Case Cleaning the better way.

Rally

NC Minnesota
Rick,
What does that tool look like? I have something similar on my RCBS case prep station. I’m not sure who made it anymore. Takes out any crimp and leaves a clean uniform pocket.
 

Gary

SE Kansas
I don’t think that’s possible, I could be wrong though. I’m speaking about the anneal being affected by the steel pins.
 
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Rootmanslim

Banned
"I read it somewhere, sometime, but I can't find the source, but I'll repeat it anyway."

The earlier versions of: "It must be true, I read it on the internet."

Why would you bother to look it up ? Nah, just blurt it out.

Took 15 seconds to find this.

"Annealing, in metallurgy and materials science, is a heat treatment that alters the physical and sometimes chemical properties of a material to increase its ductility and reduce its hardness, making it more workable. It involves heating a material above its recrystallization temperature, maintaining a suitable temperature for a suitable amount of time, and then cooling."

When someone can splain' how low velocity collisions, with stainless steel pins, in cool water can undo a heat treating process, I want to learn.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Yep, annealing brass is all the way through. It's possible since brass work hardens that it could work it some, don't know how one would go about testing how much unless ya had to anneal the brass more often.
 

Ian

Notorious member
I use a Redding PP depth uniforming tool, essentially identical to the Sinclair. Chuck the hex drill adapter in the lathe and zip through a bucket of brass real quick.

Rick, you mentioned something I hadn't really thought through before but see frequently come to think of it: Brass moving back into the pocket after firing. .30-30 is the worst offender so far, I go ahead and uniform that stuff every full-power firing because the primers tend to be proud or at least very difficult to seat if I don't. Lately I've been seeing that with .308 Win and commercial brass, too. Never noticed it with the military brass.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
federal is really bad about needing pockets cut, it's pretty rare they don't clean up a little every time I put them on the cutter, it might have to do with the inside shape of the case.

the one thing the pins [or the motion of the cases rolling over] will do is round over the case mouth and they need champhered again afterwards.

I don't think the action is violent enough to peen the cases hard again like you would do to a crank shaft or other piece of steel to harden it.
the pins roll with the cases and slide down them just like walnut does to scratch the surface clean.
peening is more a bouncing action over and over again and will work harden a surface.
the pins just remove the coloring from the surface that the annealing process left behind.
 
F

freebullet

Guest
I don't clean the nonmag pistol brass much. Turn over to high...

I remember the possible work hardening discussions, wasn't much to it after the pin size got worked out. I remember numerous pin sizes being available in the early days of the process. They'd get stuck inside cases/flash holes, so hard they'd bulge cases from the inside, then the work hardening discussion began. Shortly thereafter the pin size became standardised for the process & the issues went away. So yeah, they can ruin cases, but no, now they largely dont.

The fact is that media comes in so many forms for so many processes it can't be listed completely. Many can be used wet or dry for various reasons. I see gripes about dust with dry methods, like all things in life the issue is simply resolved. I add 1-2oz oms to the corn cob, no dust, easy. If there were only one way to skin a cat life would be boring. No need for so much bluntly negative disregard for everyone's own trials. If it works, it works.
 

Reed

Active Member
"I read it somewhere, sometime, but I can't find the source, but I'll repeat it anyway."

The earlier versions of: "It must be true, I read it on the internet."

Why would you bother to look it up ? Nah, just blurt it out.

Took 15 seconds to find this.

"Annealing, in metallurgy and materials science, is a heat treatment that alters the physical and sometimes chemical properties of a material to increase its ductility and reduce its hardness, making it more workable. It involves heating a material above its recrystallization temperature, maintaining a suitable temperature for a suitable amount of time, and then cooling."

When someone can splain' how low velocity collisions, with stainless steel pins, in cool water can undo a heat treating process, I want to learn.

You're right. I should have looked for and re-read the source I vaguely referred to. Here's what I read (quite a while back) and my bad memory for details generalized it a little far.
"NECK MOUTH.... On the left is a brand new 243 Win brass and you can see the rolled over edges of the mouth do (sic) to the hammering that occurs in the polishing process. Also the hammered area is work hardened and locally, is no longer in the annealed state." https://www.varmintal.com/arelo.htm
 

Intheshop

Banned
Hey Reed, Varmint Al helped me a bunch years and years ago make some decisions on machine tools.... for which I will always be in debt.

Root,Al's site is one of the oldest on the net. His engineering work on vibration analysis is,hard to put into words that you'd understand but,a metric in the area. So,speak for yourself when posturing.... he is highly qualified. Carry on.
 

Rootmanslim

Banned
Okay, I won't say anything bad about another website, fact remains that if one follows MY normal sequence of case prep, there will be no "ring" around the case mouth.

  1. Decap the case
  2. Tumble clean
  3. Uniform primer pockets
  4. Size the cases
  5. Trim to uniform length
  6. Chamfer necks
  7. Load em'up
I also note that the NOS 220 Swift cases I cleaned show no such ring around the mouth, I can see that if a case with a VLD chamfer were tumble cleaned, the mouth could get deformed. But who loads a case fresh from cleaning with no further prep ?

T8ebI1h.jpg
 
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Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Why would that be "the normal" method of brass prep? Not my sequence plus I do tumble in corn cob.
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
Nothing wrong with your case prep sequence, if it works for you that’s great. I don’t do it the way you do it for many good reasons. That doesn’t make me wrong, just as doing it differently from me doesn’t make you wrong.

We all like to share what we know with other people, especially when we have found something we think is great. I do that here all the time about the things I know best. But I also acknowledge that (a) I could be wrong, and (b) what’s best for me in my circumstances may not be the best for someone in different circumstances.

I know that text only communication can sometimes cause understanding issues, you can’t see someone’s facial expressions or hear their tone of voice, so I try to be very careful with my words, not always successfully. But I joined to learn and share and not be combative about my point of view. It makes it much easier to change my mind as I learn new things.

Just a thought on how to play together in the same sandbox.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
There are a lot of ways to skin the cat. Regardless of someone's methods if they are happy with their results they are very much doing it the right way for them. That has no bearing on anyone else's methods or if they are right or wrong. Everyone has their own experiences, teachings, results. Making a post of how they do any particular step in the casting, reloading process does not mean they are saying anyone else is wrong, they are simply posting how they do it. That's how we learn, by seeing the vastness of this hobby and the many ways of doing things.
 

Rootmanslim

Banned
Edited original post. "MY normal method". It produces cases that are as good as new Nosler, the best factory prepped cases according to Zediker.