Tumble clean live cases????

[abunaitoo]

Have a bunch of live cases.
I pulled the heads.
Inside looks like of dirty.
I'm thinking it's not a good idea, but has anyone wet tumbled primed cases????
.223, 9mm

[JimB..]

If you’re asking if you can wet tumble primed brass I wouldn’t suggest it. The primers are generally waterproof and the spiders are held in place in the primer pocket so unlikely to be dislodged. Even so, it just seems wrong, especially if your only issue is that the brass seems dirty inside. Just load it up and fire it, then clean it up.

[Froogal]

I dry tumble all of my brass. The inside of the brass never gets bright and shiny. It doesn't matter. I just load it up and shoot it.

[farmbif]

from reading quite a bit about primers the only ones that are made to be water proof are unis ginex, all others can be neutralized by liquids especially petrol based fluids. many federal ammo offerings the primers and bullets are sealed with some blue stuff but this sealer is only on the edges that contact the brass shell.

[Hossfly]

I wouldn't do it, you've already pulled the boolit and powder,I would just reload and shoot. Then resize wet tumble dry , prime. Load and shoot em up.

[farmbif]

polished clean brass has little to do with function or accuracy. when I was much much younger and we would have to eliminate predators stealing our livelihood on the farm we never polished any brass and loaded all the brass with a lee loader. if the shell was dirty from falling in mud when ejected we just wiped it clean with a rag to remove all and any sand, grit or dirt before reloading. we reloaded that brass till it failed and had crack in it. it always went bang when you pulled the trigger and just as accurate as new shiny store bought ammo. polished brass is an over rated luxury and not really necessary, what will make a difference is if you don't clean out primer pocket before reloading.

[blackthorn]

from reading quite a bit about primers the only ones that are made to be water proof are unis ginex, all others can be neutralized by liquids especially petrol based fluids. many federal ammo offerings the primers and bullets are sealed with some blue stuff but this sealer is only on the edges that contact the brass shell.

Sorry but that is BS. When I started reloading in the nineteen sixties, the “common” knowledge was; don’t touch the primers with your bare hand---you will “kill” the primer! During that time (and for some time thereafter) if I had to remove a primer from a damaged case etc. I dropped it into a small (airline liquor) bottle along with some really light weight oil. Later I learned I could have reused most of those primers and the little bottle got shoved to the back corner of a shelf. This subject appears from time to time on one or another of the sites I visit and I remembered that little bottle. SO----I went and found it. I dumped out the 20+ oil-soaked primers and washed them in white gas (Coleman fuel). I let them dry for a day and then set them into some old 303 brass. The freshest primer in that bottle was at least 20 years old. Every one of those primers fired (to some degree)! Some only lightly “popped” but others gave quite an authoritative “bang”. I don’t know if they had enough power to set off a powder charge BUT I do know I will never believe you can “kill” a primer by soaking it in anything.

[farmbif]

wow, what I've been reading been told and believing is all false, its a wake up call for sure

[45workhorse]

The only thing that I know will kill a primer is a firing pin!

[1hole]

Have a bunch of live cases.
I pulled the heads. ????

"Live cases"? Interesting. Are you going to reuse the old "heads" or are you buying a new box of heads?

[Omega]

The only thing that I know will kill a primer is a firing pin!

And then only barely. I threw a few fired primers into a fire, inadvertently, when I was burning a bunch of cardboard boxes in a burn barrel. I had a box that I had been collecting my spent primers in and also had swept up a few that hadn't landed in the box into the trash pile. I had a few pop at the bottom of the barrel, sent embers floating off everywhere, quite impressive actually.

[1hole]

Sorry but that is BS. When I started reloading in the nineteen sixties, the “common” knowledge was; don’t touch the primers with your bare hand---you will “kill” the primer!

Blackie, we did have some easily contaminated caps back then but in that period the makers started coating the pellets with some compound that made them much less sensitive to oils. Most of us used STP (with some other label from Lyman, RCBS, etc.) as a case lube back then; it was not only slick it was messy and our gooey fingers did have the potential to damage the older types of caps as we seated them one at a time.

And back then we did know the difference between tarnished but clean cases vs. dirty cases didn't we?

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Not taking sides or challenging, just offering information:

Back in the '70s & '80s some law enforcement officers had problems with primers in their revolvers that had been killed by WD-40.

In the late '90s another fellow and I invested in a couple of cases of Turkish 8mm Mauser ammo, which was loaded with corrosive primers. We merely intended to salvage the bullets and powder, and put all the primed cases into a couple of 2 lb. coffee cans full of kerosene. After they soaked for a couple of weeks we tested them and none would fire, so we dumped them in the scrap barrel at the local rifle range. What would have happened had we allowed the primers to dry out for a couple of months can only be speculated about, but my feeling was that they had been permanently neutralized.

Later, upon reflection, I regretted tossing the Turk brass, as it occurred to me that should really hard times arrive one could load them up again and have some fairly good ammo; as the only problem was the primers being corrosive, and one can clean their gun. So thereafter I saved the brass and labelled it as having a corrosive primer. Thankfully, times haven't gotten that hard.

[Larry Gibson]

Bit of thread drift.....

I use the Turk and other corrosive primed milsurp cases with lubed cast bullets. A normal cleaning with Hoppe's #9 cleans all the corrosive residue out of the barrel as it is mixed in with the lube residue which cleans out easily. The Turk powder is atypical Nobel powder and is very similar in burn rate to 3031 - H4895. It also works very well with reduced cast bullet loads.

As to the OPs question.....

I've dry tumbled (Thumbler) or vibrate cleaned primed cases quite a bit. I use cheap rice and it cleans the inside and outside of the cases quite well. Only downside is the rice turns black and, when some gets on the floor, gives the appearance of mouse droppings..... Use long stemmed rice with deprimed cases so the rice doesn't stick in the primer pockets so bad.

[Eddie Southgate]

If unloaded but primed I would reload them like I wanted them to be loaded then would dump the lot in my vibrating case cleaner . Would not tumble loaded rounds although the chance of having any issue would be extremely small .

[abunaitoo]

These were reloaded by someone just starting out.
They were not safe to fire.
He has gotten better at it since.
Instead of pulling the heads (bullets for those of you that.....), he just gave them to me.
I was planing to reload them for long term storage, so wanted the insides clean.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Being myself kind of picky and fastidious, I understand your desire for clean cases. Instead of tumbling them you can clean the insides (and outsides) chemically with things as simple as citric acid, detergent and water, diluted vinegar, etc. But, you should de-prime them first. Then, I think you'd be wise to just toss the primers and start over with new ones. Here's a trick that might get you in trouble with your Mrs. (but maybe she isn't always at home?) Put the brass in a mesh bag and run them in the washing machine. Best done with the agitator-type washer. Noisy, but effective. Have you ever left change in your pants pockets (or .22 shells) and found them after you took the clothes out to put into the dryer? Very clean and sparkly. Man-- my mom used to get upset on the rare occasion when one of the .22s would fire off in the washer.......

[varmintpopper]

FWIW
Primed cases that have the Bullet and powder removed can be resized and reloaded simply by removing the "Decapping pin" from the sizing die, resizing the case without the pin and then reloading as usual. JM2

Good Shooting

Lindy