shotshell case cleaning

[270man]

Does anyone have a good method for cleaning dirty shotshell cases prior to reloading? My tumbler is good for 250-300 pistol cases but shotshell hulls take up too much space.

270man

[fabsroman]

I used my tumbler to clean a couple thousand shotshells, and I can assure you that it is a pain. I will throw the shells away before going through that experience again, so I too am interested to see what others do to clean off shotshells.

[BILLY D.]

Well boys, Here ya go. I used to wait till my wife went shopping and I placed my hulls in mesh bags and ran them through the wash machine. De-prime first, Helpful hint, don't put 'em in the dryer. Sometimes they melt, ask me how I found out.

Also not to be used with paper hulls. Besides that a thousand hulls starts to get a wee bit noisy.

For drying hulls and cartridge cases you use her hair dryer.

These tricks, actually engineering marvels and ingenuity were probably what caused her to pass at an early age. Had God not taken her early she would have killed me.

Best wishes, Bill

[skeet]

I went to an auction one day and bought an old wringer washer with a gas engine. Used it for years. Had a metal basket that the shells went into(held 2000 or so)...with a little cool water...and a very small amount of Dawn. Washed for about 1/2 hour and pulled the plug. Ran the washer for a little longer while spraying the shells with a garden hose(till all the soap was gone)....then let it run empty for about 45-50 minutes so all the water was gone..then boxed them into clay pigeon boxes and put them in the attic of my shop for a few days to really dry out!(got hot up there). Sold literally 1/2 a million shells over the years...No complaints. Got most of the shells from the sporting clays ranges in the area. Trap clubs too. Once bought 50,000 once fired Fed Gold Medal empties from NSSA delivered for 1 cent each. They eventually sent me 74000 for 500 bucks. I just shot the last of 'em I had loaded in doubles at a local skeet shoot. Loaded 'em 6 yrs ago and they still went bang. Broke a 98 with 'em.

[Dom]

See Skeet, what using 6 year old reloads does -- cost ya 2 birds Waidmannsheil, Dom.

[Rottweiler]

+1 on Billy D's method. Except I don't use the hair dryer. I just spread 'em out on an old sheet or blanket in the sun. They dry in about an hour on a good sunny day

[skeet]

Weren't bad shells...just bad pointing. BTW I bought that ol' washer for 10 bucks and sold it to a lady who came with her husband when he bought some loading stuff. Got 275 bucks for it. He really wasn' a happy camper on that deal I don't think. Bought another electric one that I used for a couple of years till the lectric motor died.

[6.5s4ever]

Skeet, If that wringer washer you got for 10 bucks was a Maytag you could have sold it for more than $275.00! Those are antique and a rare find especially if it actually worked! She lucked out buying it off of you for that price!!!! LOL Roy

[skeet]

Actually Roy, they still make the gas powered washers. Amish can find 'em from what i here. Course they ain't the same machine anymore. Think they are imported from South America. Oh it was a Maytag and that was not too bad for what I had.After using it with those ol shotshells for quite a while the internal tub was beat up a bit.