Turret press question

Some will argue that cleaning primer pockets isn’t necessary.

Another option is to deprime before you clean your brass if you’re that worried about it.

Not sure I understand the question.
IF I clean them, I use the same hand tool as I always use.

Fine Figure of a Man said:

Not sure I understand the question.
IF I clean them, I use the same hand tool as I always use.

Click to expand...

I think they were asking if you deprime and deprime on the press how do you clean the primer pockets.

My response was based on that.

I clean primer pockets with an old erector set motor that I have had for eons. I can clean 10-15 per minute. Works for me.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

Ole Joe Clark said:

I clean primer pockets with an old erector set motor that I have had for eons. I can clean 10-15 per minute. Works for me.

Click to expand...

That is a very clever rig.

I tried a hand primer pocket cleaning tool but got tired of it after 200 rounds. Then I got a Lyman Case Prep Center because I thought I was going to clean primer pockets and also use it to trim, chamfer and deburr. I read a lot of advice here that none of that was necessary for straight-walled handgun brass. As my volume went up, I decided to return the case prep center instead of using it. I no longer trim, chamfer or deburr. I'm considering starting to reload .223 and I may get a case prep center again, but for handgun brass, I don't miss it.

I do still get my primer pockets clean because I wet tumble with stainless steel media. I think wet tumbling is far better than dry tumbling alone, not only because it gets inside the cases and primer pockets cleaner, but because it also controls lead dust when tumbling brass that was shot with lead styphnate primers, lead bullets, or ball ammo with exposed lead bases. I don't have space in my shop for lead dust contamination and I don't want to wear a respirator when handling my tumbling media.

When I decapped on a turret, I just pulled the auto-indexer so it worked like a single stage. It does burn the clock a bit just putting cases into the shellholder and taking them back out. Now I decap on a progressive press. I started by just letting the decapped cases go around the stations with the dies removed other than a universal decapper in station 1. Removing the dies was easy with a quick-change die holder. However, there are two things I don't like about this. First, I don't care to run dirty, dusty brass through the progressive press and have grit in the mechanism and a cleanup job afterward. I used compressed air and brushes to clean it. The second thing is, now that I have a bullet feeder set up, pulling all the dies isn't as simple as it used to be. I'm thinking about getting a hand decapping tool. But the progressive press is pretty efficient at decapping since it feeds the cases into the shell plate and auto-ejects them. I don't put dirty cases in the case feeder's magazines so I don't have to clean them, but all I have to do is drop the cases in the hole one at a time and the feeder and press do the rest. So instead of hand decapping, I might just start pre-washing the cases by swishing them in water to wash off the dust and grit and letting them air dry before I decap them and wet tumble them. I still dry tumble. I dry tumble to ensure there is no water residue on air-dried brass, to polish the brass, and I find it restores some of the lubricity that is lost with wet tumbling. I also use dry tumbling to clean and polish copper or brass bullets. I don't routinely do this, but have had some that needed tarnish cleaned off.

Handgun brass, never, unless it goes through the wet SS tumbler, then they are deprimed prior to cleaning. On rifle brass I let the SS tumbler do all the work.

I've never seen in gain/lost in cleaning hand gun brass primer pockets. On rifle brass I have no data either way. But these days I use the SS tumbler cleaning for rifle brass.

A turret press is not a progressive. It is just a multistation single stage press. You can only process one case at a time. You can choose to clean primer pockets or skip the operation.

I stopped cleaning primer pockets a long time ago.

Ireload2 said:

A turret press is not a progressive. It is just a multistation single stage press. You can only process one case at a time. You can choose to clean primer pockets or skip the operation.

Click to expand...

Not exactly true.

The Lee Classic Turret has an autoindex rod so some call it a semi progressive as its similar to a progressive in that it moves the brass from die to die. Others will argue this doesn’t make it a progressive, but I’d focus on the semi.

With the LCT the progressive like feature is that you just pull the handle a few times and the round moves. It’s not progressive in that it doesn’t do all processes at once.

Either way I find the obsession with sparkling new brass interesting. The frugal guy in me doesn’t care if the round looks like a piece of jewelry. My concerns are it being safe, accurate, and filling its role (eg self defense, plinking, competition, etc).

Sure shiny brass is nice but if the decapping pin clears the hole, does it really matter if there is any crud in the pocket? My gut says no unless it’s so much that the new primer doesn’t seat properly, if that’s the case then it would seem other serious issues need to be addressed. Now we know gut reactions aren’t always right so I’m curious if anyone has validated info to support or kill this line of reasoning.

Skip it. If you're using an auto-indexing turret, like a LCT, as a semi-progressive, most of the time savings versus a single-stage come from not taking the brass on and off the press a bunch of times.

I have never seen any evidence that cleaning primer pockets has any actual benefit.

I clean ALL primer pockets on ALL brass, be it pistol, revolver or rifle. I use a throttle (choke) cable cut to 1" of cable. Works for me. Takes about one minute to do 50 handgun cases by placing them in a loading block and going at it.

I do a quick 1/2 hour wet tumble on range brass.
Then I deprime/resize it then wet tumble again for about 45min-hour.. Primer pockets are spotless. I hand prime off press while watching TV..
Then when I go to load on the the turret or progressive I have primed brass to feed the press.
Maybe a little more time but I like not having to deal primers when loading.
Does having nice shiny brass with clean pockets make ammo that is more accurate?
Probably not, but the shiny brass make me

Wet tumbling is the easy way to clean the primer pockets, and not counting drying is faster.
I held off on spending the money for the wet tumbler thinking that's quite a few $ just to clean brass but after the first load I decided it was money well spent and wished I would have got it sooner.

I understand many don't worry much with brass cleaning, especially for handgun calibers. I tried simply scooping the brass up and running it through my press, and although it worked I didn't like the mess, both on my hands and on the equipment. So I bought a wet tumbler and pins, and I like it. I bring home range brass by the bag full, and sort it by caliber and headstamp and remove the primers with a hand tool at that time. When I have enough of a headstamp they get wet-tumbled with citric acid and wash and wax, and kept in their own container. When I go to reload I pull a container and load a production run from a single headstamp.

Does one necessarily have to do this? Certainly not. If the time and effort involved doesn't make sense for you personally than skip as little or much of the process as evaluates by your sensibilities. I like to sort my brass, and it doesn't take much additional effort to deprime during that process. I also like to be able to store the brass and reload indoors without making a mess. I don't mind the process and like what it does for the quality and consistency of my product. It's natural opinions vary.

brutus51 said:

So cleaning the primer pocket will disrupt the flow of a turret press as I suspected.
Said it before and I'll say it again: Tumbling your brass and not cleaning the primer pocket
is akin to washing your pants but not your underwear.

Click to expand...

The consequences of not washing underwear are very evident. What evidence do you have that not cleaning primer pockets makes any difference? Or any actual evidence of a benefit to cleaning primer pockets?

If people want to do it "just because," that's fine. But if someone is trying to figure out how to be most efficient, it is important to be rational about whether there is any tangible, objective benefit to a process that adds steps.

For handgun ammo...Shooters that handload 10-50K rounds of pistol ammo per year will tell you for handgun ammo don't worry about the primer pockets.

Expert handloaders that are half way through their first of thee of the recommended cover to cover readings of the ABC book will report that you must clean the primer pockets and trim to length.

I clean primer pockets because I want too, not because I have too. I don't trim straight sided brass because I don't want to, not because of what someone else does. Doesn't matter to me what another person chooses to do.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

I don't clean primer pockets on pistol brass, but I do so for rifle brass. When I do clean primer pockets, I use a RCBS trim-mate case prep center. I used to like to sit out of the patio and do such things by hand, but my hands cramp up these days.

I spent most of my life loading ugly brass......it was wiped clean and the pockets were "cleaned" of crusty soot with a wire cable tool. It shot great, but it never looked as good as it shot. No more!

This year I'm turning 69. I'm happy to report that wet tumbling and the eye candy bling it produces....inside and out and primer pockets too....is the one bright spot in a world that is steadily getting darker and meaner. I don't care that its one more step.....it happens while I'm at work.....I can fill my Thumblers in the morning, unload it at noon and load it up again. 5pm is bling time! It's a pleasure and a treat.....better than ice cream!


.40S&W above (.45 in the container) and 7.62 LC machinegun brass below: Makes my tired eyes perk up.....so then I shoot better! I'm sure!

My goal with handgun brass is to only ever touch the brass twice. Once to pick it up off the ground, and second to load it back in a magazine. For handgun ammo I dry tumble, shake them out, and dump them in the case collator on the progressive, so my goal has been realized. I have other hobbies more interesting than scrubbing primer pockets.

The true benefit of a turret press when loading rifle cases is having all the dies available and adjusted at once. It's not really like processing handgun ammo where you run right through them. I don't like priming rifle cases on press either but always do handgun cases on press.

I usually resize and deprime rifle cases, then debur and chamfer along with cleaning the primer pockets. Then I store the brass until I need ammo. When I need ammo I have prime the cases, throw powder and seat bullets for completed ammo.

thomas15 said:

For handgun ammo...Shooters that handload 10-50K rounds of pistol ammo per year will tell you for handgun ammo don't worry about the primer pockets.

Click to expand...

ATLDave said:

What evidence do you have that not cleaning primer pockets makes any difference? Or any actual evidence of a benefit to cleaning primer pockets?

Click to expand...

Efficiency isn't the only or even the most critical criteria to evaluate a process. Less exposure to toxic lead contamination should be more important. This is something someone who handloads tens of thousands of rounds should be especially concerned about. I cannot argue this benefit can be realized with particular respect to cleaning primer pockets, but I believe it is with wet tumbling.

I doubt there is much evidence that cleaning cases at all will improve efficiency or economy in reloading. Some people just wipe them off and reload. If the case doesn't need to be cleaned, the primer pocket doesn't need to be either. But this procedure would result in lead contamination all over the reloading equipment and finished cartridges.

Dry tumbling will increase lead dust residue around the tumbler area and contaminate the media. Cleaning primer pockets with a steel tool will also generate lead-contaminated dust.

Wet tumbling, on the other hand, keeps the lead contamination suspended in water that can be disposed of without exposing the worker. One could conceivably wet tumble without decapping first and some people report doing just that. It seems to me it would create an inconvenience in drying the primer pockets.

I will also add that while I do wet tumble, I am not satisfied with the quality of the brass until I also dry tumble afterward. But I would never skip wet tumbling and just work in lead dust filth. Because wet tumbling also cleans the primer pockets for me, I don't need any other justification for it.

Anyone who loads more than 50K rounds per year and hires employees to do it will tell you that being careless about lead safety will get you burned. Doing all the work yourself isn't a good reason to be more careless. Your own safety is not worth less than others.

I used to run a Lee Reloader "C" press and the Lee 3 hole value press. I would process the brass on the Reloader press and store the brass until I was ready to load, then finish the task on the Turret press. Part of the processing stage was cleaning primer pockets.

I upgraded and now run the Lee Classic Cast single stage and the Lee Classic Cast Turret press. Most of my handgun brass, with the exception of 357 mag, 44 mag, and 45 Colt, is no longer pre-processed. I run the press as a semi-progressive. There is no difference I can see between cleaning the primer pockets or not.

Rifle brass is still processed as are the afore mentioned handgun cartridges. Mostly due to the bottlenecked rifle cases needing trimming. I do clean the primer pockets, it's mostly a feel good measure I think. The reloading is usually completed on the turret, just because I have the dies adjusted and set up in a dedicated turret, but it is run like a single stage press. I do sometimes run the 300 blk and 5.56 as a semi-progressive, I just trim before starting.