Worth primer pocket uniforming or just cleaning

[joojoobeans]

Hi guys,

I do target shooting for myself. I'm not a serious competitor but I like to do as well as I can.

About the carbon crap (whatever it is) that builds up in the primer pockets, how advantageous really is it to uniform them all?

I've been cleaning mine with a cut off brass brush. Primers load and are ejected with the dies fine. Is there any point in me doing more?

[Warrigul]

I seldom even clean the primer pocket at all nowadays.

[cruze82]

I see it as your not going to disadvantage yourself by doing it so if you feel you have the time and patience go for it

you only need to do the uniforming process once then its back to jut cleaning them and you have been doing that any way

[Jack V]

Sooner or later you will strike some crook brass with shallow out of shape pockets and uniforming will be required to get good consistent primer seating.

You only need to uniform once and then just clean after that. A cut off brush will not do the job well . A scraper of some kind is better grind down a flat blade screw driver and round the side edges so they don't scrape but keep the end flat and square so it scrapes as it revolves around . A few twists with that and it's done.

Or buy a Lyman PP cleaner tool. You can just use the Uniformer as a cleaner all the time but it blunts the cutters so it's an expensive way to do it .

Once you uniform the primer pockets you can then feel how much better the primers seat and then you also see how crap the primer pockets are made .

[tarnagulla]

Depends on calibre? For example, if you shoot .223, and want to use ex-military once-fired brass, you might need to ream out any primer crimping, to allow seating of a standard small rifle primer. For commercial brass, cleaning of primer pockets is pretty much a waste of time, unless you are chasing bench-rest accuracy.

[Jack V]

I guess you could say that about many reloading techniques but what is the whole purpose of reloading?

For most it's not about cost it's about producing better ammo than you can buy and chase every bit of accuracy you can get. So I feel it is not a waste of time to get good consistent primer seating. If you never clean the primer pocket eventually the carbon build up starts to affect good seating and starts to clog up the flash hole to some degree.

Once the base of the primer pocket gets badly fouled with carbon the primer skirt and anvil feet can not seat down as well as it should and in some cases this can contribute to miss fires.

[joojoobeans]

you only need to do the uniforming process once then its back to jut cleaning them and you have been doing that any way

That's not too bad then.

No need to periodically re-uniform them as they're used?

[Tiiger]

Sooner or later you will strike some crook brass with shallow out of shape pockets and uniforming will be required to get good consistent primer seating.

To OP,

You can probably see this already. Grab a few of your loaded cartridges and compare the primers. Many will be flush with the brass but a few will surely be skewed because of the pocket.

[Jack V]

you only need to do the uniforming process once then its back to jut cleaning them and you have been doing that any way

That's not too bad then.

No need to periodically re-uniform them as they're used?

Yes , not unless you are really fastidious . Over the life of a case one uniform of the primer pocket will gain 99% of the benefits .

[joojoobeans]

Not fastidious.

Like I said just doing this for my own fun, but like to do it properly. Not obsessed with the case prep though like some serious shooters are.

Once I can do.

[Herdsman]

Not obsessed with the case prep though

*cough* Chronos *cough*

[Lorgar]

I seldom even clean the primer pocket at all nowadays.

I don't bother either.

Tumble, flick out the bit of media in the flash hole if one has stuck in there, load 'em up.

Wouldn't do anything for me if I did.

[Jack V]

To each his own but once you have done it I bet you keep doing it .

[Lorgar]

Not knocking those who do.

"Wouldn't do anything for me if I did." - I should have said my hand loads are already more than accurate enough for hunting which is what I do, so there is no need for me to do it.

To each his own as you say.

[Weepy]

I sometimes just give mine a twist with a fitting flat head screwdriver to get the crap out.

It's not uniforming them obviously but is a quick way to remove the crap, just takes half a second.

[Jack V]

Not knocking those who do.

"Wouldn't do anything for me if I did." - I should have said my hand loads are already more than accurate enough for hunting which is what I do, so there is no need for me to do it.

To each his own as you say.

We all have to find what works for us and that's fine by me. No need to explain .

[Farmjer]

FYI, Dremel with a brush attachment works well for cleaning too

[Jack V]

It's amazing how handy a Dremel is once you have one. If you have a lot of cases to prepare having some power options sure takes the work out of it .

[Fujix]

Every man cave needs a Dremel