Efficient 9mm brass processing

[Bosn Ski]

I deprime, wet tumble and dry. After that I grab a handfull and drop in a plastic 45acp tray. After shaking a little, they usually drop open side up. After a couple handfuls, the tray is full. I can check for splits before covering with a small piece of 1/4" plywood and flipping over. Once fliped over it's eazy to check headstamps and see an occasional .380 case. They also eazy to count in 50 round trays.

I use 40 S&W MTM 100 round boxes. I took the lids off and used the disc sander to clean up the edge a bit. Real easy to spot a .380 case.

 

[mdi]

When I inspect primer pockets it's just a simple glance. A primer crimp is visible and easily seen, so when I'm looking for "bad" headstamps and NATO stamps a glance at the case head and a crimp is obvious. No big deal. I inspect every case I reload so an "additional" glance at the case head is just 1/2 second more, and can alleviate potential problems...

I remember when 45 ACP cases started showing up with small primer pockets and 99% of the complaints were from those that did not look at the case heads. Just dumped a bunch of cases, sight unseen in the hopper and started cranking the handle, then cussin' up a storm and complain on a forum when a small primed case jammed up their machine...

 

[edwardware]

Was wondering what you all find to be the most efficient way. . .

None of the crimped 9mm I've encountered (~5% of pickup) was crimped well enough to require reaming or swaging. I tumble, then load.

Once a recipe is worked up, I tumble and feed it into the progressive.

 

[bullseye308]

When I shoot at my outdoor place, I set out a tarp to collect my brass. I also take a bag for the brass I pickup to keep them separate. Whatever range pickup brass I get always gets the same processing done to it. First with 9mm sized cases, I stand them up on a table and sort out the 9mm mak and 380. I deprime using a Lee decapper and base, wet tumble with dawn and lemishine, dry in the oven, ream the primer pockets if it is a caliber that may have crimps, lube, resize, trim/chamfer/debur if rifle, tumble off lube, prime, label and store in ammo cans on the rack.

I found a primer pocket reamer that screws into a pieces of cleaning rod and chucked it into my drill and that’s what I use to do all the brass I find. It is a simple system that works for me and maybe is too labor intensive for some, but time is not something I’m short of.

 

[lordpaxman]

Was wondering what you all find to be the most efficient way to process brass, decap and ream primer pockets on all brass or sort out the crimped cases, sorting is killing my eyes, was wondering if it would be better to assume all were crimped and just process accordingly. Currently I'm doing 9mm.

I gave up friggin around with crimped primers. Got an RL1100. Problem solved.

 

[deadeye dick]

Never had a problem, ever, with 9MM. Thousands of reloads, pop em, prime em, seat em.

 

[Chuck R.]

I'm lucky, with a home range whenever it looks like I'm running short of brass I simply invite the guys from work out for a shoot and ...Viola! instant couple 1000 pieces of once fired 9mm brass. Which is a good thing, because I lose a few hundred a month at matches.

My normal 9mm processing (I go through a minimum of 300rds to a max of a 1000 rds of 9mm a month):

1. Wet tumble with spent primers in

2. Dry using a re-purposed food dehydrator

3. Load on a Dillon 650 "feeling" the prime station, IF a primer "feels" like it's going hard I discard that piece of brass. At his point my time is worth more.

4. Replace discarded piece of brass with a FL sized, de-capped piece I keep in a box next to the 650 for this reason. Push the handle FWD to seat the primer, pull the handle downward to charge the case. This way I don't have an empty slot in the loading sequence.

5. When done loading, I run a few pieces of brass through the FL sizing station to obtain more spares in the box.

 

[Kaldor]

Lee APP with a case feeder, wet tumble with no pins for 2 hours, let dry and load on my LnL AP.

Do I find a few pieces of crimped stuff? Yup. But they arent worth the time to try and fix IMHO. As long as you arent jamming on the press handle, you will either find the ones that wont seat at all with gentle pressure, or sometimes you can easily push past the crimp without realizing it.