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I have been having a tidy up in my reloading shed and have found a box of re-sized, trimed and primed cases. They are rather dull from storage and I was wondering if it would be OK to pop them in case tumbler for a while to clean them up. The tumbler uses crushed walnut shell as a cleaning media....

Any problems...??????

Best to pop the primers out first IMHO

I wouldn't tumble them either! - but if you have a lee length gauge and holder - pop them in the holder and your drill and a quick spin with very fine wire wool or scotch brite and hey presto - spotless clean cases (Safe!)

Mike

I doubt making them shiny will make them go bang any better. :lol:

Load em and shoot em!

Interestingly I've just tumbled 50 primed 6mm Musgrave cases, in error I must add.

After I had disccovered my mistake I checked each case individually with a bore light for debris in the primer flash hole and give them a brush out with a sable paint brush to clean out any dust.

Just loaded and shot them today and they performed as expected, tedious 1 1/4" 110 yrd groups.

But no I wouldn't recommend tumbling primed cases.

Give them a quick external wipe over and as Mike says they will no doubt go bang.

I've done it before for exactly the reasons you give, found a load I'd prepped and put away. I didn't have any issues then and I reckon I'd have no problem doing it again.

I tumble primed cases if they have tarnished while waiting to be loaded or are a bit tacky after using spray lube. I also tumble my loaded ammo for a few minutes to remove any traces of lubricant, body oils from my fingers etc. most manufacrurers give a final few minutes tumble to facory ammo for the same reasons.

There have been multiple threads about this on most of themajor US forums and all of the tests I've seen come to the same conclusion, tumbling even up to several hours causes no problems with powder or primer degradation or changes to load/performance. Also worth bearing in mind is the vast majority of ammo is shipped thousands if not millions of miles each year by road and rail with enormous amounts of vibration.