I have found it....the lemi shine of the north!

Odd, I think they may be other factors at play here as I exclusively use hot water. I have 3 FA wet tumblers and have processed god only knows (well over 200,000) pieces of brass in hot water and have never had dull brass. All of my brass comes out incredibly bright.

I put the 5lbs of pins in, add brass until its about 3 inches from the top, fill with hot water, add 1 45 acp case of lemishine and a healthy squirt of blue dawn dish soap. Tumble for 3 hours.



I also use very hot water, but only half that amount of lemishine.

I put the timer on for 3 hours but often 2 is enough for cases fired by me. Range pickups need the extra time to come out 'like new'.


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I grabbed some at the store the other day and just did a batch of 38 Special brass. A squirt of this soap, and a small bit of citric acid, cold water and 3 hours in the FA tumbler =

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Lemishine is always at my local canadian Tire store,my FA tumbler has seen over 500,000 cases,i always use very hot water,
i let it go for an hour,with about 5 pounds of brass,lately i started to use Simonize car wash/wax soap instead of dawn,works great and no water spots,i've thrown some nasty blackened crap in there and had it come out like new,
 
I also use very hot water, but only half that amount of lemishine.

I put the timer on for 3 hours but often 2 is enough for cases fired by me. Range pickups need the extra time to come out 'like new'.


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Not sure about Woodstock but the water in Tillsonburg is pretty hard and often times has an elevated level of Sulphur. When I moved here from Hamilton I had to up the amount of lemishine to get the same results. Usually once a month or so I spend an hour or two picking up brass at the club. Some of it is so tarnished, without a magnet it would be hard to tell if it was brass or steel. Like you said, 2 hours is often enough but I run it for 3 for good measure.
 
You don't really need pins. They are more trouble than they are worth, IMHO.

I found they work perfectly but there’s more that one way to skin a cat. I use a sieve from Frankford Arsenal to separate the pins from the casings and that works great. Only a few pins left over stuck in a primer flash hole. Whatever works best for you is the way to go.
 
to get rid of the pins,i use one of those mesh wire trash basket from the dollar store.i put it in a 5 gallon pail,dump half my polished brass in there,shake it up and down,and watch all the pins fly down in the bucket,then pull up the wire mesh basket and flush it in another bucket filled with clean water to rinse them well.then pull up above the water and shake the water out,then into a bath towel for a good shaking,onto a dry flat towel where i run a dry towel over the brass to help dry them,then they sit until i get my next batch done,when i'm ready for the next batch ,i throw the ones that were drying into a metal pan,waiting for a few batches before they go into the oven at the lowest setting for an hour,makes the brass completely dry,and no water stains,sounds elaborate,but i usually do many 1000's at a time,LOL..
 
In the spirit in which this thread was created, thank you OP. More options are always welcomed.

I use Lemi and a dab of dish soap, available at my local CT. However, should “supply chain issues” arise in the Citric Acid department… ;)

Cheers.
 
I'm a Citric Acid & Dawn user. Because of my hard well water, I add a squirt of Jet Dry for the water spots. After cleaning, I roll brass around on towel to remove a large percentage of the water before letting sit to dry.

I always use hot water out of the tap for cleaning. I noticed the brass darken when I rinsed with my hard hot water, no issues with cold water rinses.
 
I try to skip as many unnecessary steps as possible in brass prep

Pistol reloading is generally focused on quantity, with the steps taken as efficiently as possible in order to crank out more rounds. Let the press pop out the old primer just before auto-feeding it a new one, for example.

Rifle reloaders seem to focus more on quality of each round (maybe because a bad round could blow your arm off?) and will take the extra steps like decapping early and giving the primer pocket some attention before re-priming.
 
Hi!!
Lemi-shine is almost citric acid witk some odor in it. you can find citric acid from candle maquer supply way more cheaper than lemi-shine itself ;) soap making supply as well.
 
Wow you guys tumble for 3 hours? I run them for 45mins just to reduce the wear on the Frankfort tumbler.

Maybe I will try going longer

I found if I put more than half the tumbler with 9mm brass and the 5lbs of pins, plus filling it with water to just cover the brass, the tumbler struggles. Actually had the plastic gears come out of mesh once.

Half the tumbler full of 9mm is around 1000 to 1300 pieces
 
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