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I bought one of these 2 years ago excellent bit of kit has everything on one machine I need to prep my brass.

http://www.cdsgltd.co.uk/lyman-case-pre ... -230v.html

Some good tips guys, I use an Ultrasonic Cleaner on mine and primer pockets are perfect every time on my .44 cases but for something quick I suggest you use something like a Case Prep Station or a cordless drill with a primer pocket cleaner mounted in it.

Daryll wrote:I've loaded 10's of thousands of .38 over the last 30 years on my trusty Lee Pro 1000, and none of them have ever their primer pockets cleaned.
After firing the primed cases just get chucked in a tumbler with corncob or similar.
The still primed cases then go in the press, the first stage of the press sizes and deprimes the case, then the next stage primes them again...

This will only work BECAUSE you dry tumble, otherwise the moisture from wet tumbling would be retained in the primers.

I STM tumble before any prep (after de-capping) for many reasons, but mainly because clean brass is much nicer to work with and it keeps most of the crap off the dies.

Its up to you, your expectations etc, but I know a hell of a lot of people who have gone over to STM now.

Maggot wrote:

Daryll wrote:I've loaded 10's of thousands of .38 over the last 30 years on my trusty Lee Pro 1000, and none of them have ever their primer pockets cleaned.
After firing the primed cases just get chucked in a tumbler with corncob or similar.
The still primed cases then go in the press, the first stage of the press sizes and deprimes the case, then the next stage primes them again...

This will only work BECAUSE you dry tumble, otherwise the moisture from wet tumbling would be retained in the primers.

Snip..

Agreed... thats why I dry tumble the pistol calibres... however, for the rifle calibres I de-cap then U/S clean.
Either way, I've never cleaned primer pockets..

my question mainly came about because i had set up my new Dillon. Not reloaded for last few years. ran a few .44 cases through to set up the die and the ones that came out were filthy inside the pocket primers. I like many never cleaned them before as they were just reloaded...

The danger of being to enthusiastic could be that you end up with loose primers.

Daryll wrote:
Agreed... thats why I dry tumble the pistol calibres... however, for the rifle calibres I de-cap then U/S clean.
Either way, I've never cleaned primer pockets..

You say clean, are we collectively mistaking cleaning for reaming D?

In some cases it makes sense to properly ream the pockets to ensure the primers bottom correctly. This should not take much if anything off the sides, just trues up and levels the bottoms.

Or, removing annular or staked crimps on once fired mill spec ammo, but yes mine get cleaned by the STM otherwise.

I swage the primer pockets on GGG brass (about the only rifle brass I use) after U/S cleaning, but only on 1st use...

So with once fired brass, U/S clean, swage the primer pockets, resize and reload... after subsequent firing just clean, resize and reload.

Never had to ream/swage pistol cases.

Daryll wrote:I swage the primer pockets on GGG brass (about the only rifle brass I use) after U/S cleaning, but only on 1st use...

So with once fired brass, U/S clean, swage the primer pockets, resize and reload... after subsequent firing just clean, resize and reload.

Never had to ream/swage pistol cases.

yea, I swage as well, but in some cases the primer pockets are poorly formed and need bottoming properly and the flash holes correcting....that was in the days of F....not any more

Ok so i mainly shoot pistol calibre, .357/.44 no rifle calibres yet.

Question is is it worth depriving before tumbling wet, or just tumble in media with primers in?