Cleaning cases are they really clean, do they need to be?

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swampratt

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Ok so I thought I would pull my vibratory cleaner out of the retirement corner and I got new walnut media and started cleaning cases and loading them.

I was doing some ladder testing in .308 and was basically "match" prepping my cases.
The cases spent 12 hours in the walnut media.
Blown off and brushed out annealed and then brushed again and lubed and full length sized.
Then the shocker I must clean the lube from inside the case necks.
The shocker part is the QTips were filthy after cleaning the case neck ID.

They got brushed again and then trimmed and then chamfered and deburred and brushed again and then another pass with Q-Tips.
Still slightly dirty.

I am going back to pin tumbling.
I pulled my expander from the sizer die and it is filthy from the dozen cases I sized.

Bullet seating forces were very even ..that is a plus.
Some say that carboned neck inside is actually beneficial and acts as a lube.
And may keep the bullets from "welding" themselves to the case.

I have not tested that.

I just do not like dirty necks I suppose..
They probably do not need to be that clean anyway.
 

tyromeo55

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reloading dirty or clean brass they all seem to shoot the same. I think clean brass is easier on the dies and gun chamber but that is about it.

I know that I completely wore out a 300BO die resizing pickup brass that was not cleaned
 

swampratt

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I can see the wear created on my expanding stem..I actually polish it to a chrome luster and sizing cases is super easy.
But after those walnut cleaned and brushed cases have a go at it the stem developes scratches.

10 years ago that is the way i sized cases..and just thought the stem will wear out ..But my dies got scratched up also leaving scratches on my case.
So wearing out the 300BO die i can definitely see it happening.

300BO has not been around that long either.
 

swampratt

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I read one article a few years ago that forced me to built a pin tumbler.

In the article a bench rest shooter was talking about throat or lead erosion on his bench rest guns and knew how many rounds he could shoot before he had to change the seating depth of his bullet to get the accuracy back up a bit.
The lead area would erode from the carbon that was left in the case was his theory.
SO he set out to prove that theory.
A barrel was again made by the same manufacturer as he was always getting and he only shot perfectly cleaned brass from it and
went on to say that it had much less erosion at the same round count and something like you could possibly shoot it 2X more before changing the OAL of the load vs the brush and wipe down case.

He said that carbon left in a case gets very hard and it goes down the barrel with the powder and creates the erosion.

You guys ever think of that or read about that. Made me want a pin tumbler or sonic cleaner. I can't remember which he used.

But i scored a treadmill for free and built a pin tumbler.
 

Cowcatcher

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^^ same as them fellas minus the brush and +1 on the one shot and I run some brass polish in my media. So...maybe almost like those guys.
 

RustedBeef

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I rise my cases in soap water, then set them out to dry. All I'm looking for is to get the dirt off them, but I'm only reloading straight-walled pistol rounds. They don't look pretty... maybe I'll get a tumbler sometime.
 

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