- Feb 4, 2013
- 28,175
I use a Franklin Armory hand deprimer right now (just went through 1,000 223 the other night, hands are sore) so in the case of hand depriming where I'm not dirtying up a die, would you recommend depriming before dry tumbling or after? I've read that cleaning the flash hole / primer pockets out of dry media can be a real PITA.
Using the Lyman corn cob media, I occasionally get a small piece in the flash hole if I tumble without a primer. But not a big deal.
For 5.56 mil, I tumble to clean, then run them through my 650 with a Lee Depriming Die in station 1, and a Sizing Die in Station 2, then tumble off the lube.
Swage the primer pockets with a Dillon Swager, then store until loading.
So they get tumbled with an without a primer.
If you use larger media bits, they can get stuck in the primer pocket.