Tumbling media

**Sticky** · 06-21-13, 20:51

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?

**Stangman** · 06-21-13, 20:54

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

**Sticky** · 06-21-13, 21:02

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...

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.

**williejc** · 06-21-13, 21:10

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.

**Sticky** · 06-21-13, 21:17

Originally Posted by williejc

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!

**AKDoug** · 06-21-13, 22:46

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.

**tommyrott** · 06-28-13, 22:09

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 !!!