Hornady LNL Progressive

As you may know I have a Hornady LNL Progressive and I love it, until I started to think( yes it hurt) Here's a problem, when do you clean out the flash hole?? It's progressive you don't stop and clean. What do you do?? Shoot so many times and put it in the RCBS and do one at a time?

some guys have a sizer/decapper set up on a different press and just decap em, clean the hole, trim em... then put through the paces on the progressive but lots of people don't bother with pistol brass.

I was wondering if pistol brass was less "important" I lose as much as I keep and always getting new.

most of us that have a progressive/turret... also have the one we started on; a single stage already mounted and not being used so... it's also a way to keep the missus from seeing an unused press...

nah, not to me, maybe to you, some pistol cases don't stretch as much, if at all, and to me... im not going to be able to tell the difference in a pistol grouping from a batch i cleaned the pocket on and a batch i didn't. where it would make a bigger difference is in the primer seating... in theory

This is what I do since I'm a brass prep freak.

Since its easy with the Hornady LNL quick change bushings, I take all my dies out and just setup a Lee Universal Decapper die. Throw the tumbled brass in the automatic case feeder and just keep the handle moving. Once that's done I do my prep, throw em back in the case feeder, put the dies back in and get to loading.

sounds like i need a LNL...

i do pistol brass same as xbones run them thru my dillon sdb and just knock the primer out then run them thru my ultrasonic cleaner a hundred at a time once a year... takes all day but worth it to me....vibratory clean with primers in them any other time....

Well I must be living in the dark ages. I deprime them one at a time, then pick up one at a time and clean out the pocket with my little tool. Must be why it takes me 2 hours just to get around to putting powder in the first case.

CMAsailor wrote:sounds like i need a LNL...

Yes,yes you do

With pistol brass I clean the pockets after 2 firings.

fletch_medic wrote:Well I must be living in the dark ages. I deprime them one at a time, then pick up one at a time and clean out the pocket with my little tool. Must be why it takes me 2 hours just to get around to putting powder in the first case.

HAHA....me too! But I'll do them in large batches and store them for another day. Sometimes I'll even go as far as to prime the cases before storing them.

Then it seems no different than opening a new package of cases when I am ready to do some loading.

iv always wondered the same thing iv seen people take a bunch of brass dump it into the tube and just start chucking they dont check trim length bullet length charge weight brass condition nothing just dont seem safe to me thats why i love my single stage it may take me three tiimes longer to load half as much but i know for a fact that its right!

+1 dart. I like consistancy. I have migrated to the Lee turret press. I pretty much use it like a single stage press, but having the extra stations available comes in handy.

I use a Lee Universal Decapper die too. After depriming I clean the flash hole.

Are you guys talking about cleaning out the primer pocket? When you deprime the brass your flash hole should be cleared by the decapping pin.

the de-capping pin will clean out the flash hole. and unless there is a lot of crud built up in the primer pocket you really don't have to clean out the primer pocket either. as far as case length most auto rounds like the 380,9mm,45 acp for some odd reason the case doesn't stretch like other brass I don't know why it just doesn't. But I still have a go at it with my calipers just to satisfy my inner anal compulsions. on those rounds when they are either brand new brass or once fired or range fired that i have picked up I will always debur the flash hole and trim not so much for size because they have to have the correct length but to make sure the case mouth is square and parallel to the base that too is probably not necessary but I do it anyway.

I also use a universal decapping die first step, then tumble to get the cases clean, I dont like to put dirty cases in my dies for fear of getting a piece of dirt in them and not noticing it till its too late. As far as cleaning the primer pockets I always clean them just to clear the chance of anything getting into the flash hole and disrupting ignition. (we wouldnt want that in a life or death situation)
I used to never trim my 45ACP brass untill I was getting carried away to see how accurate I could make my 45 by weight sorting brass and my cast bullets. I trimmed, deburred flash holes, uniformed primer pockets, seperated by mfg., weight sorted to 2/10th of a grain. I can tell you that the difference was unbelievable compaired to unsorted, ununiformed, untrimmed, and un hand weighed bullets. After this test I will be trimming all brass from now on, it may take a little longer to get them loaded but I will take the extra time.
Tripples

Interesting.... I very rarely trim my brass unless it is new(or new to me). I might have to try this out for myself.

All of my reloading is started with a lee hand press (I can watch Monday-night RAW) decapping and tossing um in the tumbler (I hope Santa will bring me an ultra-sonic cleaner)...
I do this weather I use a single stage or progressive ...
This way I can check for case cracks twice ...