When, if ever, do you clean the primer pocket of 45ACP?

Under another topic of case prep I read the comment that implied there is no need to clean the primer pocket of 45. Do you ever clean it? After 4-5 or more reloads? I have noticed how dirty the pocket is. If it is not necessary I certainly will not take the extra time to do it.

Most of you know that I am new to BE and very new to reloading. I feel that I have been quite successful with my reloading. I started with "once shot" brass, cleaned it in a tumbler, and began my reloading on the 550. I had a great day shooting over 400 rounds yesterday without a hitch. What I really loved was shooting my 22 (both BE and Free Pistol) after shooting a ton of 45 with the heavier trigger.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

Come see us in the woods.

I have noticed and measured that when the crud builds up, the primers do not seat as deep. If this has contributed some to my fail to fires, I do not know.

I honestly don't think it matters, however, I am guilty of going crazy with my brass cleaning lately. The reason I don't think it matters is because of the way the used primer is pushed out from the inside of the case. The pin will insure there is a whole between the primer and the powder.

I did buy an ultrasonic cleaner a few months ago. I de-primed all the cases and washed them with that thing. 95% of them looked really clean and I felt really proud of how clean they were. After shooting them again they all got dirty again on the inside. I sure didn't see my scores improve so I can say that the clean brass didn't help. I am also very lucky with my 45, it functions very well even though it is an old gun (Clark long slide from the 70s) so I can't comment on reliability issues.

I will probably continue to wash the brass once a year or so. It is a good opportunity to inspect the brass carefully and get rid of the bad ones.

Chris

I usaally size and deprime then tumble....the crushed walnut gets most of the crap out of the primer pocket ....but if I find one that really cruddy I'll clean it out before it goes into the case feeder..

sometimes if you tumble after depriming, the media gets stuck in the flash hole.

Cleaning the primmer pocket is not needed.

The carbon in the pocket will not build up

past a point. When the cases are deprimed

any sizable build up falls out with the spent

primmer. All you need to do is tumble your

fired cases enough to remove any grit from

on the outside of the case. More than that

will not help any. BUT, if it gives you a warm

fuzzy feeling to clean the pockets and shine

them to a high gloss inside and out go to it.

But if you do don't tell us that you can not find

time to dry fire or other training.



Dave C.

I clean the pocket of every piece of .45 brass, every time.

Never.

Wet tumbling with SS media leaves them as good as new ... perhaps cleaner.
/B

If I ever found a problem seating a primer, that would be
the time.


Of course, after over 45 years of reloading, how many times
do you think I have had a problem seating a primer that was due to ash
build-up?


A lot of case prep tools are, to me, simply selling what
isn’t needed (convince ‘em they need it and they’ll beg to buy it).


I have never seen even one report where a comparison was
made between doing and not doing the various OCD benchrest activities to see if
there was ANY benefit to them, and it certainly does not have any meaning to
pistol shooting where 4MOA is excellent and shaving 0.01” off the group size
will mean nothing to your final score.


When would you think you needed to do it? The only answers
are 1) every time you remove a primer or 2) never. What do your manuals tell
you?


This falls under the “confidence in you loading” heading. If
you think you should, and you don't, then you may have doubts--you may doubt your loading
and doubt the accuracy of your loads.

Spend your time dry firing.

+1 on never, on handguns. In my opinion its time & effort wasted on brass and a type of shooting style that would never be able to show any perceived results.

I know I have cleaned them when I was beginning to reload, 35+ years ago. At the time it was time & effort wasted as the rifles I used wouldn't have known the difference. I now own several benchrest quality long range varmint rifles and have never done a comparison on dirty vs clean primer pockets. Perhaps some day when I have nothing better to do, but thats not going to happen any time soon.

I would post this question over on benchrest.com or 6mmbr.com, chances one or two of them have done a comparison.

As many have stated, the time is much better spent dry firing.

fwiw

We are talking 45acp here. Not rifle. I do have non-scientific observation that 45acp priming does not seat as deep in cruded pockets. I also have more than my share of fail to fires that fire when struck again. So I AM cleaning 45acp pockets for a while to see if the failures reduce. No other changes. (BTW Roddy has checked the gun, and I have checked the dillon priming setup)

Joe Fobes was having some problems with his square deal not seating the primers all the way. I'm using his ammo and it got so bad that I just got in the habit of pulling the hammer back and striking them again. The first hit must have seated the primer the rest of the way, and the second hit would fire it. He switched over to a Lee and we haven't had the problem since.

While on the Police Dept I loaded MANY, MANY thousands of .38 Spec

and .45 ACP....for the Pistol Team.......NEVER Cleaned the primer

pockets or had any problem loading them in the Star Loaders........