.30 Carbine questions

[H1500308]

I'm about to do some serious .30 carbine loading for my Father. I have quite a bit of of unfired, unprimed brass but I have also come across several hundred reloads that he wants the bullets pulled (they're non jacketed lead) and reloaded with ball. We're unsure of the quality/saftey of the original reloads which is why we want to pull bullets and reload.

I'll be using H110.

My question is this. I plan on not depriming the live primers from the lead rounds when I pull the bullets but the brass is dirty and I'd like to clean it up a bit. Should I tumble the loaded rounds after reloading with ball? Is tumbling a primed case after pulling a bullet a really bad idea?

Also, after I pull the bullets. I'm assuming that I'll have to run them through the expander die again?

Any suggestions...anyone done this before?

 

[GRIZ22]

The problem I see with tumbling primed cases is a piece of tumbling media plugs up the flash hole resulting in a misfire. Trying to clean out the flash hole in primed brass could have interesting results. Tumbling live ammo also has it's drawbacks like a bullet nose (especially jacketed) hits a primer hard enough to set off the round. If you're using a vibration type tumbler this is less of an issue.

If you're going through the trobule of pulling the bullets I'd deprime the old primers too. I've taken primed cases like this and shoot in a blast of WD40 which I've found to be the premier primer deactivator (if there is such a thing). Never had one go off depriming but I wear a face shield (maybe overkill) when I do this.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

 

[Uncle Chan]

IMHO, if you're confident the primers are good, I'd just reload'em and then vibrate clean them when I was done. I clean all of my loaded rounds by vibrating them with corn cob and Tru-Shine liquid car polish.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I would deprime them if you're going to pull them all. You're going to do a lot of work as it is, might as well go that extra step. Would really suck to take all that time/effort and find out that 5% of your primers are bad!

I would just shoot the ammo as is with a close eye on it. Safe yourself a lot of time and unless you see a reason to take it apart (squibs or over-pressure signs) then you can start from scratch with the cases next time around. If it shows issues I would stop immediately. However, if it's just a lead bullet thing then I would shoot it (would be easier/quicker if you offered to clean his rifle for him rather than pull 100's of rounds).

Or, send it to me and I'll send the brass back to you, won't even charge a test fee

 

[rcmodel]

IMHO: A speck of tumbler media in the flash-hole is not going to stand a chance of a farx in a hurricane when a primer goes off behind it.

You are looking at some serious pressure & heat inside that primer pocket at the instant of ignition.

If you want to pull the bullets and tumble them, do so.

If you want to tumble them after you load them again, do so.

Neither one is going to cause an "unfortunate set of circumstances".

If you want to deprime them, forget the WD-40.
It isn't going to help a thing except add fuel to the fire if one pops in the die.

If you don't slam the press handle down they won't go off anyway.
And even if they do, they are completely contained inside the die & press ram.

rcmodel

 

[Grandpa Shooter]

Once again, RC is the man with the RIGHT plan. He knows his stuff!