To clean or not to clean...

[goinghunting]

I hear/read of guys not cleaning their brass between loadings...

I have been using stainless media with decent results.

Anyone doing little to no cleaning between a firing or two and seeing actual proof of lower SD or ES? Or increased accuracy?

Shaun

 

[MTRecon]

I currently clean after every firing.

Comparing the two methods I didn't see any difference in SD or ES that I could attribute to clean or not cleaning.

 

[Horns8491]

My experience is that SS tumbling will raise your SD and ES, unless you use graphite neck lube before seating the bullets.

Check out rice tumbling. Orkan has covered this at length. I switched from SS to rice and will never go back.

 

[goinghunting]

My experience is that SS tumbling will raise your SD and ES, unless you use graphite neck lube before seating the bullets.

Check out rice tumbling. Orkan has covered this at length. I switched from SS to rice and will never go back.

Yep that's been my process is to use neck lube prior to seating...

 

[zaprosper]

My experience is that SS tumbling will raise your SD and ES, unless you use graphite neck lube before seating the bullets.

Check out rice tumbling. Orkan has covered this at length. I switched from SS to rice and will never go back.

Interesting. Never heard of rice tumbling. I started to do less and less tumbling from neck tension issues on brass that was too clean. Even graphite neck lube doesn't seem to replace the nice even seating tension you get from that layer of carbon. Care to link to the post by Orkan?

 

[spife7980]

Care to link to the post by Orkan?

Play With Your Food: Clean Brass With Rice :: Primal Rights, Inc

Cleaning your brass is a necessity. Foreign material in or on our cases can cause all kinds of problems. Damage to expensive reloading dies, damage to rifles, and various other issues can arise if proper care is not taken.

www.primalrights.com

 

[never_summer]

It’s funny because I recently just switched from walnut to rice because I was lazy on going to get media. My only gripe with it is the amount that gets stuck in the case. But just like everything in reloading, gotta pay attention to the details.

 

[Jayhawkhuntclub]

Generally, the main value in cleaning your brass is to get shiny brass. Which is nice!
However, I don't see much value beyond that.

The only cleaning I do is run a brush down each case mouth. I do this right before it gets put through the collet die. Not sure it has any value either, but I can tell the difference when I'm seating bullets. So I do it. Need to do some testing to see if it has any real affect.

 

[Dthomas3523]

I only clean if the brass hits the dirt/sand.

Otherwise, I just wipe brass off with a rag. Single digit SD and sub 20 ES. SD and ES are not a product of shiny brass as much as they are a product of proper case sizing, neck tension, and powder drop.

There could be something to be said for case capacity with carbon inside the case. But if you’re properly inside a powder node, the difference should be too small to see.

There could also be a case to be made that if you get your brass spotless every time, you add another layer of consistency to the mix.

 

[Powder_Burns]

Cleaning once fired is nicer on your sizing dies too. My routine was to tumble, decap, clean/uniform primer pockets, resize, trim, prime. Put the prepped brass away until ready to load. Then its just a matter of dropping powder, seating bullets, packing into boxes. I used a vibratory tumbler, corn cobb media and 1.5” wide strips of paper towels to cut down on the dust. Made a big difference over just using media by itself. Tempted to go the SS media route this time around but needing another piece of equipment to dry brass seems like it will be a wash. Might have to try the rice thing out.

 

[zaprosper]

I only clean if the brass hits the dirt/sand.

Otherwise, I just wipe brass off with a rag. Single digit SD and sub 20 ES. SD and ES are not a product of shiny brass as much as they are a product of proper case sizing, neck tension, and powder drop.

There could be something to be said for case capacity with carbon inside the case. But if you’re properly inside a powder node, the difference should be too small to see.

There could also be a case to be made that if you get your brass spotless every time, you add another layer of consistency to the mix.

Couldn't agree more with this. I was all over the tumbling every firing, until i noticed my seating pressure increased and bullet shaving while seating. Dry graphite lube helped a bit with the problem, but I didn't see the point to tumbling besides shiny brass. All it takes is a little wipe with a cloth for dirt etc. and I run a brush through the neck. Didn't change my POI at all, less work, easier and more consistent seating. If my brass saw more dirt and sand it would likely change how I do things.

 

[Steel head]

Couldn't agree more with this. I was all over the tumbling every firing, until i noticed my seating pressure increased and bullet shaving while seating. Dry graphite lube helped a bit with the problem, but I didn't see the point to tumbling besides shiny brass. All it takes is a little wipe with a cloth for dirt etc. and I run a brush through the neck. Didn't change my POI at all, less work, easier and more consistent seating. If my brass saw more dirt and sand it would likely change how I do things.

They tiny bit of carbon left in the neck works wonders.

 

[mkelly]

I only clean if the brass hits the dirt/sand.

Otherwise, I just wipe brass off with a rag. Single digit SD and sub 20 ES. SD and ES are not a product of shiny brass as much as they are a product of proper case sizing, neck tension, and powder drop.

There could be something to be said for case capacity with carbon inside the case. But if you’re properly inside a powder node, the difference should be too small to see.

There could also be a case to be made that if you get your brass spotless every time, you add another layer of consistency to the mix.

Do you attempt to clean the primer pockets?

 

[Threadcutter308]

This stuff works great;

 

[mkelly]

This stuff works great;

What stuff?

 

[Dthomas3523]

Do you attempt to clean the primer pockets?

Never.

The testing I’ve done (and know guys who have done far more) have not show an noticeable difference in clean/not clean or uniformed/non uniformed primer pockets.

As far as the case itself goes, primer pockets are the least important part to mess with.

 

[mkelly]

Never.

The testing I’ve done (and know guys who have done far more) have not show an noticeable difference in clean/not clean or uniformed/non uniformed primer pockets.

As far as the case itself goes, primer pockets are the least important part to mess with.

I will give this a try. Thanks for the info.