View Full Version : Tumbling media
Okay... I have been tumbling brass in walnut hulls since the beginning of time.. well, perhaps not quite that long, but.... recently after deciding it was time to replace my old media I came upon some info on stainless steel pins. Weighed the pros and cons and found some on sale at Midway.
I have to say, this is about the best looking brass my Sidewinder has ever spilled out! Are there any drawbacks to tumbling with SST pins?
http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u107/IGluIt4U/bang/IMG_0155800x600_zpsffbf4db8.jpg
http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u107/IGluIt4U/bang/IMG_0156800x741_zps998ab9be.jpg
I'm very curious to this as well. I'm in the same boat you were with the walnut, but I haven't made the switch to stainless. Mainly because I try to let others be the guinea pigs :D
Well, my process with walnut was to resize, deprime and tumble the cases. After tumbling I spent a bit of time going through every case cleaning the primer pockets after poking out the media from the pocket or flash hole.
The stainless pins leave cases absolutely spotless inside and out, including the primer pockets. I have never had cases this clean inside and primer pockets that didn't even need to be cleaned up. I see a slight amount of impingement on the case mouths, so I will probably just do a quick deburr on them (as long as they don't need trimming and they shouldn't, they are all once fired range brass that was trimmed when I first processed all the cases).
The only drawback is that you need a rotary tumbler (vibrating won't work) that can handle a wet tumble. I stuck about 100 pcs of 223 brass in my Sidewinder, added the 5# of pins I got and filled it with water as much as I could without it spilling out when set on the cradle. Added a squirt of Joy and some Finish dishwasher rinse (I hear that Lemi-Shine works well, but I couldn't find any this time around).
I normally tumble with walnut for at least 8-12 hours.. this batch in the pics was about 2.5hrs.... Results speak for themselves... :D
Oh, after tumbling in the pins I just took a bucket, half filled with water and dumped the lot in there. Picked up the cases, mouth down under the water, swished em a bit to loosen any pins that were sticking inside and pulled em out, set them on a towel on the counter and gave them a quick rub down to dry the outsides.. set them upright on a couple of paper towels and let them dry for a day or so. This whole process took about 15mins for the 100rds I did.
Try this. De prime with universal de prime die. Then tumble. This way cleans primer pockets. Too, you'll be running clean cases through your size die.
Try this. De prime with universal de prime die. Then tumble. This way cleans primer pockets. Too, you'll be running clean cases through your size die.
Thanks Willie, that was my thought for the next round. I hate to run dirty brass through the die and I use OF brass for the AR rounds I load, so they can be really nasty sometimes. I would normally tumble those, decap and resize and tumble again, but with the U deprimer I can just decap, tumble and resize and be done with it!
I dry mine in the oven on a cookie sheet. I put them in at 225F since water boils at 212F. That's not enough to hurt the brass, but dries them pretty quick. I only leave them in for 15 min.
i have found that decapping first with a universal die then about half a teaspoon of lemi-shine and same of dawn run for 15-20 mins gets them plenty clean for sizing and trim, then run again for 30 mins for the preety sparkly see it in the weeds shine
m1a_scoutguy
06-29-13, 01:01
Lots of good info,,,but to me tumbling is a necessary evil and a down right pain in the ass,,,;) Slows the whole process up,, :( I look at it like this,,,the Rd's are going in a rifle/pistol,,not a friggin beauty contest !! Clean & free of debris is good enough for me !! I have looked into the SS pins,,looks like to much "extra" work,,reloading is a pain in the butt already,even though I love doing it,any extra steps is not worth it in my book,end results are the same,,clean brass,,,prime,,powder,,bullet,,,,fire,,repeat,,,LOL !!! I know I have added my 2cents worth before,,but here it is again,,LOL,,,I use 2/3 Treated Corn and 1/3 Red Walnut,,it cleans the brass almost as good as the SS in under a hour,,,primer pockets are still a bit cruddy,,but hell I stopped worrying about primer pockets years ago. I do check for debris in the flash hole,,but that's about it !!! The mixture lasts along time,,much longer than straight Corn Cob,,I know the red walnut will leave a film on the cases if run straight up,,,with the mix,,it does not seem to be a problem ! I learned this trick from a shooting buddy that loads thousands of rds monthly,,a hell of a lot more than me,,,& I load a shit ton of pistol rds,& a fair amount of 556/308,:) He uses his up faster than me & changes it out sooner,,but loading what I do,,,it does last a long time !!! Give it a try,,I think you will be surprised !!!
15-30 minutes in walnut dries them fine.
m1a_scoutguy
06-29-13, 12:48
15-30 minutes in walnut dries them fine.
Still a "extra" step !! ;),,,LOL,,,,Not for me . :no:
Lots of good info,,,but to me tumbling is a necessary evil and a down right pain in the ass,,,;) Slows the whole process up,, :( I look at it like this,,,the Rd's are going in a rifle/pistol,,not a friggin beauty contest !! Clean & free of debris is good enough for me !!
+1 My sentiments exactly. Just get the crud off of them so they don't muck up my dies. Really pretty and shiny looks good, but-----:no:
I also wet tumble with a thumlers tumbler model B. I got the kit from stainless steel media. I enjoy using the universal depriming die on my 650 and running the brass through then wet tumbling. Dies it take a long time? Yes but I'm in no hurry. Brass comes out looking like gold and spotless inside and out.
I got a rotary and ss pins - havent used it yet - I have some nasty range pickups that look as though they were buried in southeast asia...
I reload a lot so having factory looking brass is not the goal...but it would be nice :)
I saw a few suggestions for drying brass:
polish with regular media
standup brass and dry
oven for a bit
Any other methods recommended?
Still a "extra" step !! ;),,,LOL,,,,Not for me . :no:
It's not too bad... and it ensures that I can run the brass immediately after a short tumble and don't have any water drops in the case.
I just started wet tumbling, but so far I've tried a cookie sheet in the oven at 250 and laying them out in the sun. I much prefer the latter.
I am thinking about putting them on the center rack in my wife's clothes dryer, kind of like an enormous convection oven.
Thoughts?
I am thinking about putting them on the center rack in my wife's clothes dryer, kind of like an enormous convection oven.
Thoughts?
Try the microwave. :D
Actually, I've always just let them air dry. It's about that time that I'm ready for a break anyway.
How are you liking your new tumbling setup?
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Try the microwave. :D
Actually, I've always just let them air dry. It's about that time that I'm ready for a break anyway.
How are you liking your new tumbling setup?
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Dude, I'm in love. :)
I'm pretty OCD, so having perfectly clean brass, without black fingertips and zero gunk & debris on my press is like a little slice of heaven.
I picked up one of the LEE hand presses and a LEE decapping die and I sit on an old beach towel in front of the TV with a bucket and deprime while I hang out with the family. That way I'm not really adding a step on the press, so it doesn't feel like an extra step, to me anyway.
I started saving brass years before starting to reload, so I literally have buckets of the shit. I don't need to dry it quick as I'll never need to load the same brass I'm tumbling, I was just thinking of a way to mass dry with air movement. I did not care for the oven method, too much hassle.
Other than that, I don't feel like wet is any more work than dry. It's so much cleaner and the results are better than sex. :)
My biggest issue is that ss polishers simply dont do enough at one swoop and the ones that do more than a few hundred are cost prohibitive. Its not unusual for me to process 500 to 1500pcs at a time. Plus the added step of drying impacts my time.
I simply polish over night in walnut with a few teaspoons of watered down polishing compound which works really well. I do decapping and sizing as one process, polish, then prime on a Dillon 550b that has a Lee universal decapping die at station one to clear out the primer hole before pressing the new primer in.
Then I just toss all the primed brass in a 5 gallon bucket and thoroughly clean the press up so that when its time to load I can go pretty quickly without issues.
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I'm pretty OCD, so having perfectly clean brass, without black fingertips and zero gunk & debris on my press is like a little slice of heaven.
There's no going back. :)
Every so often, Pappabear will bust out an ammo can full of ammo that I loaded a few years back before I had the Thumlers rollin. YUCK! :p
Dude, I'm in love. :)
We'll that's great to hear. Glad it's working out good for you. I'll have to check into this further.
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Another thing, I already had one of those media separator thingys that looks like a litter box with crank handles. :)
It's awesome for separating pins from brass. Fill with clean water and crank for a few seconds, works great!
Here's some Lake City '57 headstamp grungy surplus brass from my Garand. This was my first batch through the Thumlers.
Before:
17203
After:
17204
Nuff said. :)
Ok, pardon me for maybe a stupid question but does this over time shorten the life of the brass? Isn't it actually removing minute amounts of metal? Or is it trivial & there's nothing to worry about?
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I'm not qualified to answer that, but any time you shine metal that's how you're doing it, so whether its corn cob & polish or pins & soap is the only question.
That being said, I was able to see peening marks or tiny scratches after tumbling with pins. Whether it shortens service life or not is out of my lane to try and answer.
Does not shorten the life of brass. :no:
Ok, cool. Thanks dudes. Was just kinda curious if it was slightly overkill & led to premature wear.
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The only complaint I've read about is when guys chamfer their necks before tumbling (which makes no sense to me) The sharp edge on the case mouth was apparently getting rouged up.
I trim and all that AFTER cleaning the brass, so not an issue.
It surely doesn't work the brass as much as shooting it... lol
I agree with chamfering... decap and tumble first, resize, measure and trim and chamfer if needed. I don't see enough damage to the case neck from tumbling to warrant having to deburr every case, only those that I'd trim and likely raise a burr on..
i've been trimming my brass before the final polish and have'nt notice the mouth being roughed up but you definately lose the crisp look of fresh trimmed. just did a batch for an upcoming match used the suggestion of a previous post of putting them on a cookie sheet and set in the oven at 150 for a 1/2 hour completely dry but i also live in high desert country so will be diffrent for those in moister areas
It surely doesn't work the brass as much as shooting it... lol
:p
Reminds me of the "Will dry firing my AR hurt it?" guys....
If you're worried about dry fire... definitely DO NOT live fire that sucker!
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