Turret press question

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labnoti said:
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.
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For those that dry tumble their brass, not cleaning primer pockets is another lead-exposure reduction technique.

Tip: don’t tumble brass in your domicile. And definitely don’t separate media indoors.

Observation: if you’re decapping before wet tumbling, you’re definetitely handling brass that is at its lead-iest. Dry tumblers can literally dump their bag of range brass into the tumbler. I wonder to what degree this offsets any lead exposure reduction from wet tumbling... not to mention questions about where all this lead-laden effluent goes.
 
There are other things I have to do that take precedent over cleaning primer pockets, like folding socks.
Any range fodder pistol brass or .223 plinking ammo, a waste of time for me. Save that for the one at a time loads.
 
ATLDave said:
For those that dry tumble their brass, not cleaning primer pockets is another lead-exposure reduction technique.

Tip: don’t tumble brass in your domicile. And definitely don’t separate media indoors.

Observation: if you’re decapping before wet tumbling, you’re definetitely handling brass that is at its lead-iest. Dry tumblers can literally dump their bag of range brass into the tumbler. I wonder to what degree this offsets any lead exposure reduction from wet tumbling... not to mention questions about where all this lead-laden effluent goes.
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Those are all good safety points.

I do wet tumble and deprime first, but I always wear nitrile gloves when I do that. I am also probably one of the few that wear gloves for all my reloading. I'm certainly the only reloader locally that I know of that does.

Dave
 
This is why I clean primer pockets, this is the amount of debris from 100 previously cleaned .45 ACP cases after one firing.



20180701_132016.jpg
 
I agree that not cleaning primer pockets by hand reduces exposure to lead.

Decapping before wet tumbling does create a potential hazard. So does just picking up fired brass. But that hazard can be managed. Dudedog mentioned a good method: wet tumble for 30 minutes, then decap, and wet tumble the remaining 45-60 minutes. Another way to manage it would be to use a hand decapper in an area away from your dwelling, even at the range, perhaps decapping right after picking it up.

As for the effluent, it depends on where it goes and how it's processed. For the volume I process, the heavy metals in effluent would be an extremely minor load compared to other sources in the same effluent. But even if I just tossed it in the ditch by the road, I'd rather it be there than in dust floating around my house, garage or shop.
 
labnoti said:
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.
Click to expand...

labnoti said:
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.
Click to expand...

You are very paranoid about lead contamination.. Yes, lead styphonate is a lead salt created by firing a primer.

Leaving a fired primer in it's pocket until it's decapped, then priming right away like a lee classic turret or dillon machine would do it, will limit the lead contamination to a minimum. The fired primer is caught in a cup under a dillon machine, the Lee directs the primer down the center of the ram into a tube. I suppose if you were to take that spent primer cup, huff it while stirring the spent primers, you'd get some lead dust in your lungs.

Common sense says NOT to do that, it says to handle it with caution not fear. I DO use nitrill gloves when cleaning a de-cap system.

I dry tumble in a midway vibrator with corncob and some Flitz additive. Primer in. Yes the media picks up some lead styphonate from the inside of the cases. I simply hold my breath while separating the brass in the midway separator. I doubt there's a cloud of dust suspended in the air in the loading room! I also don't run my hands through the media then go eat a sandwich.
 
To be honest I never considered the lead contamination as a concern but now you have me thinking about it.
More over I was thinking about consistency of my reloads, having a bunch of debris in the pocket can't aid in performance and that's "so what":)
 
It doesn’t add to the performance. It also doesn’t take away. I have never seen any evidence that it makes ANY difference, certainly in the handgun context.
 
So what? I say if it makes you happy it makes a difference. Personally, I like all things best clean and shiny. Me, my wife, my house, my car, and especially my garage.....:D The only exception to that might be if reloads shot better tarnished and grungy with black primer pockets..........as you pointed out....they don't.

One comment made on another thread about primer pocket and flash holes a few years ago, by a gentleman who competed in long range, was in effect:

"I do everything in my power to make my ammo the best I can make. I don't leave anything out, including cleaning and uniforming pockets and deburring flash holes......so leaving nothing to chance, the only thing I have left to concentrate on is me, and when I feel better I shoot better."

That's the way I feel too. The psych factor is as real as anything.

BTW....I'm not in by best form today....my garage/reloading room is a mess!......but at least my brass is good. That's a start.;)
 
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I load on a progressive, and so far just target ammo. I see no reason to clean the primer pockets as it would add an extra step and I've never seen any evidence that it has any effect on accuracy or function.

If I'm loading defensive loads, I'll probably use new brass from Starline, which negates the question.
 
I don't clean primer pockets for pistol ammo. I do, though, deprime prior to resizing and those cases go into a hot solution of dish washer and citric acid. They soak there for a couple of hours and they get a good shake, after which they are rinsed and either allowed to dry or dried with a hair dryer. Then they get in the tumbler.

The result looks almost like good brand new ammo.
 
Nordeste said:
I don't clean primer pockets for pistol ammo. I do, though, deprime prior to resizing and those cases go into a hot solution of dish washer and citric acid. They soak there for a couple of hours and they get a good shake, after which they are rinsed and either allowed to dry or dried with a hair dryer. Then they get in the tumbler.
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Sounds like you need a wet tumbler.
 
Something I haven't seen mentioned is cleaning cases with an ultrasonic ,(USC), intead of going with wet tumbling. I tried it with HF (harbor freight) USC that was on sale for IIRC$45.00. It works! Cleaned with decapped brass, the primer pockets were spotless. The inside of the cases were cleanER. Clean enough to not worry about what was left. This was done on 40 S&W cases and some . 223.

I quit doing it because of having to deal with drying the brass. Heating up an oven takes time and cost a bit for the gas. I don't own a hair dryer, and forget putting them "out in the sun" in Wisconsin. The 30 or so days a year when the sun is shining and it's NOT 20 below, well I'm not going to wait for a day like today, hot, sunny with high humidity. The humidity would make it a slow process, and if I forgot them out there, it's forecast to rain later this afternoon.
 
Hokie_PhD said:
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.
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Personally I think a better description of the LCT auto-indexing would be to call it a cascade system. Brass flows from 1 station to the next in turn until it gets to the end then new brass starts the journey. If someone really wants to call it a semi-progressive then by that logic a case, tortured for sure, could be made that a manual indexing progressive press such as a Dillon 550 might be considered a semi-single stage.

Regardless, in a progressive, once the shell plate is loaded, one pull of the handle yields a finished round, 2 or more pcs of brass are being processed at the exact same time where in a single stage 1 pc of brass is being processed at a time. Some of the other press makers such as RCBS also consider their turret presses to be semi-progressive also but I think it's marketing. I think though if it makes the reloader happy to call it whatever they want then no real harm I guess.
 
thomas15 said:
Personally I think a better description of the LCT auto-indexing would be to call it a cascade system. Brass flows from 1 station to the next in turn until it gets to the end then new brass starts the journey. If someone really wants to call it a semi-progressive then by that logic a case, tortured for sure, could be made that a manual indexing progressive press such as a Dillon 550 might be considered a semi-single stage.

Regardless, in a progressive, once the shell plate is loaded, one pull of the handle yields a finished round, 2 or more pcs of brass are being processed at the exact same time where in a single stage 1 pc of brass is being processed at a time. Some of the other press makers such as RCBS also consider their turret presses to be semi-progressive also but I think it's marketing. I think though if it makes the reloader happy to call it whatever they want then no real harm I guess.
Click to expand...

It's not a real progressive, and is materially slower than them. It is materially faster than a single stage, if it is used with an eye towards efficiency. What we call that is, literally, a matter of semantics. We could also debate whether fast walking is appropriately called half-running compared to literal crawling... but why?
 
If I clean them it’s done with stainless pins.

It doesn’t make any difference but they do look better before you seat a primer, after you can’t tell.
 
For years I used a dry tumbler after sizing with good results. My brass was clean and the ammo was more accurate than I was. Then I happened upon a Thumlers rock tumbler for around $25 IIRC and now the SS pins make that brass look like factory new. Can't tell if they shoot any better than before but I can find any defects lots quicker and they sure are pretty now.:thumbup: FWIW I usually spend the cold winter months prepping the brass and drying them near the wood stove is no problem. Then I just load up what I need before I go to the range the rest of the year. Did I mention that I have a LOT of assorted brass that I have collected over the years?:D My methods work for me and I do not fear lead, although I still get my lead levels checked yearly and they never go up to problem levels. Just be aware and take some precautions to stay safe. Did you ever watch the parents of a firstborn toddler compared to ones that have three kids. The law of diminishing returns in action IMHO.;) We tend to do a lot of that while learning to reload.
 
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He sure did. Lots of ways to get good results and everyone thinks the way they do it is best.

When in reality if your happy with what you do and the results you get, you are doing well.
 
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