SS wet tumbling vs Vibratory tumbling

Trinimon

Trinimon

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Ok, maybe I sipped too much of this SS wet tumbling kool-Aid but here's a test I ran last night for sh!ts & giggles.

Here's some 2x fired 308 cases that were cleaned with green cob media for 3hrs. Brass is nice and shiny on the outside and looks clean.
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Dumped cases into my $29. HarborFreight rock tumbler with roughly a tablespoon of dishwashing soap, a pinch of Lemi Shine, 3/4lb of SS pins and filled with hot water just below the top of the cases. The drum on the right are previously media cleaned 357Mag cases.
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Tumble for 3hrs.
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This is the dirty water that comes out at the end from previously cleaned media tumbled cases.
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Silly me didn't think about this at the start but next time I'll do a volume weight test on a single case. I don't think there will be a significant change in volume from cob to ss tumbling but would be interesting to see.

I'll probably stick to media tumbling for my plinking ammo cases since I wouldn't have to wait for them to dry before sizing them etc.
 
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Emmer said:
I'm only tumbling for about an hour with the same result.
Try a few experiments with times, you may find you don't need a full 3 hours.
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Damn, all this time I could have been tumbling for an hour instead? I kept reading folks running it for 3hrs, guess it pays to think outside the box. I'll test out different tumbling times tonight. Thanks for the heads up.
 
Great results, but I still don't feel like justifying the trouble and expense of getting into wet tumbling. It's a nice to have, not a need to have. My dry vibrated cases still make ammo that hits what I point it at.
 
TargetAcquired said:
Great results, but I still don't feel like justifying the trouble and expense of getting into wet tumbling. It's a nice to have, not a need to have. My dry vibrated cases still make ammo that hits what I point it at.
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If it floats your boat, why change.

If you are just getting in to reloading or want to cut your costs over the long run, wet is the way to go.
Zero airborne dust too.
 
Trinimon said:
Damn, all this time I could have been tumbling for an hour instead? I kept reading folks running it for 3hrs, guess it pays to think outside the box. I'll test out different tumbling times tonight. Thanks for the heads up.
Click to expand...

Everything goes into the drum, no matter how tarnished, after an hour 99% of all the brass is clean, the worst 1% goes into the next batch for further cleaning.
If by the end of all cleaning and it is so bad that it will not clean up, into the trash.
 
Emmer said:
The rinse and dry is a critical time, it gives you that little extra time looking at the cases for defects before the pin hits it and it is too late.
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No it is not, the rinsing and drying is wasted time. I dont inspect the brass while i bulk rinse and dry.

I inspect my brass when i prime it.
 
Im switching to stainless steel tumbling.

Coming from Ultrasonic Cleaner, it will be less hassle as i wont have to run to my UC every 8 minutes to add more time.

I found when I cleaned with UC i couldn't add more then 100 x 9mm brass without effecting the cleaning time.

now ill be able to set it and forget.

UC i already rinsed my brass multiple times. Drying i just let there for 24 hours.
 
For rinsing, I dump the brass into a french fry basket over a bucket of water. Swirl the brass around a few times and all the little pins drop into the bucket. Rinse in hot water, shake dry and then spread 'em over a tray.

Maybe I'll pick up another HarborFreight rock tumbler.

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Emmer said:
If you are just getting in to reloading or want to cut your costs over the long run, wet is the way to go.
Zero airborne dust too.
Click to expand...

I don't understand how wet tumbling cuts cost over time - can you elaborate?

Also, I've never had a dust problem with dry cleaning - I use walnut media, is the dust problem only associated with corn?
 
My rotary tumbler is probably 1/2 the noise as my vibratory tumbler.

TargetAcquired said:
I don't understand how wet tumbling cuts cost over time - can you elaborate?

Also, I've never had a dust problem with dry cleaning - I use walnut media, is the dust problem only associated with corn?
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With SS pin tumbling, you don't need to buy media every so many hours of tumbling like cob or walnut, well unless you keep flushing them down the sink. But then again, there's the cost of water for rinsing, a bottle of dish soap and lemi shine. For guys who are using their ovens to bake off the water, I think wet tumbling will cost more in the long run.
 
TargetAcquired said:
I don't understand how wet tumbling cuts cost over time - can you elaborate?

Also, I've never had a dust problem with dry cleaning - I use walnut media, is the dust problem only associated with corn?
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You have dust and don't know it. Trust me, as a guy who used walnut forever and recently switched to SS after my discovery. Try this:

Get a sheet of computer paper, place it in random flat locations. Run your tumbler then go back and look. Run your finger over it. The dust is so fine it is impossible to see. That in its own freaked me out not knowing what was being converted to air bourne contaminants.
 
Trinimon said:
My rotary tumbler is probably 1/2 the noise as my vibratory tumbler.



With SS pin tumbling, you don't need to buy media every so many hours of tumbling like cob or walnut, well unless you keep flushing them down the sink. But then again, there's the cost of water for rin, a bottle of dish soap and lemi shine. For guys who are using their ovens to bake off the water, I think wet tumbling will cost more i the long run.
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For guys like me, the soap is cheap.. dollar store and you only use a half teaspoon.
Citric acid or lemishine is basically a pinch.
If you don't wait to last min and need them dry now or have hard water
You can let them dry overnight.
Media you only need once, it never wears out.
Running time for the machine for me is only around an hour
So there is power savings.
Depending on the media you are coming from there is no dust and no airborne lead.
It's quieter than vibrating.

And cell phones suck for typing lol
 
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