I have about 300 rounds of just filthy primed brass. To dirty to run through my dies. I was thinking very hot water and dish soap to clean it up.

Will water deactivate the primers?

Once I have them clean I can either deprime them or pop them off in a rifle.

Any thoughts? Its a pretty fair amount say 200-300 rounds or so, thats why I was thinking a good bath for the whole batch. They are definately greasy and it looks like a mixture of bullet lube, brass corrosion particles, and maybe even a oddball flake of powder. Definately filthy stuff, and I wouldn't trust any of the primers anyway.

Why not fire it to deactivate the primers and then tumble it?

Give it a twist with 0000 steel wool to clean it and then shoot. Then again you say the primers may not be any good anyway, why not just take it out and bury it?

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why not just take it out and bury it

No I want it its all once fired brass, just old and dirty. I want to resize it.

Its way too dirty to put in a rifle before cleaning of some kind, it would gunk up a bore in a heartbeat, and would be a bich cleaning up the bore after about three rounds I am afraid.

Put it in some mesh type bags and throw it in the washing machine with the next load of dirty jeans. Trust me, this really works on nasty brass. Then just pop them off in the rifle or deprime (carefully) as usual.

I don't know about the other guys.. I do like Craigster's suggestion tho...

However, I tumble brass with primers in them here and there... and it has never harmed the primers or stopped them from discharging once the round is loaded...

If you have a universal depriming die.. from Lee they are like $7.00... I actually use them for all of my depriming.. regardless of it being an extra step....
They work on 17 Remingtons to 460 Weatherbys... so they won't touch your brass except the primer hole....If you want to deprime before tumbling...

I have deprimed brass and then used the unfired primers once again...no problems their either...

Now I have just got to find me a mesh bag to try out Craigster's suggestion... Can't have enough ideas reloading....

cheers
seafire

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Put it in some mesh type bags and throw it in the washing machine with the next load of dirty jeans. Trust me, this really works on nasty brass. Then just pop them off in the rifle or deprime (carefully) as usual.

I'll have to wait till Moma bear is gone for that stunt, I just bought her a new front loader and that is a battle I know for sure I would loose. Hmmm but the laundromat might be work, wonder if the silverware tray in the dishwasher would work

I was already told I couldn't use a pot to boil it.

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Originally posted by schromf:

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Put it in some mesh type bags and throw it in the washing machine with the next load of dirty jeans. Trust me, this really works on nasty brass. Then just pop them off in the rifle or deprime (carefully) as usual.

I'll have to wait till Moma bear is gone for that stunt, I just bought her a new front loader and that is a battle I know for sure I would loose. Hmmm but the laundromat might be work, wonder if the silverware tray in the dishwasher would work

I was already told I couldn't use a pot to boil it.

I use a mixture of salt (handfull)and vinigar(1 litre) , just dump the cases in it ,give it 5 min and wipe them with a rag, this will get 98% of the crud off, after that you can deprime or fire them off or whatever you want.

If I read your statement correctly, you say it is once fired brass, so I take it the primers have already been spent.

If that's the case, no pun, just tumble or wet media clean the cases and then resize and deprime and your ready to go.

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I use a mixture of salt (handfull)and vinigar(1 litre) , just dump the cases in it ,give it 5 min and wipe them with a rag,

I used this today, cleaned the whole mess up in a snap. I used water, a couple of tablespoons of salt and about a cup of vinegar, heated it to almost boiling then turned off the heat and dumped in the brass. Cleaned up real easy.

Thanks for the tip.