Got a bunch of primered brass at a sale but not sure if it was sized or not. I would like to tumble them to clean them up before sizing. I can take the primer punch out of the sizing die.

Is there a better way to clean up primered brass before sizing other than tumbling?

Thanks

I would punch them out and start over with new primers. Not knowing what’s in there now would keep me up at night. And I would never clean brass in any fashion with primers in them.

You’ll get more feedback here I’m sure. Just my take on the question you posed.

I've never punched out a live primer. Any problems doing that.

Thanks for your feedback on tumbling with live primer. That's what I thought.

I’ve punched out many live primers. No issues.

See if the neck is smaller than the bullet you are going to use , see if the brass will chamber in your rifle . That will tell you if it was resized enough to use . There is no problem at all with tumbling primed cases . I have done 1000's over the years . For most rifle loads the primer will not make much of a difference , What cases do you have ? If you just have to punch them out , done slow will be no problem .

This is good advice. And you can even tumble live rounds to clean them up after you load them. A little grime on the outside won't hurt your dies.

I am talking about .222 Remington brass. I really don't have a tumbler but a vibrator that uses ground corn meal for media. It does a great job on the fired primer cases, just was wondering about the live primer case. Sounds like HickHunter has done thousands of cases. I might put a few in there and see what happens. I don't think a small rifle primer going off in the vibrator will do much harm with all that media around it.

I like the advice of trying the primered rounds in the rifle and see if they fit. It does not look like the necks are expanded but I'll try fitting a bullet in. Good advice. Thanks.

Food for thought. I still wouldn’t do it. Not worth the trouble or savings.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/is-it-ok-to-re-tumble-primed-brass.336187/

Tumbled .338 Lapua Mag with Fed-215 in place two days ago.

No problem at all.

Only thing I can think of that might be a problem tumbling primed brass is the flash holes getting full of stuck media. Some good suggestions

Haven't done it in a long time but I have resized primed brass, just remove the decapping pin before sizing.

Thanks guys for all the comments and great suggestions.

I have not tried tumbling primed brass but I have punched primers out and re-used them.

Yes. Tumble away.

And yes, pushing out live primers and re-using them is not uncommon.

tumble

see if they chamber easily, if so, load n shhot

Follow up:

I could not chamber the brass. The brass got stuck in the chamber. Had to use a cleaning rod to get it out. That answers that question.

I will knock out the live primers, vibrate in corn cob medium until clean, blow out the flash holes with an air compressor and load as normal.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

I think we can button up this thread as being solved.

If you are going to deprime live primers, please be careful. A very good friend of mine is now blind in one eye and has limited vision in the other from knocking out live primers. He was wearing eye protection as well. One went off............... The rest is history. I always suggest that when someone wants to do this, take the primed cases and load one and fire it where you can see what they can do. Late in the day is best to see all the fire they produce. Then decide what you are going to do.

Be careful man.

Frio

Frio:

Thank you for that. Now you put the fear in me of depriming live primers.

Change in plans. I'll wipe the outside of the primed cases with denatured alcohol to get off any grunge. I won't vibrate the primed cases. I'll just have dirty looking reloads.

I'll pull the depriming rod out of the sizing die and resize, and go from there. I think that's the safest and most prudent approach.

Thanks again for all the comments.

I personally think you are smart going that route. It's not like John didn't know anything about reloading when that happened, we started together back in 1963. Just think about how that primer is made and it should scare the crap outta you. I would go the route you are planning to use. No pin, size them, shoot them, then start over.

Yeah, no reason to de-prime just to size. Pull the primer rod out of the size die and size away.

Tumbled another 50 pieces of .338 Lapua Mag brass, with Fed-215 in place for 8 hours yesterday. Nothing bad happened.