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Brass prep?

Forward543

Dude
Full Member
Minuteman
Feb 14, 2017
773
335
Idaho
Ill open with my current method with the intent of creating rounds for precision rifle. I start by de priming, then into a ss tumbler until pockets are clean. The brass has already had the flash holes deburred, but primer pockets not uniformed. Then i place them in a tumbling dryer with a space heater blowing against them (looking for better option/ opinion). I then lube them with dillon spray lube, making sure to get it in the necks. I then bump resize with a rcbs, hornady, or lee full length resize, wich generally yeilds .002 - .0025 neck tension. From there i check length and trim if necessary, chamfer and deburr. I aneal every other load. Then i generally wipe off the excess lube, but have been trying to re tumble in the ss media, but it messes up the neck, has to be re chamfered. Looking for other methods/ good policies on doing bulk material. I was thinking of picking up a vibratory tumbler to put the loaded rounds in post loading, to remove the excess lube.
 
Walnut or corn cobb is much better for removing lube. If you tumble loaded rounds, keep it as short as possible to avoid physically breaking down the powder.

You can probably anneal less often. Just monitor the spring back on the neck and anneal once the neck dia gets bigger or the resizing feels harder.
 
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I’ve been pretty happy using rice in a vibratory tumbler to remove lube.

I size/mandrel expand then trim/chamfer/deburr before it goes in the rice to remove lube and any brass shavings. I’ve pulled it from the rice in as quickly as ten minutes and all the lube is gone.
 
Don't waste your time uniforming the primer pockets. It's a waste of time. And you can skip the SS tumbling and just tumble them in some corn cob with polish. Works just fine and no drying required. Getting the primer pockets spotless isn't going to net you any benefit other than cosmetic. Which you're going to immediately lose when you stuff a primer in there. Some of the stuff people worry about is just voodoo and isn't increasing anything except the amount of time the spend messing with their brass.
 
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FWIW, this is my process:

1. Wipe down cases
2. Anneal w/ AMP
3. Deprime
4. Size with Bushing die (LRI 6 Compmatch die doesn't have a deprimer)
5. Trim (every firing if it doesn't need it, it doesn't get cut)
6. Chamfer
7. Deburr
8. Scrape primer pocket
9. Tumble in corncob media

If you want to get fancy you can turn necks and all the other good stuff, but that works well for me. Also, leaving carbon in the necks helps seating pressure and es values some. Try it see what you think.