Tumble First or DePrime First?

[Pat Cannon]

Seems like a good idea to get the primer holes clean -- but I also like the idea of doing everything in one pass through the turret (or progressive) press. What do you do, and why? Help the NOOOB reloader!

[hammAR]

I only do rifle and I deprime first.....but I also use ultrasonic.........

IF I was doing mass quantities of pistol munitions,
I would probably tumble and do so first so that all processes were done in the progressive press at one time.....

[macphisto]

Tumbling media stuck in the primer pocket and flash hole is a big pain. Tumble first. Your brass will wear out or get lost before the primer pocket gets dirty enough to cause problems.

[JFettig]

Yes

[Pat Cannon]

Yes

Yes what Mac said, or yes do one or the other it doesn't matter? Do not underestimate my ability to misinterpret anything you might say!

[mnglocker]

Yes.

[JFettig]

yup

[Vlad]

+1...

[westhope]

Tumble then de-prime for pistol is fine.

A trick I learned from Leo is to use an air hose to blow over the brass to blow away all the tumbling media particles left with the brass. You will be amazed how much is left in there. At the same time he also gives the brass a light shot of case lube. He says it saves on his shoulder even though he uses carbide dies.

[plblark]

When would you do this? In mass after separating or for each case as you handle it?

[selurcspi]

Pistol Calibers tumble, light spray lube and into the case feeder on the Dillon.

Rifle calibers, it deprnds: Plinking ammo, the same as pistol, match grade ammo, deprime then tumble, size, deburr, primer pocket clean (and flashole size if it's first time through), and then into the press!

[EJSG19]

Pat,

Noob to Noob (got my racecar driver suit on, its flame retardant), I tumble my pistol brass then size/deprime on the first station, drop powder/flare the neck on the second station, seat the bullet third, and taper crimp on the 4th station.

Have not seen a need to clean any primer pockets yet. To be honest, I notice the primer pockets being looser the more they are reloaded, so I think that would be more of an issue than a dirty pocket down the road.

[Stradawhovious]

You heard selurcspi, just tumble and throw them into your case feeder. You know, the cardboard box you set next to your turret press .....

And now for another "blind leading the blind" answer......For pistol, just tumble and go to town. Since you aren't doing rifle (yet) that should work fine for you if you are simply cranking out blasting ammo for the steel shoots and the like. With the rifle, I tumble before and after depriming. First tumble to clean up the brass so it doesn't muck up my dies, and after decapping, sizing and trimming etc. another tumble to get the case lube off. That second tumble seems to clean out the primer pockets good enough for what I'm doing with them......... for now.........until later........ when they will have to be cleaner......

[Seismic Sam]

Actually, there's a variable here that wasn't considered in the original question: Do you have to lube your cases to resize them?? With straight walled cases like 10mm, 9mm, or 45 ACP you can resize with carbide dies no problem. With .357 Sig or 50 AE you have to lube the cases. (Note: I have a carbide 357 Sig die, but the box clearly says that you have to lube the cases anyway) There is no carbide 50 AE die available.

With carbide dies, you can tumble first and then resize and deprime, PROVIDING that you get all the red dust from the walnut shells off the cases. If you don't, then the cases get dirty again when the size die smears the red dust all over the case. With cases you have to lube, I used to size and deprime first, wash all the case lube off and dry the cases, and then tumble them. I am getting away from that because of having to pick the #@%$#*^%*&%$^#&*^% walnut shells out of the primer holes. As such, I tumble with dryer sheets in the walnut media, which keeps the red dust problem at bay, and recently it seems to actually make the shells get cleaner faster. (Really!!) Then I either resize and reload, or lube, resize, wash and dry, and then reload. I have a cookie sheet full of resized 357 Sig brass in the oven at 225 F. as I am writing this. (And NO, it takes a lot more heat than that to change the temper on a case!! My 50AE cases come out of my Desert Eagle at about 300 F. and they're fine.)

[DeanC]

Many times I will decap with a universal decapper, then tumble, and when I run them through the sizer it knocks any media out of the flash hole.