I have heard of people tumbling loaded rounds, but not unloaded and just primed. I would think you would be ok. I have tumbled live rounds before, not on purpose. I do though put .22 in the tumbler. .22 can be very dirty so if you tumble it for a just a short bit it cleans it and keeps the gun cleaner. Works too.

anyways I would think it would be an issue of getting something in the primer hole...but heck I don't really know.


If you have any casing that are shot and still primed you could just tumble them and see if crap gets in the flash hole? A little test.......

Hey man, long time no see. Glad to see you're still around. Come around more often.

Since retirement, I've been way busy with hunting, fishing, shooting, and building an airplane. It's a tough life.

Anyway, back to the thread...why bother with re-tumbling? Tarnished btass shoots just fine in my guns.

Randall

Unless the tarnishing is so bad you can feel it and worry about feed and function why bother? Reload em and shoot em. Then start the process over correctly by depriming them before tumbling.
Or is there a mental need to see fresh shiny cases going into the chamber? :)

I don't reload but the first thought I had was same as others, how do you guarantee no material clogs flash hole inside?

I would worry media woud get in the primer. I have tumbled hundreds of rounds of live ammo. The vibratory tumblers won't generate enough punch to dent a primer enough to fire. So I would load then tumble. One othe suggestion would be to decap the primed brass, tumble the un-primed brass, then re-seat the primers. I do it with a decapping die. You just have to move a little slower and press softer than if you are using fired brass.

nah, I'll just resize, expand and load. I ain't decapping 1000 live primers

I would reload tarnished and then polish the finished rounds. I have done this before with no issues. What I didn't do was stuff the tumbler. I also would make sure up I didn't hang around this it was time to turn it off :D