Just got into SS pin wet tumbling and learned a few things.

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PGW Steve

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I picked up the Frankford Arsenal unit and finally 'gave it a spin' this weekend. I used to use a pair of the Dillon dry vibratory units, about 14" diameter or so. I asked a few months ago what you gents use for the cleaning solution and you pointed me in the right direction.

I ran my first batch with the supplied sample of additive to get a benchmark on shine. My brass wasn't picked out of a mud pile or anything, just dirty from firing, so I went with 90 minutes. Since I was doing a test, I selected brass from a few different calibres that would be easy to separate based on obvious physical differences. I threw in some .17 Hornet, .221 Fireball, .204 Ruger and .308. I'd watched some videos and did some reading and thought I would start off with using hot water out of the tap. Some claims were made that hot water drops cleaning time dramatically. This was for a couple reasons as my shop water is reverse osmosis treated on the hot side, and only through softener/carbon/boron filters on the cold. So the hot is a lot more pure.

After 90 minutes, the brass looked very nice and clean. I have the Frankford wet separator kit and that was a good investment, I got all the pins out and everything rinsed. I then realized that .17 Hornet cases fit nicely into .308 case mouths...this sucked. I pulled the 17's out and then spread everything onto the various trays of the case dryer. Ran it for a couple hours and was treated to dripping water and all kinds of tarnishing. Turns out .17 cases don't like to drain with the primers in them. So back to square one, decapped everything, took the 17's out of the mix and re-ran the batch. This time I used 1-1/4 ML of Lemishine and 10 ML of blue Dawn. Things got pretty foamy when I was spinning them in the separator, but looked decent while tumbling. This time all the water tumbled out, and things dried properly.

Next batch I used 1-1/4 ML Lemishine and 5 ML of blue Dawn, seems to be the right mix for me. I had shiny brass, no staining or residue. This batch of brass was some funky .260 stuff that had been sitting for 10 years or so and had some weird scum on them from the shop. They looked brand new after 90 minutes.

I repeated the same recipe on another batch of mixed brass and dropped to 60 minutes and had great results here again.

So I learned to:
-Use hot water
-Watch case compatibility
-Deprime
-60 minutes works well, a lot faster than 180 minutes recommended in the manual
-Use 1-1/4 ML Lemishine, 5 ML blue Dawn (I'm going to try Tide as I've seen online)

Any other tips is greatly appreciated!!!
 
It sounds like your on track with your tumbling procedures, its very similar to what I do, and I,m pleased with my results.
 
I also find the separator was a good purchase. I've cleaned 5-6000 223 brass and only one had a pin inside. Unfortunately it buggered up the rod in my RCBS primer pocket swager. Luckily they are sending me a new one no questions asked. That's why I was interested in a metal detector that would ignore brass. Likely not affordable for home use if one exists. Perhaps an electromagnet as suggested would work.

I have been dumping the water out using the strainer on the container into the lid of the separator and shaking it a bit to get most of the pins out. The liquid drains through the screen in the lid. I add water to rinse agitate and dump again. I do this twice usually.

As another gentleman mentioned in another thread I've seen some variation in color from batch to batch. I didn't have any issues with 223 but when I started doing pistol brass I got some strange colored batches of brass. The major difference was the primers were in the pistol brass. I'm not sure if there was another reason or not yet. Also don't mix pistol brass of different mouth size as many of the smaller will stick inside the larger brass and both won't get cleaned.
 
OK, this will draw a bit of flack from those that insist the brass should look polished and new.

Ten minutes in Lemshine and hot water will remove everything you need to worry about as far as function/dirt/wear goes.

Depriming first is a very good idea as you already found out. Be careful pins don't get caught up in the flash holes.

I also find that after depriming I put the cases in a cake pan and into the oven at 300F for 10 minutes and dump them directly into the SS pins/cleaner. That extra heat really loosens things up. They still aren't bright and shiny but they are clean enough.
 
Seems like you are on track. I personally do not deprime first. I use hot water, a good squirt of dawn or car wash with wax and a 45 acp case of lemi shine. Tumble for 120 minutes and dry with the Frankford arsenal dryer
 
I do a quick first half hour pre wash with hot water, squirt dawn and some citric acid. Then drain the dirty (black) water and put new hot water in with only a bit of new citric acid for the rest of the tumble session.
This way there is hardly any foam at the end and I never have stained brass.

I deprime first by the way.
 
I use an electric dehydrator for drying. Comes with trays to make seperating easier. The fan speeds up the process with some airflow. The whole unit can be shaken or swirled to ensure there’s no water trapped (hard to do with the oven...)
 
Really, really watch for pins that could have gotten stuck sideways in a piece of brass. It's rare but it just takes 1.
For all my match brass I've gone back to just using ultrasonic, easier on it. I always deprime first.
 
i learned to clean all my cases separately one cal at a time. i drain them all after, shake it a few times, then dump into a towel and roll them around a bit. dump back into a bin and let them air dry mixing them up every once in a while. if im in a rush put a fan over them.
 
nate18 said:
i learned to clean all my cases separately one cal at a time. i drain them all after, shake it a few times, then dump into a towel and roll them around a bit. dump back into a bin and let them air dry mixing them up every once in a while. if im in a rush put a fan over them.
Click to expand...
I didn't think guys were dumping all kinds of brass at a time I do the same otherwise I believe you are right pins will get stuck in places you don't want
 
With one exception, I've never had any issues with cleaning multiple calibers of brass in the same Frankfort Arsenal S/S tumbler batch - that exception being I don't include any brass from my 444 Marlin rifles when I'm cleaning 9mm, since a 9 will fit easily inside a 444 case and is impossible to get out without damaging the 444. With the cost & relative scarcity of 444, and the pain of tossing multiple "plugged" big bore brass learned, I just do the 9mm separately now, since I tend to shoot a lot more of that in my 1911 and Just Right carbine and the larger quantity easily justifies the effort of filling up the FA for a cleaning of the single caliber.

I've tumbled together .308, 30-06, 22-250 and have occasionally tossed in smaller batches of .223 from my shooting neighbour next door, since he is just getting started in reloading and doesn't have any kind of tumbler yet.

Otherwise, I'm pretty much on the same page as OP.

O.N.G.
 
Best way to clean large quantities of dirty brass including nice clean primer pockets. Only time I had problems was with 6.5 brass. Lots of pins stuck sideways in the necks. Guess my pins are exactly that size.
 
So far I've only wet tumbled straight walled pistol brass. The media separator is completely necessary if you're tumbling thousands of cases at a time, IMO. Picking up each individual 9mm case and tapping the pins out of them is more of a PITA than I'm willing to deal with, lol. The Magnet pick-up tool is super handy too.

Mixing different cases doesn't work, unless one cannot fit into the other. 9mm mixed in with .40 will prevent the inside of the larger case and the outside of the smaller case from getting cleaned. I'll probably not bother cleaning small batches of brass, so I'll just separate out different cartridges.

Didn't think I was going to bother with a brass dryer, but then I just dumped a bunch of 38 special in a bucket expecting it to air dry by itself (The air is pretty dry here in Calgary). It did not, and tarnished pretty bad. The F.A. brass dryer works pretty slick. Doesn't come with a timer though, which kinda sucks. So I just picked up a countdown timer switch dealie for 10 bucks.
 
silverfoxdj said:
I just use the kitchen oven and dedicated cookie sheets to dry mine, wife does not want me to use hers is where she draws the line
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Same here. I'm thinking a hot air dryer would be better. Faster and a lower temperature. The oven works though and it's there so I haven't changed yet.
 
I've done a few batches now.

The magnet is a must
The media separator is next on the must have list

You can also over do it. I used to run it for MUCH longer but that makes the powder/expander die stick like hell on my 650

My procedure is to throw 1100 9'mm (1 full 2lb protein powder container) with warm/hot water with NO pins and a bit of lemi and dawn.
Run for 30 minutes and rinse well. Place the brass on a towel, quick rub and over to the 650 setup with a Lee Universal decap die.
Decap the whole lot and back into the tumbler with pins, hot water, lemi and car wash'n'wax for 1hr.
Rinse well and with the media separator and magnet I trap 98% of the pins.
Back on another towel quick rub and I let them sit overnight. By morning they are dry and shiny. I used to use an oven but the brass tarnished, once I forgot and they went a dark shade of brown. oops:( The remaining 1.5% of the pins are easily visible and I run the magnet though the brass. The .5% of the pins come out on the 650's case feeder crud catcher.

However they won't be as shiny as a dry tumbler. I ran my first batch of ICORE 9mm loaded rounds for 40 mins using DoubleTap's media mix that I mixed earlier with NuFinish car wax. They come out all shiny and pretty after a final tumbler. Overkill- yes! But there is nothing like pretty shiny brass :)
 
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bearhunter said:
OK, this will draw a bit of flack from those that insist the brass should look polished and new.

Ten minutes in Lemshine and hot water will remove everything you need to worry about as far as function/dirt/wear goes.

Depriming first is a very good idea as you already found out. Be careful pins don't get caught up in the flash holes.

I also find that after depriming I put the cases in a cake pan and into the oven at 300F for 10 minutes and dump them directly into the SS pins/cleaner. That extra heat really loosens things up. They still aren't bright and shiny but they are clean enough.
Click to expand...

If you just want cases that are clean enough to resize, you can usually just put them in a strainer and rinse them with brake cleaner over the garbage. This is what I do with rifle cases prior to sizing/de-priming. I tumble afterwards to remove sizing lube and clean to a shiny state. This way, the cases will dry quickly without going to the trouble of adding a de-priming step to the process. I figure that if I'm going to the trouble of loading/unloading the tumbler, I might as well let it run long enough for shiny brass.

Pistol cases go straight into the tumbler without de-priming, as they can be dried quickly as-is.

I have omitted the stainless media, as the cases still come out shiny on the outside without the hassle of separating pins and the occasional pin stuck in primer flash holes.

I use cold water in my Lortone rock tumbler, as hot water can cause pressure to build up and break the seal at the lid of the barrel. Other tumblers with a stronger closure may be able to use hot water, as some others have indicated.
 
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