I know a lot of guys have their own tried and true methods…I’m still refining how I do my bulk blaster brass (range .223, 9MM, .38’s, etc.). Not talking about refined loads for SD, hunting, etc.
I currently prep 9MM and .223 brass using these steps:
First tumble. Wet tumble with Armor All Wash Wax and citric acid…a capful of the wash and a 9MM case of Lemishine. Tumble 2-3 hours.
Dry brass using the south TX sun and wind, or if winter, a dehydrator.
Deprime brass using my Dillon 550C and a Lee Universal Depriming die. I can do around 300 cases per hour this way.
Second tumble: I like to tumble again with double AAWW and no citric acid…
Dry completely. I usually have them out in front of a fan for at least a day.
Store in sealed plastic buckets with desiccant pouches. They are ready for loading.
I don’t trim. I do inspect brass as I load it for splits or other issues. I like this process because I do not like loading dirty brass nor do I want to decap in the loading process.
Decapping is absolutely the first thing for all my brass.
From there I can feed the twin Thumlers in two hour leap frog rotation so I’m changing a load every hour. I can air dry brass in less than a half hour in the summer here. If it’s 6.5cm, I can go straight to annealment where it dries and anneals in one step.
After that, I just pile up gobs of brass in totes so when I’m ready to resize, I just grab however much I want for an ammo run.
Decapping first for me as well. I use a Lee Undersize Flash Hole Universal Decapping Die for this chore.
Then I use a Berry’s 400 Vibratory Tumbler loaded with Nishiki Premium Rice, Medium Grain (Note: SRP flash holes don’t get clogged with the large sized rice, and only about 5 out of 100 LRP flash holes need to be cleaned out from stuck rice kernels) for about 4 hours.
I then lube and resize the case and tumble again for about 2 hours to remove the lube. The rice cleans about 1,000 cases, then I throw it away and load in some more.
If I only prepped my brass, I’d probably decap first too. I tend to scrounge a lot of brass and have busted pins in shells that had something inside it I missed….
I find the wet tumbling helps a lot to avoid that.
I just hate getting the press dirty from dirty brass. Kinda OCD…maybe…
If you follow Steps 1 -5 you are “prepping your brass” or what do you call it??
As far as getting your good Dillon press dirty, there are 2 known solutions:
Buy a cheap single stage press just for decapping. E-Bay has a metric ton of used reloading presses for under $70. or about the cost of a FL reloading die set. I have 2 myself, and I use one for just decapping and case mouth belling as needed.
You won’t believe how useful this little Shop Vac is. I have mine mounted to the wall next to my reloading bench. It slides on and off it’s mount so you can take it were you need it. And it really sucks, no joke intended. I use it for powder spills, brass shavings from trimming & C & D , + residue from decapping on the press, et al…
I used to deprime on a single stage Lee with a universal die…the 550 is much faster. Plus, not just getting the press dirty, I really don’t want that crap on my skin. I still get some when popping primers, but not nearly as much.
What case lube are you using? Removal of case lube is a key determinant in brass prep. How tenacious is the lube and difficult to remove? Remember that horrible greasy sticky crap from RCBS? The stuff you would apply to the pad and then roll your brass on to lube? The stuff that causes hydraulic dents on case necks during resizing? That lube is the worst to remove.
I use imperial die wax. Smaller amount needed. Easy to apply with finger tips. Easy to remove, just 30 minutes of dry vibratory Tumbling.
Like you, I clean before I deprime/resize. I have ruined 2 resizing dies with sand etching from dirty brass.
I mean they are less than $16.00 each. I’ve spent more on bad booze and strippers back when I was young and stupid. Now that I’m old and stupid I look for easier ways to do stuff.
These Lee dies saves your good resizing dies, and allow you to decap cleanly. It’s like a condom for the reloader…
I prep on my Dillon 1050. Makes it pretty painless. I usually do 500 at a time and store them in 30 cal ammo cans. I wet tumble for the initial cleaning, dry off and hit them with dillon spray lube, then run everything through the 1050.
Station 1 - Lee decapper
Station 2 - Swage
Station 3 - Empty
Station 4 - Resize / Trim
Station 5 - Lyman M die neck expander
Afterwards, I tumble in corncob to remove the lube.
This. I put on a nitrile glove and decap on the single stage for everything. I have a MacDonalds straw in my shell holder to make sure all the primers shoot down the spent primer tube. (Big Boss II single stage)
My preferred method is “let someone else do it”, like, buying pre-prepped brass. But it is usually not 100% satisfactory; I think they all use the Gracie trimmer which may be good, I don’t have one, but the case mouth chamfer they do leaves a slight burr inside and out. The necks typically are expanded on one side and not the other and the expanding stops short, like the expander wasn’t pulled through from inside, it came down from the top and stopped short of passing through into the case body. Not something you want to see in your brass, and I had this from two if not three different sources. BUT, other than that, I mean precision didn’t “go all to hell” and buying it this way-- sized, trimmer, primer pockets swaged, and tumbled-- same me about 12 hours per thousand.
Other than that-- I dry tumble. Tried wet tumbling, failed… I attached a piece of pipe to a .50 cal ammo box and put all the stuff in and put it in the lathe but my slowest speed was not slow enough, and everything gatherd in the corners and wouldn’t tumble. So… next, resize, expand, decap. The spray-on case lubes always result in cases stuck and rims pulled off for me so I use “regular” case lube. I recently discovered water soluble case lube, little time with it sofar but I think that’s going to be my thing going forward, especially since my next step is hot soapy dishwater. They all get a good hand-agitation in there and every single one gets a Nylon brush down the neck to clear out any residual lube. Likewise every one gets the primer pocket bottom cleaned off with one tool or another, I have a few different ones. I just hate doing any work on greasy cases and I prefer dishwater to tumbling it off.
Then-- trimming. For years I have done this in the surface grinder. I mount a V-block in a precision grinding vise at a slight angle so that when I put a case in there, the axis is perfectly horizontal. The V-block as a stop in it, so the cases stop-off at the bottom. I dress the grinding wheel on the side, and I side-wheel trim them. I just hold them in the V-block with a finger tip, it’s super fast and extremely precise. Then-- hand- chamfer the case mouth, in and out.
I have a few tools now for trimming that also do the chamfer at the same time, been doing that in the Bridgeport mill.
I deprime rifle brass, but not pistol, using a Dillon universal depriming die.
Next, all brass gets a thorough wet tumble with stainless steel pins, a little Simple Green and a small shot of lemon juice. I made a strainer from a 5 gallon bucket. It works great for rinsing a few hundred cases at a time. Its important to use cold water for the final rinse as it minimizes water spots. This process yields brass that looks like new. The brass then dries on old towels for a day or two.
After reloading, I like to dry tumble the rounds with a little Frankford Armory brass polish in the media. I think it keeps the brass looking better for a longer period.
