Cleaning brass

09outlander

09outlander

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So I tumbled my first lot of brass last night. They turned out great, the outside of the case had a mirror finish. But the inside of the cases were still black and sooty, is this normal???

Pics are after 3 hours of tumbling in crushed corn cob.

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Completely normal, Its hard, and mean really hard to get the inside of cases clean with tumbling in dry media.

Does the inside of the case being dirty effect anything? I do not think so.

The only thing that I have found that cleans the inside, outside, and primer pocket is the stainless steel pins in the wet rotary tumbler.
 
slicknova said:
Completely normal, Its hard, and mean really hard to get the inside of cases clean with tumbling in dry media.

Does the inside of the case being dirty effect anything? I do not think so.

The only thing that I have found that cleans the inside, outside, and primer pocket is the stainless steel pins in the wet rotary tumbler.
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And then they are the same cleanliness as the outside.

As mentioned, does it matter? Nope.

I still like shiney brass =)


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Wet media - Stainless steel = Clean flash holes, spotless interior( not that it matters) & brass that the drill Sargent would be proud of.
***Note the dirty brass on the upper left of this pic..thats what the shiny 223 was 4hrs be4 tumbling.****
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Great Crouton said:
Where are you guys finding these SS tumblers?
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I just got mine last week and it works great. Its the Thumler's Model B, high speed version. Ordered it from Sinclair International. Another site has them, stainlesstumblingmedia,dot,com. Their shipping was going to be a little higher though.

A Canadian company, Treasureseekers, has them but they are the Model B standard (or slower speed) version. My high speed drum turns at 42 rpm and works perfectly. Some guys here say the standard speed version work just as well but just takes a little longer. Makes sense to me.
 
Dont forget to also look in Kijji & Craigslist.

This is how I found my tumbler. - a Thumler Model B. for a whopping $80buxs ..btw noticed I didnt bother to mention looking in the EE section ..lol.

It works 100% but its a bit on the rough side, the belt was missing so I had to make one and the paint peeling BUT who cares the queen isnt going to inspect it.

One thing I learned early was this unit has a 15lb capacity. DO NOT exceed it. The motor is on the small side so it will creek and groan till the belt breaks or the whole unit will come off the rollers.



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ALSO there is a dude selling stainless privately in Waterloo - if u want the contact email me.
 
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Well poop. Looks like I'll be putting up my brand new Lyman 2500 for sale. I'll chase those other leads down, thanks guys. I did stumble across the link for stainlesstumblingmedia but they wanted $100+ for shipping.
 
Great Crouton said:
Well poop. Looks like I'll be putting up my brand new Lyman 2500 for sale. I'll chase those other leads down, thanks guys. I did stumble across the link for stainlesstumblingmedia but they wanted $100+ for shipping.
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That is as bad as an eBay price .. Join EE there is an established ss media seller here on CGN and his price is no where near that total.. Search this form for ss media and his name will come up outside EE if you do not want to take that step .. Could be Roxey .. Something like that .. I sadly went eBay but have not looked back , but posts would indicate he has the goods and delivers ..

I shoot .45 acp , so small case so I use the thumblers R12 model $180 .. ( think the "b" is about $220). Can do 200 .45 cases easily .. Get your lemoshine at CTC ..

Edit .. Fellow who sells ss media. Rooky. Send him a PM, ( private message ) still advertising
CTC ... Canadian Tire
 
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sendmorebrains said:
It works 100% but its a bit on the rough side, the belt was missing so I had to make one and the paint peeling BUT who cares the queen isnt going to inspect it.
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Belts are $6.00 @ cabela's .. Get a few for stock , before they are $8.00 ... Everyone ends up at Cabelas now and then, online or in person ..


One size fits all ......
 
Sorry, CTC? What's that?

So this method would be fine for all brass, yes? Just need to make sure I don't buy something I'm not happy with again, lol. I'll be reloading for 9mm, .40, .223, 30-30 and 30-06 and hopefully .338 one day.
 
I wonder if you guys think my 1.5lb tumbler (Lortone 1.5E) could be used for cleaning brass? Not sure how many .308 casings I could do in one batch... It is rated for continuous duty and worked well for jewelry with ss media :)

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All the rage these days seems to be that the brass must be squeeky clean, in and out.

I have been reloading for 50+ years now, and I don't know what we did without this stuff, lol:
Most reloaders did not tumble their brass in anything at all.
If we had a badly tarnished case, we cleaned it with fine steel wool or 1200 grit wet-or-dry paper.

I will assure you, no one but you will ever know whether the inside of the loaded case is shiny or not.
And it will have exactly "zero" effect on your load's accuracy or performance.

Personally, I have much better things to do with my time than "wet" cleaning my cases so they shine inside.
FWIW, I do tumble them to clean the outside, but not every time they are fired. [more like every 3rd or 4th firing.]

But, if it makes you feel good to have that case shiny inside...go for it!! :) :D

Regards, Eagleye.
 
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I agree totally Eagleye, as I thought the same thing. People have been using vibrating media for years and obviously it hasn't hurt anyones reloads. I just really do like the idea of totally clean shells. I just have a tough time believing that all that crap build up on the case has no affect at all. But that's just me, I'm a maintenance junky and love things that I've fixed being clean an ready to go and in like new condition. When you consider the long term costs of SS and its effectiveness, it just strikes me as a really good idea. Even the up front costs aren't significantly higher than a good, large volume vibrating type and only cost after that is some dish soap instead of buying new dry media a few times a year.
 
I am sure in the long run some shooters brass gets cleaned better than their gun .. But each their own .. Clean it up well and then junk it up with alox ... People have to stick within their budget ..

I went the wet ss route .. Seemed to outperform other methods .. But one has to do a lot of reading b4 just jumping in .. I get a kick when people discuss if they got the fast or the slow model "b" .. Some one posted here recently that his wife was after him as he was spilling ss media around his house and he wa doing 50 lbs at one time on a big unit he built .. Sounds a bit commercial to have to do 50 lbs at one time , so why the house and not the garage .. But each there own .. Live and let live

Brass shines better than new .. It will get dull again .. But I like it ...
 
Thanks for the input guys, just wasn't sure how clean I should expect the inside of the case using a vibratory tumbler.

I've got a couple hundred more pieces of brass to clean, I went and raided the brass bins at my local range.
 
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