Pulled Bullets - Wash Primed Brass?

[Raralith]

I've got 100 S&W rounds of unknown reloads that I took apart with a kinetic hammer. The brass is still primed since I only dumped the powder, and it doesn't look too clean on the inside. Should I clean the inside of the brass? If so, I don't have a tumbler so can I use water and sun dry it?

[M27]

You can't clean primed brass with out being dangerous or makeing the primer inert.

The danger comes in using a cob or walnut tumbler plugging the flash hole and causing a squib. Or one just going off in your tumbler.

As soon as you get the primers wet they will be inert. And they won't dry well with out being deprimed first.

In the end, unless there is dirt in the cases you are probably fine. Carbon doesn't matter.

[Ghost_Maker]

Just deprime the live primers... save them... Just be cautious when doing it... I just finished depriming 5k .223 that were bad production reloads.. didn't have 1 pop on me..

[Bill Steele]

I agree with both suggestions above. You don't need to clean the cases, when you constantly reload, you will have carbon on the inside, it won't affect the load at all. If they are dirty and have grit on the outside, you can put them in a lightly dampened towel and wipe them off in bulk.

You can deprime live primers with your sizing/decap die as the primer material is on the other side of the anvil to where the decap pin will punch it.

If you want to load those primed cases, you can remove the decap pin on your sizing die, it will size the case mouth and not touch the primer. You then charge the case, seat the bullet and away you go.

Good luck, have fun.

[Munk]

Don't worry about the "dirt" on the inside. It's just old carbon. Just make sure you give them a few good taps on your benchtop to knock any remaining powder out of the flash hole.