Decap before or after cleaning?

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Marshal Tom

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I've been getting back into reloading after many years of not doing it. I have two Dillons that are both 450's converted to 550's in the past. I think I just use to dacap after cleaning as I was reloading but as of late, I started to decap prior to cleaning. My thinking is that it is best to clean out the primer pockets. I have a bunch of fired shells that need to be decayed so I am wondering which is best??? I have many in each condition at the moment.
 
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In almost sixty years of handloading, I've yet to see rifle or handgun brass primer pockets that needed cleaning or that had such a buildup of fired primer residue that it interfered with seating a new primer. There are always exceptions. It hurts nothing to clean primer pockets, but it's busy work rather than an essential handloading procedure.

If I have brass that's hit the ground, I have two choices and I've done both: wipe off the brass before resizing and depriming so that tiny grit, etc. doesn't scratch the inside of the sizing die. Or, run the brass through a tumbler or vibratory machine minimally, just enough to remove any sand or dirt particles from the outside of the case before sizing and depriming.

As for media stuck in a flash hole, I examine every case if I I've tumbled deprimed brass; takes but a fraction of a second to look at a handful of brass and it's an extra opportunity to examine your brass. I use an icepick-type punch to remove media from a flash hole.
 
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In the past, I have let the Dillon do the depriming. However, a couple of years ago my good friend Tennexplorer gave me a huge bag of dirty 45acp brass. Another local friend had just started using the small stainless steel rods and liquid to tumble cases.

I have an RCBS universal deprimer, and I deprimed the cases and then let the friend tumble them. I have never seen such clean cases. I doubt the cases will ever get that dirty in my life. I still have the depriming rod in place so every case is also checked by the 550.

I have other cases I have had for years that I tumble. I leave the primers in them.
 
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I decap everything and tumble before sticking dirty cases on my clean press. The order of steps that follows depends on whether I'm loading handgun or rifle. I especially like having the inside of the case clean too. It helps keep neck tension consistent, which helps with velocity consistency.
 
Decap, clean via sonic wet cleaner with Dawn & Lemishine, dry in toaster oven. check primer pockets and clean the ones that have gook remaining.
 
Take my range brass and throw it in my Dillon vibratory cleaner for a few hours. Take it out and reload on 550 or 650. No need for all that extra prep to handgun brass. Waste of time
 
I use an old Lyman vibratory case cleaner and I de-prime after cleaning. With crushed corncob media, there will almost always be a tiny piece of media stuck in the flash hole, but the de-priming pin takes care of that. If I de-prime and then clean the cases, the primer pockets are likely to come out packed full of media plus have a piece stuck in the flash hole.
 
I’m in the decap first, then wet tumble camp. I would say decapping first or not would depend on how you clean. If you dry tumble in a vibratory, then you might want to decap after. That way, you won’t have the media plugging the primer pockets. If you wet tumble, I would decap first, so the primer pockets get clean.

I decap with a universal decapping die on a Lee APP, then wet tumble. I prime off-press with either a RCBS universal hand primer, or a RCBS shell holder hand primer for the cases that don’t like the universal, like the .32 cases and .45AR. Subsequently, I have removed the decapping pins from all of my sizing dies.

Some say the extra steps are a waste of time, but I enjoy doing it and really like the clean, shiny brass I end up with.
 
If I am wet tumbling I decap first to clean the primer pockets but I would not say it is necessary. The worst part of wet tumbling is the pins getting stuck in some cases like 357 or my 38-55. I am switching to the stainless chip to avoid that headache. I digress.
Vibratory cleaning they go from fired into the tub then decap after.
 
Not that it matters, but I use a universal decapper before I tumble my brass. That probably isn't necessary but it's what I do. I did notice the primer pockets being cleaner when I did that. That probably doesn't matter either. The universal decapper has a stronger pin so they don't break.

When I size the pin goes through the primer hole and takes out any medium that got in there.

So I'm doing an extra step that isn't necessary but some people take their reloading to farther extremes than that. They actually brush or scrape the primer pockets, which is what the manuals tell you to do.
 
I’m kind of OCD but I just like clean and shiny brass. When I come home from the range I wet tumble without pins just to get them clean enough for the dies. Just add hot water and soap and let the tumbler do the work. Then I deprime/resize and expand the brass. When I have enough for a real tumbling session they get wet tumbler with pins and dried in a case dryer. A quick dry tumble with crushed walnut and Nu-Finish to polish them up. They look like new. Don’t recall ever getting any media stuck in the primer pockets. The media separator gets it all out. I hand-prime so I would notice any walnut in the pocket.

But I haven’t loaded a round in over a year anyway. The component shortage has slowed my shooting way down.
 
Deprime with either a LEE or RCBS decapping die, wet tumble with pins, resize the dry clean cases, expand per the intended bullet and hand prime...

Then all that's left is powder, seating & the crimp.

Cheers!

P.S. My sizing dies look like new.
 
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