When do you clean/tumble your brass.????

TReX300

TReX300

New member
I've been reloading rifle for almsot 20yrs now. I've always cleaned my brass after I've resized them so it gets all the resizing lube off of them. I dont like the idea of it being on a shell that going into my gun and possibly bringing dirt and grime into the chamber with it. I finally read the front section of a couple of my manuals and it talks about cleaning the brass before you even risize it so that it dosnt get your dies dirty. I'm more worried about my gun then the dies and if the are cleaned before going out to the range they should come back very dirty if theres no oil on them. When do you guys clean your brass? Have I been doing it wrong all these years. If you clean it before resizing how do you get the oil off your shell before shooting them?

Thanks
Tim
 
I tumble them before I size them, then again after I size/decap them (for a short time, to get the lube off).
Last, I clean the primer pockets and punch the media out of the flash holes, then trim to length.
If you scratch your dies, you'll see it on every case you size afterwards, and it's not easy to get the scratch out. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
It takes longer to tumble them twice, but some of them look pretty ugly to run into my dies "as is". I've been using the same .308 die set since 1982 and it's not scratched yet. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
Maybe I'm 'overdoing it', as I like to work with clean brass and I have two tumblers. I'll run it through a short tumble when I get back from the range to knock off any powder/dirt accumulation using regular corn cob media and then prep the brass. That's when it get a thorough inspection for any signs of deterioration. I started the practice when I was shooting a lot of handgun competition and most of my brass was hitting the ground and picking up a lot of debris.

Before I start to prime and charge the cases, I'll run it through a cycle of Lyman's Tuffnut that is rouge treated to remove any lubricant and shine it for loading and storage.

Since my goal is more accuracy than speed, I don't load 'hot' loads and I try to keep the brass as long as I can. It seems like I accumulate a lot of very small brass flakes in the Tuffnut tumbler from the chamfering and deburring process and I really don't want to be shoving those into the chamber under pressure.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 
Quote:
...most of my brass was hitting the ground and picking up a lot of debris.



Yeah, I shoot mostly autos and there's a lot of sand in and on the cases. The revolver rounds using a carbide sizer you can get away with sizing "dirty" if they didn't hit the ground. Trimming before the final tumble is a better idea than what I described, after thinking about it some. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
I have a universal de-capper. So, I decap, tumble, size & trim, tuble, and load. The first tumble is longer, the second tumble is just to remove lube and brass trimmings.
 
I clean my brass first thing, then simply wipe off any lube after resizing! Never had any chamber problems yet! Course I am shooting bolt guns, not as picky as those autos!
 
I tumble before anything else and thats it, nothing more. It keeps me from picking media out of flash holes. Once they hit the first station on the 550 its destine to be loaded round in just a few more seconds. As far as lube on the cases, I have used a couple different kinds and one-shot dries pretty well, I dont worry about it.
 
For my AR brass, I tumble, trim and tumble again for just a few minutes to get the lube off, then poke any media out with a small punch. For my bolt stuff I just tumble, decap and neck size, then check the length.
 
The first thing I do after getting back from the range is tumble the brass. I use hornandy one shot, and I do not bother to clean the lube off.
 
I haven't used the tumbler in 2 years, last year I used ultrasonic cleaning. My Ultrasonic unit went bottoms up, so I gave up on cleaning altogether. I don't clean primer pockets either. I use imperial wax and a paper towel to wipe carbon soot off the necks. I clean my dies often. I don't care what my brass looks like as long as it provides benchrest accuracy.
 
I spray lube them, resize, then dump them into the tumbler to remove all the lube. Not one problem to date.
On my dies I alway spray the insides down with brake cleaner to insure they stay clean, then a shot of silicone sray before & after I load.
 
im fairly new to reloading but the habit ive gotten into is this
lube
resize
trim
tumble
clean any media out of the pocket.
this way i know that any clean brass has been preped and is ready to load.
 
I only tumble them after they are resized decapped and trimmed. I haven't had any problems either. I can understand tumbling them twice but I have never had any die damage and my cases are clean going into the die. Picking the media out of the flash holes isn't a big deal. It gets me inspecting the primer pocket in the process.
 
Never thought of the two tumble procedure.

I generally reload only my own brass. Out of the turn bolts it comes up pretty clean. The AR .223 brass can be a little dirty. I resize them all and then tumble; both to clean and get off the resize lube. Trim and camfer comes after tumble. I use the Lee trimmer and will sometimes hit the brass with a little steel wool while in the cordless drill.
 
I have seen some dies damaged by dirty cases (Not Mine), so I am a bit more pickey than you really need to be. Some of my dies are match or benchrest types that are more costly.

My method is:
1. Tumble clean in a small grit size walnut shell media.
2. Do all the needed case prep including; sizing and decaping, primer pocket cleaning, trimming, deburring, uniforming (new or once fired brass), tumble clean to clean off residual lube and metal shavings. The finer walnut shell media will not plug up the flash holes.

The reasons I do the extra cleaning step:

Residual powder tends to stick inside cases and the necks and can be a problem with bridging, and to some extent, powder contamination. This is more of a problem with progressive loading.

I don't want residual bits of brass launched down the bore to cause more metal fouling.

Using cases that have lube inside the necks can cause bullet tension variations.

I don't like handling greasey cases and primers at the same time.

Lastly, You don't want loaded rounds that have any lube on them going into your chamber. If your chamber and ammo are not lube-free, you will be putting more pressure on the bolt and locking lugs, since the case walls won't fully grip the chamber walls. Most guns are designed with a margin of safety in this respect, but why put undue stress on your rifle?
 
I don't tumble any brass. Don't need any lead dust in my body. I do wipe the cases with a degreaser after sizing the cases. But I have no problem shooting cases that don't look bright and shiny.
 
I tummble before I size brass a rag with a little rubbing alcohol when they come out of the sizeing die cleans off the sticky, by the time i go to the next stage they have dried off.
 
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