Removing Case Lube

[Uncle Chan]

Good Evening,

Before I resize and decap, I lube, as I'm supposed to. I use One Shot. Have for ever. After resizing and decapping, I wipe the cases off. If I only did 50 or so, that wouldn't be a problem, but I reload by the hundreds. And, truth be told, I grow tired of wiping down each case.

Do any of you have an alternative method? Would putting the cases back in the tumbler take care of the inconvenience? If I don't remove the lube, it attracts dirt. I don't like that much.

What do you all do?

Uncle Chan

 

[Idano]

Chan;

I tumble my cases for five minutes in very fine bead blasting sand. I use to just toss them back into my 50/50 corn cob/walnut media but switched to the sand because it doesn't get loaded up with the lube. It also appears to help clean the primer pocket and it doesn't get stuck in the flash hole.

 

[gunman42782]

I retumble my cases to get the lube off. Then, of course, I have to make sure all the media is out of the primer pockets, which is somewhat of a PITA!

 

[KI.W.]

Easy way; Lee "tooth paste".

 

[jmorris]

I post load tumble to de-lube before case gauging.

 

[Uncle Chan]

thanks everyone!

 

[PotatoJudge]

I tumble after priming to remove lube. This means I have to clean the primer pockets by hand, but I don't have to poke media out of flash holes.

 

[snuffy]

I tumble after priming to remove lube. This means I have to clean the primer pockets by hand, but I don't have to poke media out of flash holes.

So....how do you get the tumbler media that's stuck in the flash hole out? Take a close look, you'll see it, just don't kid yourself that it's not there. NOT removing it will cause problems with any round. The chunk of tumbler media will disrupt the flame,(brisance), of the primer. It can cause a complete misfire, or a hang fire. At best it can and will open groups in rifle ammo.

If I'm loading on a single stage, I use a paper towel soaked in de-natured alcohol. It's available in hardware stores in the paint department. If I'm loading progressively on my dillon, I tumble the loaded ammo in bare corncob for up to 20 minutes to remove the lube.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Hummm...Idano...If it doesn't collect on the blasting material, where does it go? You use sand or is that glass beads?

As far as removel of resizing lube...RCBS lube and pad work quite well. If you don't mind using your oven at 150* and your wifes cookie sheet. RCBS lube is water soluble and will wash off. Then you will need to dry them and a cookie sheet and the oven work quite well.

 

[PotatoJudge]

Snuffy, you're right. Of about 175 30-06 cases, roughly 1/3 had a bit of media in the flash hole. Easy enough to see looking in the case with a flashlight. Just deprimed them and I'm about to reprime, took maybe 20-30 min and I'll do the rest in front of the TV.

I haven't had any problems shooting with clogged flash holes, but that doesn't mean there can't be problems. Course, I'm a 1.5 MOA shooter so it could have been causing accuracy problems that I can't see.

Any idea if tumbling loaded rounds can cause runout or any other problems? Any verified cases of primers being ignited by loading tumbled rounds?

 

[paperpuncher49]

Uncle Chan - Just curious. You stated "I reload by the hundreds. And, truth be told, I grow tired of wiping down each case." What caliber are you reloading by the hundreds. I would have to assume it is a bottlenecked rifle cartridge, maybe the 5.56/.223 for an AR.
I agree that wiping lube off individual cases is a PITA, and when I have a lot of lubed cases to do I use the water soulble stuff, pit it in a mesh bag, and swirl it in hot water. I then generally leave the brass laid out on a tray for a couple of days in my garage, where I keep a duhumidifier running because I live in God's wating room (AKA, Florida) where it is humid year round and if I didn't everything would rust up. It works fine if you are not in a hurry. For anything that is straight walled, I use carbide dies.

 

[Uncle Chan]

Hi Paperpuncher49. You are correct, I load .223 by the hundreds and 45LC by the thousands (but the 45LC doesn't need lube).

Thanks all for the advice! I'll just retumble'em.

Unc

 

[Lennyjoe]

I also load .223 by the hundreds but I always wipe mine off while I'm inspecting the finished product for any flaws.

 

[jenrob]

If doing large amounts and you have a prog press w/ case feeder. just put your sizer die in and run all of the brass through then tumble. Now get a can of air like you use on computers or electronics gonna need it to help keep the media blown away. Take you sizer die out and replace it with a universal decap die and set the rest up and load away.
This way get the lube of and clears the media out of the flash holes. Just use the air every so often to keep the media out of the priming station and causing problems

 

[Idano]

Hummm...Idano...If it doesn't collect on the blasting material, where does it go? You use sand or is that glass beads?

The lube is collecting on the pieces of dryer sheet. My initial thought when I started using the sand was that it would clump up quickly and then I would just sift out the clumps and add more sand since it is so cheap. However, it appears the lube is clinging to the dryer sheet and smaller dust particles generated by the tumbling of the sand. I forgot to mention that I toss in new a cut up dryer sheet every time I tumble and then remove the pieces with the brass.

 

[Idano]

Duplicate post

 

[rhubarb]

I've dumped them in a bucket with isopropyl alcohol. Minty even. Swish them around a few seconds and they're clean. Dries quicker than water.