cleaning brass casings

ginger49023

I am just starting out reloading and reading as much as possible.
Which is best? Tumbling the brass before de priming or after?

bpost

IMHO tumbling before sizing keeps dirt out of your dies and makes case inspection easier. After sizing with rifle cases you can tumble again to remove the lube.

ginger49023

thanks

grady mitchell

you can get a decapping die an just decap them before tumbling or sizing but tumbling to get the lube off i just hand towel them

jonk

If you tumble after sizing either use a very fine or very coarse media; otherwise it gets stuck in the flashole. Personally I drop them in a pot of boiling hot soapy water after sizing to remove lube, and rinse and let dry.

B17-P51

Tumble then size. I do not reccomend any more tumbling.

skyfish

Tumble before. If piece of media is in flash hole, the decapping pin will remove with primer. Last I tumble as I agree with B17.

yukon100jack

Lee makes a case trimmer for different calibers which has a long body (I use a 30-06 size) with the equivalent of a decapping pin sticking out of the end. It is about 3" long overall and works great to clear any media out the flash hole with a simple poke. It is large enough so that it is easy to handle and hard to lose. I am sure any rifle caliber would work fine. They only cost about three or four bucks.

reloader44mag

I can only speak about handgun....I vibrate my brass with the spent primer in...my 2 cents

JustC

I vibrate first, then size, then hot water and white vinegar to get the lube off.

remingtongeo

I vib with walnut media with a little polish, primers in. That cleans the brass of any crud. Then size, trim, deburr, clean/set primer pockets and deburr flash holes. Then I polish with corn cob or put it into the sonic cleaner. I load for a living and the brass has to look "shiney". Loading for myself I don't worry about how the brass looks and in the second cleaning I only vib for about a half hour, just enough to remove the lube and make sure there are not brass fragments in the case.

JustC

white vinegar, boiling water, soak for 10-15 min agitating often, dump water, dry in oven on lowest setting or the sun outside.

make sure to final rinse with distilled/filtered water to avoid water spots on the cases.

ginger49023

thanks again

rawiron1

Child's silica free play sand works really well.

Jason