I second mossy33oak. Tumbling the brass as a final process before reloading.

Everybody does simular things.

New brass, I always size and trim and deburr. Never tumble. I might sort by neck concentricity depending on what I a wanting to do. Or neck thickness or wieght.

Then just load and shoot. Shouldn't have to trim again until 3 firings for most brass. I always deprime separately with universal deprimer. Depending how dirty, I might tumble to usually get off the sharpie marks. Don't want grim and stuff up in my dies. I always keep a fireformed case to measure the shoulders, to set up my FL sizer not to touch the shoulders. I take out my expander ball totally and put thru my sizer. I then expand as a separate operation. I see this does a good job at not pulling the necks out of round so much. I used to just pull the expander all the way to the top of the die but still wasn't satisfired at my results. I then use a 30degree chamfer to make bullet seating easy. Prime and load.

BigBob .30-06

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Mr Longbeard,

One of the least expensive tools you can spend money on is a universal decapping die. One die does all. I use mine to remove all primers, and then clean the primer pockets. Cases then go into the case cleaner. With the burnt carbon already gone, the cleaning media stays cleaner, useable, longer. The cases are resized and trim for length after being removed ftom the cleaner. Once the cases have been sizeded and trimed, they go back into the cleaner to remove all lube. When removed from the cleaner the second time, I either load them or put them into ammo boxes to be stored until they will be loaded. I hope that this is of some help. Good luck.
Bob

< Message edited by BigBob .30-06 -- 6/7/2005 11:20:41 PM >




I too reload like you do, I reload as follows
1)use a universal depriming die first,
2) clean the primer pockets
3) next tumble
4) resize
5) tumble to clean off lube
6) check length and trim if needed
7) debur and chamfer as needed
8) prime
9) add powder and top off with bullet

Idahoelkinstruct,

Please excuse my delay in answering you. I was sidetracked by cataract surgery.
I think a handloader evolves over time. As we start, things are kept pretty simple. As we learn and get curious, things start to get complicated. When we see the results of the improved accuracy of our reloads, we're usually hooked. In my case, it's the procedure followed on virgin cases that gets complicated. Good luck and God bless.
Bob

I will throw each day's brass in walnut media to tumble for a couple hours to give them a good cleaning. Then for straight wall pistol brass, I go ahead and resize them, bell the mouths, clean the primer pockets, and then polish them in treated corncob - then they are ready to reload. For shouldered cases, I use the Universal De-primer to pop the primers, clean the pockets and polish them in the conrncob too. Then when I'm ready to load my rifle cases, I lube with Imperial wax, size, and polish for another hour before loading them.