Anyone else using ss ball bearings instead of ss pins in their wet tumble?

Ghillbert

Ghillbert

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Here I go again hehe
After a couple batches with pins I wasn’t loving it so my overthinking brain went to work again and decided to try ball bearings out.
First go was .5 mm and it was smaller than sand so sent them back and got 1mm, still looked too small. With the goal of still being able to fit through the flash hole I ordered 1.5 mm and goldilocks found his porridge!
Theres no need to use a magnet just rinse in a small bucket and pour into a shallow container with some blue shop towel to dry and pour back in the tumbler next time.
Cleans primer pockets just fine and no peening of necks or any other negative.
Just thought I would share as maybe others aren’t loving the pins as well. IMG_5828.jpeg
 
Ghillbert said:
Here I go again hehe
After a couple batches with pins I wasn’t loving it so my overthinking brain went to work again and decided to try ball bearings out.
First go was .5 mm and it was smaller than sand so sent them back and got 1mm, still looked too small. With the goal of still being able to fit through the flash hole I ordered 1.5 mm and goldilocks found his porridge!
Theres no need to use a magnet just rinse in a small bucket and pour into a shallow container with some blue shop towel to dry and pour back in the tumbler next time.
Cleans primer pockets just fine and no peening of necks or any other negative.
Just thought I would share as maybe others aren’t loving the pins as well. View attachment 1114698
Click to expand...
I was thinking about this. Glad I'm not the only nutbar! Good to know she werkz.
 
AB3006 said:
I was thinking about this. Glad I'm not the only nutbar! Good to know she werkz.
Click to expand...
No looking back for me, got them on a-zon and no hassle returning and reordering until I got what I wanted. 1.5 mm
Side note from reading threads here I tried switching from dawn to laundry detergent and works as good or better and less suds. Took a chance ( a whole 7.50$ ) and got a big jug, love it!
 
Interesting, I would have thought the balls would just role so the finish wouldn't do much.
So the finish is just as good ? I could see separating the balls from the brass would be much simpler for sure.
 
Interested as well. What size tumbler and how much balls is your set-up?
I switched to laundry soap years ago and like it much better, no suds.
 
Also, looking at what's available, I will pick 440 stainless over 304 so that a magnet will pick them up.
I'm excited about trying this because I have such a fight getting all the pins out of my brass for some reason.
 
Dmay said:
Interested as well. What size tumbler and how much balls is your set-up?
I switched to laundry soap years ago and like it much better, no suds.
Click to expand...
I’m using a vevor jewlery tumbler, its not terribly big say 100 .223 fills it just over 1/2
I think they were 5000 balls a package and I got two . IIRC was about 30$ each so similar to a container of FA pins I saw in cabellas but way smaller volume like couple handfuls.
 
Dmay said:
Also, looking at what's available, I will pick 440 stainless over 304 so that a magnet will pick them up.
I'm excited about trying this because I have such a fight getting all the pins out of my brass for some reason.
Click to expand...
Mine don’t pick up with a magnet so must be 304 maybe? But they roll out just fine and one step less for me, I bet with a magnet on the 440 they will be less mess than pins though good call
 
Ghillbert said:
Here I go again hehe
After a couple batches with pins I wasn’t loving it so my overthinking brain went to work again and decided to try ball bearings out.
First go was .5 mm and it was smaller than sand so sent them back and got 1mm, still looked too small. With the goal of still being able to fit through the flash hole I ordered 1.5 mm and goldilocks found his porridge!
Theres no need to use a magnet just rinse in a small bucket and pour into a shallow container with some blue shop towel to dry and pour back in the tumbler next time.
Cleans primer pockets just fine and no peening of necks or any other negative.
Just thought I would share as maybe others aren’t loving the pins as well. View attachment 1114698
Click to expand...
So you have me considering changing my process now. I've never done the wet pin because I actually don't like the polish as much as my walnut vibe tumbler does. My current process involves both sonic bath and dry vibe tumble. But I was watching something the other day and see the similar idea. Though their rig is a wet vibe tumbler with some specialized type of balls. It's at the 9:45 mark in the vid. But based on your recent other posts regarding annealing you may find the entire vid neat. I realize it's a bit of an infomercial but I got a lot out of it. Cheers
 
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