Case cleaning

ryan32

ryan32

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Hey all

I was wondering what you all use for case cleaning. I guess in particular what I’m looking at is if everyone is using factory tumblers or if people have some useable alternatives. I’m a junior at loading and haven’t done much volume but it seems kinda wild to spend 300$ on a brand name tumbler. I am in need of some method of bulk cleaning method as I’m looking to load 9mm from range brass and obviously that can be mixed condition to put it nicely.

Thanks
 
I have all the different tumblers, wet, dry, etc. However, I like pretty, shiny brass, which isn’t essential for reloading. You can just as easily get a bucket, put some Dawn in it and manually, shake, drain, dry. In the end, you just need the grime and grit off the case.
 
NRA Brass cleaning solution

1/4 cup vinegar
1 Tbsp salt
1/8 oz.(up to 1/4cup) dish liquid(somone specified which brands to be avoided)
1/2 gallon water
Immerse & agitate brass 3-4 minutes
Dump mixture when done, rinse in clean water

Cleans plenty good enough for my needs, after rinse I spread the cases on a cookie sheet and put in a low heat oven to dry inside and out.
 
The cheapest solution is probably a vibratory case tumbler. Dust and capacity (to some extent) are the negatives. Wet tumblers do cost more but personally that's what I would recommend. You can make your own if you're handy but you'll have to decide if the savings are worth your time and effort (I don't think so). Some loaders also use a cement mixer. These offer the largest capacity but they're pretty expensive.

Examples of a DIY tumbler:


Cement Mixer:


Vibratory:

RCBS-87060-VCP-Properly-Loaded.jpg


Wet tumbler (my personal choice):

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Probably you will want to differentiate between "clean" and "shiny". When I started, I would place a pile of fired brass on a bath towel (for that purpose) - then slosh on some white gas - camp stove fuel. Lift ends of towel to make like a hammock and slosh back and forth - that would remove grit, grunge, etc. from the cases. Then they are "clean" - but not shiny. Rolled them on lube pad, re-sized, which popped out the primer. In those days, I used to then clean each primer pocket with an RCBS (?) round brush tool. After cleaning out the pocket, I would trim to length and chamfer the case mouths, and de-lube - often using that white gas and towel, since the lube that I used was an oil based stuff, back then. I would then re-seat a primer using the arm on the press - then dispense powder - for "critical" loads that was weighed on beam scale and trickled to weight. For less critical - that was throw by volume from powder tool, and check about every 10th for weight. Seat bullets. Fire and repeat.

Now-a-days, I tend towards wanting "shiny" - for no real good reason, over "clean" - I doubt it makes me shoot any better. So I de-cap, usually in a de-capping die or with a Lee punch. Then into a rotary tumbler thing with stainless pins, Dawn dishwashing soap, Lemi-shine powder and room temp water - makes the brass "shiny" inside and outside of the case and more or less cleans out the primer pocket. Lube and resize - I trim to length, chamfer the case mouths and wipe off lube while spinning them one by one in a Lee case spinner stud (current lube used is water based - wipes of easy with damp rag). I now dispense powder with an RCBS ChargeMaster Lite, although the Hornady beam scale and trickler are set up and ready to go. Seat bullets. Fire and repeat.

EDIT: - I re-read your initial post - you are loading 9mm, I presume for a handgun - I have no experience at that - so can likely ignore most of the specifics of how I re-load - was based on many 308 Win and 243 Win cases for rifles.
 
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Cheap Amazon rock tumbler works well as a wet tumbler. You can get quite a few cases in considering how small they are. Just do small batches. 20 or 30 308 of 30-06 cases if I remember right. A pound or whatever of stainless pins, a squirt of dish soap, and a thimble of lemishine.
I made a big tumbler for pistol brass. Last year I found an old rcbs wet tumbler online locally for cheap.
Just remember to dry it well. And for rifle brass, for sure remove the primers first.
 
Search Jerry Miculek on YouTube, I think he has a video where he does 5000 cases at a time in a cement mixer.

But yeah, if you’re doing bulk pistol brass you’ll need to invest in a device. Wet tumble with steel pins makes brass look new. Walnut vibratory is cheaper and less steps than wet/pins.
 
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I have a Lyman vibratory tumbler and crushed walnut media I use for smaller batches (50-200) of cleaner pistol brass, once fired or my own reloads. For bulk range pickup or ipsc brass (multiple 5 gal pails) which is filthy I wet tumble in a Frankford Arsenal with stainless pins and some laundry soap and citric acid, I tried the vibratory tumbler on the ipsc brass and it didn’t get it clean and took way to long for the amount that I could do in one go.

The wet tumbler with pins is worth it if you’re doing any level of volume or really dirty brass, once you get it spotless you can use the dry tumbler in smaller batches. I add a cap of NuFinish car wax and a squirt of varsol to the walnut media to help with cleaning/polishing and to keep dust to a bare minimum. It’s not worth the time to cobble something together when there’s good options available already, the FA wet tumbler comes in two sizes. I’ve tried just water and stainless pins and that works pretty damn well, less rinsing without soap.

The first pic is ipsc brass that was dry tumbled on the right and wet tumbled on the left. I use a dry media separator to spin out and seperate the pins.
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ryan32 said:
Hey all

I was wondering what you all use for case cleaning. I guess in particular what I’m looking at is if everyone is using factory tumblers or if people have some useable alternatives. I’m a junior at loading and haven’t done much volume but it seems kinda wild to spend 300$ on a brand name tumbler. I am in need of some method of bulk cleaning method as I’m looking to load 9mm from range brass and obviously that can be mixed condition to put it nicely.

Thanks
Click to expand...

$300? No. There are much better deals out there.

Online today in Canadian stores you can buy brand name dry media case tumblers for well under $150 (before tax), and maybe get free shipping too. There are kits with both a tumbler and media separator on sale right now for under $150.

I run my Lyman 1200 outside in the unheated garage in the depths of winter at temperatures as low as -20C, sometimes colder. Many years of use its never failed. I duct taped the lid slots to keep the dust in, although some will inevitably escape around the lid edge. Tumbler media dust is bad to breathe in, so I recommend always running a dry media tumbler outside (under cover obviously, protected from rain and snow). Its also very noisy, so outside it is for my preference.
 
I was given a 15# rock tumbling barrel, it is a pretty standard barrel.Most lapidary equipment companies sell it . There is even one tumbler company using it for brass, another market, chuckle. It does about 150 30-06. I built the rest of the tumbler using my wife's old Loratone rock tumbler as an inspiration. With 5# of stainless steel pins , Dawn and Lemon Shine, the brass comes out pretty. But think about what you hope to achieve. The insides of the neck must be very clean and primer pockets half-ass. The out side clean enough so you don't scratch your dies. That's about it. For years I used Lee trimmer chuck and brass bore brush for the neck and a very, very fine auto body scotch brite type scuff pad for the outside. For the primer pockets I used the Lee tool. A stainless steel bore brush worked better, but they are hard to find. You can use steel wool instead of a scuff pad.

Primer dust is gritty, it can damage your press ram, and contains lead dust ,so the wet tumbling is the preferred method.
 
I've worked a shutdown in the smelter in Trail, the world largest lead/zinc smelter. It was unreal the precautions we took. They don't do that unless they have to. If you can avoid lead dust, all the better.
 
For volume case cleaning I use a cement mixer. A bucket of brass, a squirt of Dawn and a heaping tablespoon of citric acid plus lots of water. In an hour the cases are clean. Then they get dumped into a colander bin to drain and spread on drying racks in the sun. In winter I have to use dehydraters.

Small batches just go into a tumbler with walnut shells and a squirt of laquer thinner. I keep the tumbler outside in a covered porch to minimize dust inside.

The cheapest way is a bucket and soap and vinegar. Mix around until clean then dump and dry on a tray in the oven.
 
There should be two types of reloaders out there. The ones who wet tumble, and those who are looking to upgrade to wet tumbling.
Besides the price, I cannot think of a single reason one would choose to use a vibratory tumbler…
 
The only reason that I can think of, not to go to wet tumbling, is the hand loaders who question the whole point of any kind of tumbling - gets back to that "clean" versus "shiny" thing. I can not say that I have ever shown myself, with my guns, a difference in group size with or without a "shiny" case.
 
ryan32 said:
Hey all

I was wondering what you all use for case cleaning. I guess in particular what I’m looking at is if everyone is using factory tumblers or if people have some useable alternatives. I’m a junior at loading and haven’t done much volume but it seems kinda wild to spend 300$ on a brand name tumbler. I am in need of some method of bulk cleaning method as I’m looking to load 9mm from range brass and obviously that can be mixed condition to put it nicely.

Thanks
Click to expand...
14 pounds worth of brass is a lot of brass.
14 pounds of 9mm is a stupid amount of brass, do you think you will need a larger tumbler ?
;)

https://www.rcbs.com/case-processing/cleaning/vibratory-case-polisher/1000811.html
 
For whatever reason, has always been a "big deal" for me to clean primer pockets - is some thought in my head that residue from previous firing can interfere with the proper seating of the new primer. And that the flash hole needs to be clear. I have never reloaded for handgun - reading on CGN and other places that users of progressive machines do not bother to clean primer pockets - just punch out the old primer (which clears the flash hole) and insert a new one. Perhaps I was wrong in my thinking about need for clean pockets - but I am too old and sort of "set in my ways" - my primer pockets get at least a nominal cleaning, which I get by punching out the primer and then wet tumbling.
 
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