I have found it....the lemi shine of the north!

I run mine for an hour with Lemishine Booster and a squirt of Dawn ultra, in hot water, filled no more than 1/3 full with brass, and they come out looking like new. Including the primer pockets, and no brass darkening. I've tried 45 min in the past, but the primer pockets on my SRP brass don't get completely clean.
I bought screens for both ends of my FA tumbler, which allows me to rinse the brass inside the tumbler in my kitchen sink. I separate the pins from the brass in a FA brass spinner, works superbly. And I dry brass in a FA brass dryer. The dryer is a bit fragile, but it works great as long as you're gentle with everything.
I load everything on a single stage, and use mandrels for setting neck tension on most cases, so I'm not saving any steps by depriming after tumbling. If I ever go progressive that may change.
 
This thread made of excellent read. 2023 will be my first year using the wet tumbler with pins. Looking forward to the good and bad with s/s pins. I had a hard time finding Lemishine but found some at CT, so it's all good, ready to go.
 
I tried using my FA vibratory machine with water and soap & lemi shine and no pins, worked pretty good. Still a pain to dry the cases especially in winter when i do a lot of brass cleaning.
 
I just use Lemi shine or citric acid in a quart mason jar an rotate/shake or a bit every hour or so. After 4-5 hours I strain out the brass and rinse it well and then air dry. This will give me enough brass to work with on my single stage press for any loading day. If the primer pockets are still dirty I will give it an hour in the walnut shell tumbler.

Bill
 
dead meat said:
I tried using my FA vibratory machine with water and soap & lemi shine and no pins, worked pretty good. Still a pain to dry the cases especially in winter when i do a lot of brass cleaning.
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I dry mine in whatever spots the cats want to sleep. Lol

A wire basket or colander over the heat register works well. Usually I clean when I get back from the range and it has days or weeks to dry. Don't quite understand the need to buy extra equipment just to get water to evaporate.
 
Jon. said:
I wet tumble all my brass first, resize, and tumble again. My time isn't so valuable, and it's less wear on my dies.
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I use an inexpensive Lee universal decaper to clean the primer pockets when tumbling but then I'll tumble them again after resizing to remove the lube.
 
Did some 9mm today in CLR/water. No media added, just brass and tumbled for 2hrs.
Clean and shiny inside out and primer pockets are clean. CLR works good to on carbon ring buildup.
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jamesharrison said:
You do know that CLR will dissolve / etch /pit copper, brass & zinc, and their website specifically advises against its use on those metals, right?
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Huh, I did not.
I have been doing this a while now and see no ill effect. Takes less than 2hrs and is diluted with water like 70/30 so until I see a problem I will keep using this easy technique.

As for cleaning barrels I picked up on that after seeing Erik Cortina suggested it as a carbon remover. In that case I run a few dry patches after CLR then one patch CLP to prevent rust.
 
I just bought a huge bag of citric acid off Ebay , which is the acid in Lemishine. I am pretty sure Amazon would carry also.
 
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