whats your routine for reloading, tumbling?

[Darklyte27]

So you got a bunch of brass you just shot,

whats your first step?
do you tumble? deprime then tumble? do you use the resizing/depriming die?
or do you have a seperate depriming die? how bout trimming? when do you trim? after you got all that resizing lube do you tumble again?

thanks

[Teletiger7]

pistol or rifle?

I just started awhile back so lets see if I can describe it right.
-1st I tumble for 2-3 hours to clean all the crud off the case. Then prep the brass (deprime, resize)
-If pistol then no lube needed when using carbide die so go ahead and prime, charge and seat the bullet.
-If rifle then I lube the cases, prep the cases and then retumble for a short time to remove lube(1/2-1 hour) then prime,charge and seat(may crimp or not depending on the load and rifle being used)

[What Just Happened?]

For pistol, I do the same as Teletiger. I use lead bullets, so I don't wanna tumble afterwards.

[Jon Se]

For rifles I tumble then lube and deprime/resize with the die. If primer pockets are too dirty I'll use a cleaning tool.

[JamesY]

For rifle, I do the following:

-tumble for a few hours. My brass looks brand new after this.
-lube
-resize/deprime
-inspect cases/discard bad ones
-throw cases in headspace gage/discard bad ones
-trim
-swage primer pockets
-tumble for a few min
-remove media from primer holes
-prime
-charge
-seat bullet

I usually do each step when I have about 500 cases to do. One day I'll do one step, another day I'll do the other and so on. Usually takes a few days so I don't get stuck doing them all in one day.

[CSACANNONEER]

For pistol brass, I tumble first then put in through my 550B and loaded ammo comes out the other side.

For rifle brass,

Tumble
Brush the inside of the neck to remove sealer etc.
De-cap & Size (without expander ball)
Expand the neck with an expanderiron
Outside neck turn
Swage or ream primer crimp
Uniform primer pockets
De-bur flash hole
Trim on a Giraurd trimmer (no need to de-bur cases)

note: by this time most, if not all the Iperial sizing wax has been removed by handling. If any is left, I just wipe it off. The remaining residue hasn't been an issue for me yet.

Sort cases by weight (it is a quicker way to get them in order of case capacity)
Seat primers in order (already sorted by weight)
Weigh each charge on a Denver Instrument balance
Charge case
Seat bullets (already sorted by weight)
Check bullet run out
Go to a match and attempt to shoot <moa groups at 1000 yards

For plinking rifle rounds, some of these steps can be neglected.

[Corbin Dallas]

Pistol:

Tumble
Load
Shoot


Rifle:

Tumble
Lube
Load
Shoot

Easy as pie

[AlexBreya]

(For my .308 brass)

1. punch out the primer
2. put in cleaning solvent
3. dry off
4. lube
5. put in full length sizer
6. put primer in
7. put powder in
8. seat bullet

(i don't trim the ends because with the brass/low powder loads i use, they don't expand enough to need it, nor do i crimp the bullets, so its all good)

[Bruce3]

Pistol
tumble
load
shoot
repeat

Rifle
tumble
lube
size
tumble
trim
load
shoot
repeat

[Army GI]

Pistol:

Tumble
Load
Shoot


Rifle:

Tumble
Lube
Load
Shoot

Easy as pie

+1

No need to get OCD with tumbling your brass 3 times in for a single loading, IMHO.

[Nodda Duma]

I've tumbled thousands of rounds with the same batch of crushed walnut shells (I would periodically recharge with polishing media I borrow from my telescope making hobby..zirconium oxide specifically) and today decided to try to recycle the media. Dumped it out of the tumbler into water and washed until all the soot was gone. That took a long time since I've tumbled so much brass with it. Drained it well, and I'm now letting it sit out to dry overnight (actually running it in the tumbler out in the garage to circulate the media and dry thoroughly).

If it's dry in the morning, I'll recharge with more polishing powder and run some brass during the day while I'm at work. I can't think of any reason that you can't reuse walnut shells for a long time...as long as you're willing to tumble longer as they wear down.

-Jason

[Darklyte27]

Thanks all, I was refering to Rifle brass, since im still fairly new at reloading I was trying to get input on what was better/efficient, to deprime first with a universal depriming die and then tumble, lube, resize and then tumble again to remove lube?

or just tumble first and do the lube deprime/resize at once, but then dont you have to tumble again to remove lube?
or is there lube that doesnt need to be removed?

[kap]

I think the tumble, load, shoot crowd is right for typical plinking rounds. If you are looking to make very precise loads for long distance accuracy I you need to be very thorough with your case prep to get consistency.

I've tumbled thousands of rounds with the same batch of crushed walnut shells (I would periodically recharge with polishing media I borrow from my telescope making hobby..zirconium oxide specifically) and today decided to try to recycle the media. Dumped it out of the tumbler into water and washed until all the soot was gone. That took a long time since I've tumbled so much brass with it. Drained it well, and I'm now letting it sit out to dry overnight (actually running it in the tumbler out in the garage to circulate the media and dry thoroughly).

If it's dry in the morning, I'll recharge with more polishing powder and run some brass during the day while I'm at work. I can't think of any reason that you can't reuse walnut shells for a long time...as long as you're willing to tumble longer as they wear down.

-Jason

I like to sift out the dust from my media after a few thousand rounds of pistol brass. I don't think I would bother cleaning it though. That seems like a little overkill on recycling. I actually think used media (i.e. over 1000 rounds) works way more efficiently than brand new media. Used corn cob media seems to get all the powder residue out of the inside of 9mm brass in about 30 minutes compared with hours for brand new media.

[Chaingun]

Pistol:
-Tumble for 1 hour
- Reload

Rifle:
- If dirty tumble for 1/2 hr
- Lube, size, deprime and check head space
- Remove mil crimp (.223)
- Case size
- Tumble for 1 hr
- Reload