How do you deprime your filthy brass?

CMV said:

those steel stirrers you put on a 1/2" drill for mixing small batches of concrete ... some pretty violent sloshing around, but shouldn't crush brass if not overly full.

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I would be concerned that steel is harder than brass for "violent sloshing". I use this one and seen it in action - https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-5-gal-Metal-Spiral-Mixer-SM5-HKY/206509458

They do make non-metal paint stirrer - https://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-5-Gal-Helix-Paint-Mixer-410-179-0111/309896468

Personally, tossing the 5 gallon bucket in the back of the truck for a spirited drive or rolling around on the lawn would be enough to agitate and loosen dirt.

First I'd start by filling the bucket with water. Then I would run handfuls through my separator I use with my pin tumbler. Probably find an area outside to let them air dry a bit and then hopefully they're clean enough to decap. If not, repeat.

TackticalZacktical said:

I have five gallons of 9mm range brass that is full of sand and absolutely filthy. Wet tumbling with pins is the only option to get the mud out of the inside of the cases. Should I:

1.) Wet tumble with pins then decap on my 750 during loading? (Potentially getting sand in my press from depriming)

2.) Rinse off the bulk of the sand and grit, then decap on a separate tool head, then wet tumble with pins, then load on the 750? (Separate tool head, but still potentially getting my press nasty)

3.) Decap on a separate single stage or handheld de-primer, wet tumble, then load on the 750? (Time consuming, but definitely the best option for keeping the 750 clean)

I have no concern with dirty flash holes affecting accuracy on my bulk 9mm, but I do not want to have a bunch of gritty dirt and crap from depriming gunking up my 750. What do you suggest?

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For dirty outdoor range pickup brass like that, I would wet tumble them without pins for 2 hours. Empty and rinse them off, then wet tumble them with steel pins for another 2 hours. At that point, they should be in pretty good shape (as in clean so you can run them through your 750 and not worry about dirt).

I would recommend that you add an additional step of then LUBING them and sizing/depriming them (on your 750 with separate toolhead - i.e. just sizing/depriming die). Then once done, tumble them with just soap for 15 minutes to get the lube off, then run them for an hour with pins, citric acid and dawn. They should be good as new at this point. Also, make sure to check for any CBC brass or crimped military brass. If you have a swagger or reamer, fix them up, otherwise toss them.

I recently had a batch similar to what you described and it's worth adding the extra pre-wash before using pins, and then depriming them. With sand and crap in there, some of the old primers get corroded and will stick. Also, with cases like that you should lube them as some left brass on my carbide die which then started scratching other cases. It took me over an hour to clean off the die. So for grungy brass like that, I do recommend you lube them.

TackticalZacktical said:

I agree 110%. But man, doing a five gallon of bucket on a single stage is twice as much work as loading lol

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You won't want to do those on a single stage. Trust me, if you tumble those cases 2 times they will be clean enough to load if you really wanted to. I still highly recommend you lube and deprime just as a precaution as you don't know how badly corroded the primers might be. I run these through on my 750 and they do not leave any dirt at all. In about an hour you can do about 5000 of these. It's much faster than when you are loading.

packetloss said:

..... I run these through on my 750 and they do not leave any dirt at all. In about an hour you can do about 5000 of these. It's much faster than when you are loading.

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Average one every 3/4 of a second? I'd love to see the video.

mdi said:

If they are really dirty I'd use the old "NRA case cleaning formula" first;
1 Pint water
1 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon dish detergent
Adjust quantities to get a 5 gal bucket full, slosh around and soak for a while then rinse and dry. But I reloaded 12 years before I tumbled any brass, I just wiped the cases with a solvent dampened rag as I inspected them (first step). No scratched or ruined dies or chambers...

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What does the salt do?
Never read about useing salt as an additive to tumbleing.



I pick up a lot of range brass. I jyst picked up thirty-five pounds of it this past weekend. Mixed stuff, 9mm, 40cal, 45acp, 50 S&W mag 5.7x28, 223, 308, 300mag, and a few other calibers.


I use a Lee Universal Deprimeing Die on my Hornady Single Stale LnL press.
I seperate the brass by caliber then deprime it. If there is any thing in the case when I deprime it I have a small like ice pick from Harbor Freight that I stick in the case to remove it.
The pick comes in a small four pack for around $2 maybe $3. Well worth it in my oppinion.



This small pick works good for may purposes, cleaning the flash hole if you dry tumble with the primer knocked out, getting the lee shell holders out of the plastic case, pushing primers out of cases if they didn't get all the way knocked out. I use this little tool alot and keep it next to my press and I keep two new sets of these picks on my peg board behind my reloading bench at all times.

I switched over to wet tumbleing last yesr and never use my dry tumbler any more. 100% clean brass inside & out.

Go to Harbor Freight, buy a cement mixer, add brass, soap and water. Run it for several hours. Dump the brass on a screen. Or you could take the pins out of your wet tumbler and do the same thing.

Highland Lofts said:

I have a small like ice pick from Harbor Freight that I stick in the case to remove it.
The pick comes in a small four pack for around $2 maybe $3. Well worth it in my oppinion.

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the straight one is nice for poking out walnut in the flash hole for sure, but I cut off the right angle one leaving only the slightest bit of the bent portion and sharpen it. That’s the best tool there is for checking brass for the dreaded incipient case head failure. The other two I don’t really use, it the goofy screw angle one has promise. The fish-hook shaped one I have never found a use for. I tried pulling a small spring with it once, the handle pulled off and the hook part went flying.

If really dirty rinse as pointed out and than de-prime with my Harvey had deprimer, than tumble.

Bob

I don't bother with nasty 9mm brass. It's too plentiful.

However if you really want to mess with it.

Get a 5 gallon bucket and a Gamma Lid.

Fill the bucket about half full of brass, add water and some dish soap. Roll the bucket sideways on the driveway for a couple of minutes. Do this till the dirt is gone. Then dry and load.

*tumble it without pins. change water until its clean.
*dry it in the sun or in a dehydrator.
*deprime and resize
*tumble again with pins to make it pretty.
*dry it again.
*load it

TackticalZacktical said:

This is the method I’m leaning towards. The extra effort put into cleaning before and after greatly makes up for the time that would be spent depriming on a single stage. What recommendations do you have for lube and what is your method? Thanks for the help.

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I'm using the lanolin alcohol mixture lube (10:1). You can mix it yourself or buy the Dillon lube. Basically I put about 300 cases in a box and lightly spray them, then shake up the box. Add another 300, repeat till the box is full, when done wait about 10 minutes. You really don't need much lube at all. You will feel the cases resize so much easier than without the lube too.

One other thing I will add. I did try running the really dirty brass without pins twice and while it looked clean, it dirtied up my case feeder. I recommend running it 1 time without pins and then the second time with pins before letting them get near your press. With indoor range fired brass, I only run it once with pins for about 2 hours and it's ready to reload.

TackticalZacktical said:

I have five gallons of 9mm range brass that is full of sand and absolutely filthy. Wet tumbling with pins is the only option to get the mud out of the inside of the cases. Should I:

1.) Wet tumble with pins then decap on my 750 during loading? (Potentially getting sand in my press from depriming)

2.) Rinse off the bulk of the sand and grit, then decap on a separate tool head, then wet tumble with pins, then load on the 750? (Separate tool head, but still potentially getting my press nasty)

3.) Decap on a separate single stage or handheld de-primer, wet tumble, then load on the 750? (Time consuming, but definitely the best option for keeping the 750 clean)

I have no concern with dirty flash holes affecting accuracy on my bulk 9mm, but I do not want to have a bunch of gritty dirt and crap from depriming gunking up my 750. What do you suggest?

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For me It's kind of #2 but decap in my drill press using just the decapping pin and a washer to center the case, decap only and you feel the crimped primers and deal with them when you feel one.
2 blocks of wood, top block has centering washers

Bottom block has cavity to contain spent primers

I have serveral top block caliber specific.

Just the way I do it...but seriously concidering a Lee APP press because of the case feeder.

higgite said:

Average one every 3/4 of a second? I'd love to see the video.

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LOL, good point. It's probably closer to 3000 so about 1 per second. I do crank them really fast as they are well lubed and it's only one station.

The liquid cleaner is not for tumbling. It is/was a common method used before tumblers and wobbles became popular. It chemically cleans brass quickly and safely. The salt adds to the chemical action, and many recipes included lemon juice and more recently, citric acid. I have used plain water, citric acid and a bit of dish soap. Works...

Not sure how high your water bill is, but a true/full clean water rinse of pre-soaked brass will pull a lot of dirt out.
(This is an 'outdoor activity' as you'll soon see)

First - Let the full 5 gal soak under / in water for a day or so to loosen the dirt. (A little mild detergent wouldn't hurt)
Drill a bajillion 1/4 inch holes in the bottom of a plastic (2.5 or 5***) gallon paint bucket. (Homer Depot - 3-5 bucks)
Dump in about 3 inches of pre-soaked brass.
Use 1 hand to spray brass w/garden hose / spray nozzle and agitate brass w/the other.

At that point, the big stuff will be gone and you can decide what your next step will be. (Press or tumble w/pins)

(*** I use a 2.5 bucket as a collator to soak my brass inside a 5 gal bucket of AA W&W mix after I wet tumble. No dirty wax for me! LOL!)

I use this guy's method to decap (link below). I decap outside or in the garage. Then it's into the wet tumbler. Air dry in the sun. No dirty brass comes into my reloading room (spare bedroom in my house). Being retired gives me time to prime with an RCBS bench primer. Then 9mm is reloaded on a progressive press. Thinking about a Lee APP for faster decaping. But this is how I prep brass now.

I run mine through corn dry tumbler for 3 hours, then deprime, then sonic cleaner for 30 min, then dry and I’m done.

unless it’s brass I aneal, then I between the corn and sonic, I will aneal, then after sonic, I will put it back in the corn media for an hour.

Stir a bucket of dawn to rinse the brass

I put my dirty brass in a wide mouth jug with some hot soapy water and let it soak while giving it an occasional shake. Then I lay it out to dry before depriming it. Any packed in dirt gets worked on with a pick.

Had some military 308 brass that was in that same condition. I soaked it in dawn and hot water. Rinsed then cleaned in the tumbler without pins. I then dried and decapped. There are all sorts of ways to get it cleaned up. As you can see from all the answers. I bet almost all of them would work well. Your only issue now is which one to try.

How do you deprime your filthy brass?

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I clean it first.

Same thing I do to anything filthy before I work on it, clean it first. No reason to get dirty or cause undue wear.

Once clean, I run a die down the outside at the same time a pin pokes the primer out, through the flash hole.

If I were to deprimed filthy or abrasive brass, I would do it with something that had the least contact with anything except the primer it’s pushing out.