Dillon 550 .223 brass prep - Swage It, RT1200 trimmer, M die

[markm]

I know, I'm weird.

I tried washing media once too before I got SS media systems. But I didn't have a decent system, and it got too messy.

[m1a_scoutguy]

I have used a mix of red walnut and the treated green corn cob for years,I use 1/3 of the red and 2/3 of the green. These are both Lyman products. Yea they cost a bit more than standard corn or plain anything but I feel its well worth the extra $$. it cleans great,shines great and doesn't get dusty till forever.I have the Lyman big tumbler,its bigger than the 1200,I'll have to go look. It works fine for my needs. The whole SS pins and water,then drying,etc,etc,,,not for me. I'm going to the range not the gun show,LOL

[MegademiC]

I get like 4k pieces
Decap
Tumble
Dump media
Resize
Trim
Tumble w/fresh media

Then load smaller batches from here
Prime/throat wedge (just the tip)
Powder
Seat
Crimp

[Wormydog1724]

I have used a mix of red walnut and the treated green corn cob for years,I use 1/3 of the red and 2/3 of the green. These are both Lyman products. Yea they cost a bit more than standard corn or plain anything but I feel its well worth the extra $$. it cleans great,shines great and doesn't get dusty till forever.I have the Lyman big tumbler,its bigger than the 1200,I'll have to go look. It works fine for my needs. The whole SS pins and water,then drying,etc,etc,,,not for me. I'm going to the range not the gun show,LOL

Same! I want to pull them from the tumbler and load.

My brother tumbles with SS. At first he was leaving it all night, running ALL NIGHT. I do that with Dry but he soon realized with SS that was too much. Super duper clean, but his chamfer/debur was completely gone and he was scraping copper as he was seating bullets. Wondered why his groups were all over the place. duh doy.

[markm]

Couple of things..

1. The SS media for me is more of a lead residue and filth removal that suspends the fouling in water. I run 2 hour loads for clean brass... shiny is sometimes the result on once fired brass, but after that they don't come out THAT sparkly.

2. That red media from lyman can leave the rouge inside your brass. It is very abrasive, and I think Sinister, here, had a barrel that was damaged from leaving that red rouge in the cases. I do have the lyman tumbler and rouge media, but quit using it quickly when I could see the inside of my brass was still red, AND how shiny the brass was. I could tell that stuff was too abrasive to risk leaving in the cases.

[m1a_scoutguy]

Couple of things..

1. The SS media for me is more of a lead residue and filth removal that suspends the fouling in water. I run 2 hour loads for clean brass... shiny is sometimes the result on once fired brass, but after that they don't come out THAT sparkly.

2. That red media from lyman can leave the rouge inside your brass. It is very abrasive, and I think Sinister, here, had a barrel that was damaged from leaving that red rouge in the cases. I do have the lyman tumbler and rouge media, but quit using it quickly when I could see the inside of my brass was still red, AND how shiny the brass was. I could tell that stuff was too abrasive to risk leaving in the cases.

markm it would be interesting to know if he used straight red or a mix. I know it can be nasty stuff so that's why the 1/3 & 2/3 mix. I have never noticed any red dust/residue on the cases but have some in the tumbler right now that need to be dumped out so I will go check and report back. I ran it the other night while I was out so it went about 3 hours which is way more than I normally need to run this mix,they look new! Yea I know the SS clean the inside and primer pockets but I could care about either,yea the primer pocket would be nice but no biggy for me,depending on what its for I will hit it most of the time but never on pistol brass.

[Wormydog1724]

My Dillon 550 setup with the universal decap, swage it, Dillon resize/trimmer, Lyman m die

[markm]

markm it would be interesting to know if he used straight red or a mix. I know it can be nasty stuff so that's why the 1/3 & 2/3 mix

Pretty sure he and I both messed with the full throttle red. That stuff blew me away.. it makes brass shine brighter than SS media for sure.

So you can trim prior to re-size?

[m1a_scoutguy]

Pretty sure he and I both messed with the full-throttle red. That stuff blew me away.. it makes brass shine brighter than SS media for sure.

So you can trim prior to re-size?

Oh boy, yea I bet full-on red walnut would be killer! A buddy that shoots a lot told me about the mix years ago and I have used it ever since and have always been happy with it. It will get dusty when it's shot but even though it lasts a long time when I start seeing dust or at least a lot of it I swap out the mix. Not trying to convince anyone that this is the best, just saying I have had good luck with it. If you're doing the SS routine and you're happy then stick with it, maybe if I tried it I would love it but just seems like more steps and I want fewer steps. Here are a few pic's of my brass, now the 223 was about 3+ hours, the 38/357 was about 1-1.5 hours, and then a pic of the mix. I changed it out a month or so ago but haven't been doing much tumbling till the last few weeks, so it's still pretty new. The red does overtake the color but you can see the difference between the red walnut and the green corn. When I took the brass out of the tumbler, I put it right in a white tissue and rubbed it around, I got nothing off the brass on the tissue.

[Wormydog1724]

So you can trim prior to re-size?

Is this towards me?

The Dillon trim resize die does both. FL resizes, bumps the shoulder back, and trims the case to length. Then station 4 has m die to set proper neck tension since Dillon die squeezes the neck too tight to hold it while trimming.