Speer has colluded with El Diablo

[Clarke123]

I guess case prep is not part of your reloading activities.

Primer pocket scraping is a thing of the past.

It is for me .. de-prime, clean (overnight in soapy water with citric acid) rinse, dry, inspect, ULTRASONIC if really cruddy, then dry and reload.

Thirty years ago, it was RARE to find anyone "giving their brass a bath", and primer pockets (if they were cleaned at all) were reamed only lightly. Inspection was a given, and as long as the hole is clear, and the primer will seat, ignition is a given ... misfires: rare.

 

[PA4476]

It is for me .. de-prime, clean (overnight in soapy water with citric acid) rinse, dry, inspect, ULTRASONIC if really cruddy, then dry and reload.

Thirty years ago, it was RARE to find anyone "giving their brass a bath", and primer pockets (if they were cleaned at all) were reamed only lightly. Inspection was a given, and as long as the hole is clear, and the primer will seat, ignition is a given ... misfires: rare.

Agreed, for years I was always in a hurry to get em loaded.
But now, I mainly load for the enjoyment of it. I have no reason to rush, and can spend as much time as needed to do it the way I want. I reload 10 different handgun cal's, 8 different rifle and 4 shotgun ga's. I can and do reload for every single cal and ga I own. Gotta slow down and enjoy things sometimes.

Plus, look how good they look........

 

[palmettomoon]

Do you find annealing to provide tangible benefit? It seems reasonable, but I've also heard "don't bother until 20 firings", as which point my target cases would be scrapped anyway.

Annealing can provide more consistent neck neck tension and of course, makes the necks and shoulders less prone to splitting due to work hardening. I have 7.62X54R cases with about 20 firings on them. After 20 firings I'm getting about 1% loss on each batch processed due to splitting of the neck or shoulder. I do find that .308 case rims get too bent or dinged up WAY before the necks start to split on any fired from the M1As. Using a machine I can load the hopper and move onto another process (while keeping an eye the machine with an open flame in a room filled with gunpowder, LOL).

 

[fastfish66]

Straight walled cases are tumbled in cob, separated, then loaded into the case collator on the 1050 for decapping, pocket sizing, primer seating, powder drop/mouth flair, bullet seating, crimping.....then shooting. No case prep beyond sorting and tumbling.

Rifle cases are another matter. Clean, decap, resize, trim/chamfer/debur (I use a Giraud, don't waste your time with anything else, it's one operation), then annealing (also on an automatic machine). I do a couple thousand rifle cases in a few hours.

WHY ARE YOU AKNEELING...PRAYING?LOL

 

[palmettomoon]

WHY ARE YOU AKNEELING...PRAYING?LOL

every time I pull the trigger.

 

[gh1950]

I never cleaned primer pockets on pistol loads, and I loaded some pretty intense .44 mag and .45 Colt loads. Thousands and thousand .38 special loads.

 

[sparked1]

Since I started tumbling with stainless pins, I see absolutely no need to clean primer pockets. The brass comes out looking like polished jewelry in and out.

 

[palmettomoon]

All this fussiness with clean brass is sort of funny. Mil specs for small arms ammunition requires a layer of something (let's call it that stinky "gunk") if memory serves. It's been years since I've seen that requirements document. Sometimes when you handle milsurp ammo, doesn't your hands get black? The old LYman books say to clean it thoroughly only when you get ready to sell it, LOL! "Once-Fired!" "Get it before it's banned!"

 

[PA4476]

Since I started tumbling with stainless pins, I see absolutely no need to clean primer pockets. The brass comes out looking like polished jewelry in and out.

Agreed. They come out looking like new money after the SS cleaning.

 

[kuduman]

Cleaning is overrated, that's for sure-- I've had this "discussion" on here before about the stainless pins, and how I'll never buy brass cleaned that way again-- it's too clean; it binds on my powder/expander in my Dillon. As does new brass, incidentally. The fired stuff runs much better.

After all, the benchrest guys reuse the same cases repeatedly at a match; they don't clean. Heck, they don't even weigh powder.