Ep. 234 | Brass Prep for Reloading 

Johnny's Reloading Bench is what made me get into reloading!!

"Actually Tucker, I haven't heard about reloading cereal." 🤣

I always tumble my cases first before anything else so grime doesn't erode my dies. Great pod cast!

Eric Cortina demonstrates a way to adjust a sizing die by measuring from the end of the die to the lock ring to help gauge adjustments when setting up a sizing die. Works very well and utilizes a standard function of calipers

Stainless steel pins in a tumbler with Lemi-shine. The brass comes out looking like factory brass.

As far as case cleaning goes, I tumble all my brass in walnut media (lizard litter bought at a pet store) treated with NU-Finish polish and a quarter cup of odorless mineral spirits. Once the walnut is run in the tumbler for about a half hour the walnut is ready to clean brass. It takes 2 hours to clean a load of brass. The walnut media lasts 6-8 months of almost daily use. One thing of note is, the more brass that goes into the tumbler the better it cleans. The brass pushes itself along and forces itself against the media. Dumping 50 cases in the tumbler will take a lot longer to clean than 300 cases will. A half of a used drier sheet will also collect a lot of the dust and grime keeping the media cleaner for a longer time. I run 3 tumblers to clean a lot of range brass. I identify 5.56 brass as once fired only if it has crimped primer pockets. With rifle brass I clean, lube, size & decap, run 20 minutes in the tumbler to remove the lube, decrimp the primer pockets, trim, chamfer, sort by headstamp, and load. I usually hang on to the primed brass until I have at least 500 of a headstamp to load in a single lot. I find different brands of 5.56 brass grow at different rates so I keep all of them sorted that way. I will anneal them before the get trimmed again. I will trim cases again usually after the 3rd firing but some quality cases can go 5 or 6 firings without it. A certain well known name brand of brass is usually discarded after 5 reloads due to poor primer retention. Any range brass that looks to have been fired more than twice gets cut down to 300 blackout or goes into the scrap bucket. For other rifle loads I do small quantities with more attention to the little details.

This was a funny episode.

This was a great pod cast. Love hearing their stories. Lol.

Since all the comments are talking about it, here's that Lemishine recipe! -1/2 tbsp dish soap -1/8 tsp lemishine -hot water 1-2 inches above the brass Tumble for 1.5 hours. I tried it with just the dish soap yesterday, and it came out looking almost as good. I don't actually plan on using Lemishine moving forward. I also toss the SS media in a dish-cloth and put it at the top of my dryer (an old food dehydrator) and it dries it all out quite nicely.

blow the cases out with compressed air after trimming or tumbling to get the debris out.

I really don't clean brass like most do. For bottleneck rifle calibers I've always just decapped, sonic cleaned, then after it's dry ill use unique wax lube and size it, then measure it and trim if necessary, chamfer if I trim it, wipe off the lube, prime and load.

My Process is Decapping, wet Tumble, Lube and Sizeing, Trimm if nessacary, Champer and Debur then Dry Tumble to get the Lube and Brass Shavings out of the Cases and then Load

8mm mauser train still chuggin

Great podcast!! I geek out on reloading podcast and RU-vid’s. I found you guys very entertaining!

Excellent @JRB shoutout. Thoroughly entertaining and educational channel

Great episode. Much better than the rust episode.

Always a good show. Keep it up

Reloading is like buying a scope it can be done at many different price ranges. The higher level of accuracy you want the more you spend. Don't forget to include your family in the process. Passing on the information and love of Reloading and shooting is priceless.

Great episode! 6.5 guys have a video on the lanolin and 99% isopropyl alcohol mix. That's what I use. Never have had a stuck case.

Great podcast. Basically fits my setup with a few personal tweaks. I decap then resize (neck) then trim if needed. Then I wet tumble in little stainless chips not pins (smaller). After that, they go into some corn cob media that has carnuba wax in it. 30 min or so and they are dry and slick. Then a double check and reload.

I just got mentioned on the podcast

THIS is the way - ...pickup..sort...decap...wash (stainless steel media dawn +lemi shine 1h) ..size ...trim..chamfer debur...(then swage clean primer pocket neck brush whatever else is needed)...inspect...charge...seat...bang .......hornady one shot as lube have never needed a 2nd wash

Banger! 💜

Sitting at the bench reloading 224 Valkyrie tonight love the pod cast guys keep them coming....

I've had a lot of luck using a dry silicone spray for resizing. I use industrial grade spray that I was given when I worked at Dupont. 😎

STUCK CASE - Soak it in KROIL. Will come out quite easy.

The biggest screw up i made when reloading was when i purchased 5 kg of once fired .308 brass from a wholesaler for $200.00. I checked the bottoms of the casings for the calibre and they were all .308 calibre but different brands,measured the overall length and they checked out ok,measured the width against my action and checked out ok,but i didn't measure the case thickness of the brass-it turned out to be military brass so the .05 mm difference meant they wouldn't chamber in my howa 1500 .308 ! Luckily i only reloaded 50 rounds when i thought i should chamber a round to see how they load,thats when i realised the brass was too thick as it would not chamber. I ended up getting my money back and told the guy its all military brass,it wont fit in civilian firearms that are .308. Probably came out of a .308 belt fed machine gun ? Lesson learnt-only buy brass from gun shops.

Great podcast guys. Scott's a brave man trying that powder in the big gun after that 243 AI incident.

The art and science of reloading...seems in the end. The reloader needs to find what works best for him. Thanks for the perspective on what works for you fellas.

Easy fix is plug your tumbler into on of those cheap outlet timers

I use a Harley decapping tool. Nothing dirty gets near my press or dies.

You guys have made a few videos about reloading, but it has mostly been rifle reloading. Have you ever thought about doing a podcast on reloading shotgun shells?

So when in the cleaning process do you deprime?

Very Curious what the powder was that Scott was talking about. I had the same thing happen in a 243. Non AI in my case though. Very low charge and I couldn’t get the bolt open after I fired it. Had to take the gun to a smith to get the case out.

so I have read the comments (so far ) and I'm the only one who puts on the Walter White underwear and apron and only reloads in the dark by the light of a full moon ?

Send in the 6.5 BC to AMP and they will do some analysis/testing to give you the correct pilot needed. They will probably have to machine a custom one that is made.

oh man, still waiting on the podcast about bullet casting vs swaging

the AMP pilots have different heights for the specific cartridge, not just internal diameter

Scott try Southern Shine media instead of SS pins.

If you want precision loaded ammo a Mandrel is the way to go hands down. The extra step is not a big deal IF you enjoy reloading if not just buy factory ammo if you don’t do all the steps for precision ammo factory ammo will be just as accurate.

Decap, wet tumble, anneal, size then expander mandrel, trim, chamfer, debur then prime

I really want a friend that reloads (so I don't have to).

I started wet tumble without media. Seems to work.

If you're picking up brass, you KNOW for a fact, that it's never been fired more than 2 times. It would of been picked up if someone reloaded, if they don't reload they buy once or twice fired rounds only.

Ryan I don’t know how to pronounce his last name should be involved in every podcast !! Love the podcast though

If my brass didn’t fall into the dirt: 1. anneal 2. Lube and Full-Length Resize/ decap 3. Wet tumble with Dawn and LemiShine w SS pins 4. Dehydrate / dry brass. 5. Trim/ chamfer/ debur 6. Prime 7. Powder charge 8. Seat bullet

I just scored a new box of 6.5cm Alpha Brass. Guy didn't realize he ordered SRP brass. And he has no SRP's. SCORE!!!!

The interruptions are killing me man c’mon

This could have been 10 minutes 😂

Clean it last? Rather twice

Totally disagree with the order