Reloading Tips According To Dicehorn #9

[dicehorn 38]

Tumbler or Ultrasonic (my last rant .....I think!!)

 

 

Now this is just my humble opinion.

 

I must confess I am somewhat perplexed by a certain question that appears on this forum and others - that question usually starts something like 'Tumbler or Ultrasonic?' My question is 'What is the point of a tumbler or ultrasonic?'

 

 

I've got them both and gave up using them five years ago - I realized I was just wasting my time - and ultrasonic - what a messy business - acid in, cook for ten minutes, neutralize for ten minutes, 10 hours on the radiator, 20 minutes in gas mark 4 or 230c. Even chucking them in the dishwasher. What really is the point - shiny brass is not more accurate than smooth dull brass - its just a feel good factor. When I put my shiny tumbled cases under a pocket microscope the whole surface area appeared to be scatched to hell - that put me off further cleaning.

 

 

I read on a forum that if you dont clean the inside body of the case there will be a gradual build up of burnt powder that will keep increasing and reduce case volume which in turn will cause pressure issues. I have some Lapua on their 24th firing - still the same speed over the chronograph. The nearest my cases come to being cleaned is that a take a little cotton wooled brasso (duraglit) just to clean the necks/shoulder - more to ensure that there are no neck splits and that the neck has an easy passage into the bushing.

 

 

Oh, and the ultrasonic cleans primer pockets? - yes it does, but with brass flow on firing, does it maintain your primer depth at 122 thou (small) or 131 thou (large) - answer no, so you have to use a primer pocket uniformer which does the complete job of cleaning the primer pocket and uniforming it at the same time.

 

I could understand the merits of using both these methods if cases had lumps of solid dirt or signs of oxidation on them which could have an adverse affect when going through the die. Hell, if I had those problems on my cases, they would be binned.

 

 

Far better for reloaders to concentrate on making their cases clones of each other and paying particular attention to their shoulder datum lengths, how much of the neck to resize and neck tensions, also weighing new cases to ascertain fluctuations in case volume. Not forgetting a rigid rifle cleaning regime.

 

To my simple mind having shiny cases is equivalent to putting a GT sticker on a Nissan Micra thinking it will make the car go 20 mph faster.

 

 

Shiny cases? - fool's gold