At what stage should I clean the case?

[combfoot]

I was wondering, if a two stage process is needed for cleaning. Traditionally I have dropped my cases into the walnut shaker before depriming. The priming process does add oil to the cases, should I run them through the walnut medium again to remove the oil from the depriming process?

[jefferson101]

Re: At what stage should I clean the case?

I usually resize and deprime before cleaning the cases, assuming that they are not abnormally dirty. If there's grit or dirt on them that makes me paranoid about damaging my dies, I wash them off good.

Case lube from resizing tends to make them look pretty bad if you keep the ammo around for a year or so, so I prefer to get that off before I refill them.

Note that you do have to keep a pipe cleaner or something like that handy to remove the media that likes to stick in the primer holes, but I figure that having my ammo look decent if I don't shoot it all up this month is worth the little extra effort on that end.

[CMV]

Re: At what stage should I clean the case?

Really depends on your personal preference & what you're using.

For most pistol rounds using carbide dies you don't need case lube (but it makes it easier nonetheless) but that's an example of how what you're doing makes a difference.

For centerfire rifle this is my process:

decap/FL size (unless something is absolutely filthy & needs cleaned first - rare)
run in ultrasonic cleaner (which also cleans the primer pockets)
let dry
reload
tumble in fine walnut media with a little liquid car polish added (purely cosmetic)

Just really depends on how much 'shiny' you want, how long you want to spend, & what level of detail you're into.

What you're using as case lube will dictate somewhat as well. Water-based like RCBS Case Lube-2 isn't going to require as much "post-de-capping" cleaning as something like 10w-30 or Hornady one-shot.

With my process there's nothing to clog primer pockets & no cleaning primer pockets. Downside is the additional step & time for drying. Also some people & reference material will tell you that tumbling loaded rounds ranks up there with unprotected sex in Haiti. Others will tell you that you can tumble loaded rounds for weeks at a time with no ill effect. Judge for yourself, but IMO there is no harm or potential catastrophe putting loaded rounds in a typical reloader's vibratory tumbler for an hour or two.

[jefferson101]

Re: At what stage should I clean the case?

Also some people & reference material will tell you that tumbling loaded rounds ranks up there with unprotected sex in Haiti. Others will tell you that you can tumble loaded rounds for weeks at a time with no ill effect. Judge for yourself, but IMO there is no harm or potential catastrophe putting loaded rounds in a typical reloader's vibratory tumbler for an hour or two.

I'm a little hesitant about tumbling rod or stick type powders for long periods. (An hour or two? Meh....But a day or two? I can see a potential for that to become somewhat of an issue.)

Pistol rounds, though? I'm not sure that tumbling them for a week would get that #5 or #7 ground up much finer than it is already, which is the whole potential issue.

Does a finely ground 4064 burn faster than the factory rod shapes? Possibly. As to how much, and if that'd cause overpressure, don't ask me. Also it could be noted that most of the warnings about that sort of thing were based on incidents with Brit Surplus .303, which was loaded with cordite. Powdering that apparently did, in fact, produce issues. But I don't load with cordite.