Tallcooldrink
Member
- Location
- Riding the wild, wild West, baby!
Cleaning Casings in Tumbler with Stainless Steel Media.
- Thread starter Brassman66
- Start date
Lots of people don't use the stainless pins. The pins work really well to get brass super shiny but they aren't necessary to get the brass nice and clean. Soap and water and some lemishine/citric acid works great for cleaning brass on it's own without the pins-. Pins will make the brass extra shiny.
- Location
- Blaster land, Okanagan BC
+1^^^
Works just fine, I’ve run batches of just pins or just citric acid, or just soap. They all result in clean brass, I prefer to use pins as I’ve figured out a quick/simple way to separate them but nothing wrong with the cleanliness I got with the other methods I tried.
My wife is patient and supportive of my hobby, but I don't think she'd be THIS patient and supportive lol
As with others, I deprime, SS tumble with laundry soap (because I'm filling water at the laundry sink anyways so it's the most convenient) and lemi-shine, sort out pins and let dry on old cookie sheets lined with paper towel. I usually wash brass a few hundred cases ahead of what I currently need to reload, so I'm never in a situation where I need to wash them and have them dry immediately for loading, so the "more time thanks to having to dry" argument doesn't affect me
The clean the primer pockets for easier and more consistent seating.
These are my brass after depriming,hot water,dawn dish detergent and a tea spoon of lemishine powder and spin for 3 hrs.
Then resize and spin for one more hr using same ingredients to remove lube.
I then roll them on a towel and put into a cardboard flat and dry by a furnace vent.
Usually ready for next day. Nice and shiny
If I’m in a hurry I use a hairdryer.
Then resize and spin for one more hr using same ingredients to remove lube.
I then roll them on a towel and put into a cardboard flat and dry by a furnace vent.
Usually ready for next day. Nice and shiny
If I’m in a hurry I use a hairdryer.
Attachments
I don’t use the pins either
What I am going to try next time is toss a handful of spent 22 long brass in the mix and tumble them along with the other cases
I read that it does just as good a job as the pins and is easier to separate from the mix and it’s not supposed to peen the case mouths as much
What I am going to try next time is toss a handful of spent 22 long brass in the mix and tumble them along with the other cases
I read that it does just as good a job as the pins and is easier to separate from the mix and it’s not supposed to peen the case mouths as much
Thunderhog
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- East Kootneys
Never had or even seen a peened case mouth.
This will not happen if one does the stainless steel pin method properly.
I switched to the wet tumbling with pins approximately 12 years ago, would never switch or go back to dust and dry media!
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If you are using a progressive press don't use 22 casings! You will inevitably miss some and they will jam up your mechanisms or hide int he bottom of your brass. I hate the damn things
I admit, I'm a brass goblin at the range. I do a tumble with water, soap, and Lemi-shine, BEFORE I let them near my press. I then sort deprime, size, and then into the FART they go. This cleans the lube off, and cleans the pockets. During the warmer months I put them outside to dry, during the cooler wet months into my old dehydrator to dry off.
I used to do the NRA brass cleaning formula using salt, vinegar, and water which worked quite well but I recently switched to using 1/2 of a Sunlight dishwasher pod, 1 cup vinegar, and 3 cups hot water. spin for 30 minutes. rinse 3 times, towel dry, and leave it for a day. I use one of those cheap Vevor jewelry tumblers, it does about 3-400 9mm cases per load. next experiment in mind is adding a dash of turtle wax wash and wax formula just to reduce the "stickiness" running super clean brass through the carbide resizing die. I stopped using pins when I got tired of looking at each flash hole and neck.
For everyone buying Lemishine, it's just citric acid. It can be found at most grocery stores, bulk barn, Walmart, and home brew places for a fraction of the cost of lemishine.
I put a 45acp casing worth of citric acid in a 7L FA wet tumbler with it 3/4 full of casings, hot water and a squirt of dawn. They're super shiny. Can't he happier.
I put a 45acp casing worth of citric acid in a 7L FA wet tumbler with it 3/4 full of casings, hot water and a squirt of dawn. They're super shiny. Can't he happier.
