 0000 steel wool, brush the inside of the neck, lube the case on a pad, and then run it into the sizing die where it's decapped. After sizing I clean the primer pocket and throw the case into the waiting tumbler. When the batch I'm working on is all sized, I tumble them for a couple of hours in corn cob media to remove the sizing lube and put subtle sheen on them. Any tumbling media that gets in the flash holes I punch out with a small pin punch.

This process works for the vast majority of my brass, but if the stuff is at all crudy I will run them through a decap die, tumble them in walnut shell media until the crud is gone, and then proceed with the process outlined above.

If you're going to clean the "crud" out the prime pocket, resize the case which will de-prime the case, knocking the old primer out. Wipe the re-sizing lub off the cases, clean the "crud" out of the primer pocket, and then tumble 'em.

Be SURE to closely inspect the flash-holes for debris before seating a new primer in the cases.

If you're not going to clean out the "crud" in the primer pocket, then tumble 'em with the primer "in". THEN re-size 'em.

Jus' my 2�...


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

I like to spend as little time as possible reloading, maybe because I do it so much, so tumble 'em (if I'm going to) before resizing, with the dead primers in, so I don't have to check every flash-hole to see if it's clear.

I hardly ever clean primers pockets anymore, and haven't seen that it makes any difference. I quit uniforming them a couple of years before that.