Brass prep question.

[Noxx]

Before anything, I'd like to say thanks to all of the regular posters here. I'm very new to reloading, and I was able to get a lot of my newbie questions answered just by reading the archives here and finding people who had asked them before me. You guys have already made the process a lot easier.

So I have my bench set up, with a Rockchucker and the assorted toys (I'm reloading 9mm and .45 atm), and there are a couple of steps in prepping my brass that seem *wildly* time consuming to me.

After I retrieve my brass from the tumbler, it's clean but it has a fine power residue on it. I've been wiping these down while inspecting the cases for damage because I worry about gunking up my resizing die with it over time, and I might as well since I'm handling all the cases anyway to inspect them.

I guess my real question is, How carefully do you really inspect your brass? Do you check each case as a seperate step, or just sort of eyeball them as you go through the other steps? I don't want to be lazy and miss something, but at the same time carefully checking 500 cases is enough to put you off your ovaltine.

 

[Slamfire]

Basically I eye ball the cases. If the cases are new they are going to be fine. Range pickups you have to spend more time examining, you might find a rock inside. Last week I was sizing a FA 52 30-06 case, a range pickup. While I had tumbled it, it was still full of mud when I tried to de cap the thing.

As for tumbling residue on the outside of case. I use corn cob and walnut depending on cost. The first couple of uses of corn cob that stuff generally has some light dust. I have not been worried about it, but you are doing a prudent thing by wiping the cases off.

I have tumbled brass too long in rouge covered walnut media, may have left them in the tumbler a week. The cases came out coated in the red rouge. I washed the stuff off.

 

[eliphalet]

I gave up in "media" because for this and other reasons. I now use a rotary tumbler with a cup or so of Breeze, Simple Green or any industrial type of cleaner, ( dish soap works but is a sudsy mess) with several ounces of concentrated lemon juice in about a quart of water. It can be used many times. After a couple of hours they look about new with no residue or primer pockets to clean.

I try to take a quick look at eac case at each step of the reloading process. That will usually catch any bad ones.