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Cleaning primer pocket help!?!?

SCKY Shooter

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Minuteman
Nov 26, 2011
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Kentucky
I just cleaned 200 primer pockets using a RCBS prep mate with the spinning wire brush. Both hands are cramping and pockets are marginal at best.

If I sonic clean will that get the grime out of the primer pockets without the wire brush??? There has to b a better way to clean a primer pocket!

Thanks guys
 
Clean or not clean, that’s up to you. I clean them, but mostly because I’m anal about seating the primers at the same depth which I figure you’re not doing if the pocket is full of bits of carbon. Actually I’m anal about everything in the reloading process. But I digress, I use the Hornady Case Prep Trio with the pocket cleaner attachment. Easy-peasy.
 
Sonic cleaning doesn’t do that good of a job and unless you have an industrial sized cleaner you can only do a handful at a time. You can wet tumble with steel media and that will get them spotless but as many said above, it doesn’t make a bit of difference on your loads.
 
I’ll do the stainless and wet tumble.

Yes, I’m seating to and exact depth, but that’s a problem with the carbon in the pockets. I’m wearing my hands out trying to get them clean.

There is no way I could seat a primer into all that shit in the pocket. I fully believe it doesn’t improve the loads but it’d just be principal for me.

I’m uniforming pockets prior to the wire brush stage, so that’s already being done.

Thank u very much for all the help guys, hopefully this will b the solution I’m looking for.
 
I’ll do the stainless and wet tumble.

Yes, I’m seating to and exact depth, but that’s a problem with the carbon in the pockets. I’m wearing my hands out trying to get them clean.

There is no way I could seat a primer into all that shit in the pocket. I fully believe it doesn’t improve the loads but it’d just be principal for me.

I’m uniforming pockets prior to the wire brush stage, so that’s already being done.

Thank u very much for all the help guys, hopefully this will b the solution I’m looking for.


If your primer pocket uniformer isn’t cleaning your primer pockets than your primer pockets have not been uniformed
 
I clean mine using hornady sonic cleaner + Hornady Case cleaning solution. Set it to 480 secs (8 mins), go watch TV, come back and again for 360 secs (6 mins). Primer pockets are 90-95% clean.

I tried detergent, lime shine, citrus acid, vinegar and etc combinations. Non worked as well as the shit Hornady sells. For me st least.
 
I still do it. I use a uniformer from Sinclair on new brass and use it to clean the carbon from fired brass. I also deburr the flash hole. Maybe I need treatment too but the few mental health professionals that I know have just as many problems as the people that they treat!

Wet tumbling with stainless media and citric acid gets primer pockets clean. I've never sonic cleaned so I don't know how well that works.
 
I used to run a uniformer in mine too. I quit too more so because some of this brass has deeper pockets than before, needed 3 firings before contact was made. I have not seen one difference in accuracy not cleaning, truthfully, the rifles I shoot today are some of the most accurate I've ever had. I am over it.
 
Uniformity primer pocket tool, use a drill with the cleaning bits for the pocket, wet tumble (lemi n dawn) for 2h, and if the pockets are still not clean I’ll take a cotton swab n rubbing alcohol if needed to clean out the rest of the gunk our.

Like everyone said, this has proven to have no effects on load development... but for whatever reason I can’t ‘not’ clean them. Whatever, I’m not reloading 1k rounds a month, so cleaning 30-50 doesn’t bother me. To each their own...
 
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