New at range brass cleaning!!! Dry Tumbler vs Wet Tumbler

cokelon

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Hi everyone!

So I decided to start getting brass from my range to reload for my IDPA/IPSC matches. Currently using frankfort arsenal dry tumbler with corn cobb media.

Is there any huge differences between dry and wet tumbling?

I've read in some forums people doing both, yes I do see the difference of how shinny brass comes out from a wet tumbler. I do find it adds another step which is drying the brass cost of buying the dryer.

Has anyone seen any difference in performance of brass from one to another method?

Thanks in advance.
 
Wet tumbled brass is way cleaner.

And the filth goes down the drain vs all over your shop.

No need to buy a dehydrator to dry it.

Put it in front of a fan or outside in the sun.
 
You don't need a dryer. Just put the brass on a baking sheet in the oven on a low temp.

Some days when I don't feel like using my wet tumbler for small amount of brass. I just universal deprime and clean the primer pockets, then put them in a PB jar, with some warm water, some dish soap and lemishine and shake it around for a min or two.

Get good enough clean.
 
Wet tumbling cleans the entire case including the interior and primer pocket. While wet tumbling also does a good job of cleaning the case exterior if you really want to go the bling route the dry tumbler will give you the best possible shine, especially if you use an additive. Until I largely switched to wet tumbling I used to dry tumble my cases in two stages (please bear in mind that I'm somewhat OCD so cut me a break):
Step 1. Lyman green corn cob media to remove the carbon staining and general surface crud
Step 2. Fine ground corn cob media treated with jeweller's rouge
The second stage really brings out the shine. If I left the cases running in the tumbler overnight they came out so bright that it was hard to distinguish brass cases from nickel cases.

However, I have now switched over to mainly wet tumbling because I like the primers pockets to be clean as well as the exterior. Occasionally, for some reason the odd batch of wet tumbled brass comes out a little dull so I will throw them into the fine corn cob media for an hour to bring out the shine.

Bear in mind as well that while wet tumbling does a great job of cleaning the entire case it is considerably more labour intensive. You have to decap the cases, fill the tumbler with water, add deterent & Lemishine, tumble, drain the water, separate out the steel media and dry the cases whereas with dry tumbling you dump the cases in, dry tumble, sift out the media and the cases aready to go. Before anyone mentions it I dry tumble with the primers left in.
Dry tumbling doesn't clean the primer pocket so there is no advantage to decapping prior to tumbling and the media just clogs up the primer pockets which then have to be cleaned. I find that when I size & decap the cleaned cases any media in the flash hole just gets pushed out along with the primer.
 
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I have not wet tumbled, but when my brass gets really dark I soak it for an hour in a mild acid solution before rinsing, let it partially dry on a towel (no need to get all the water, walnut will absorb some), then do the usual dry tumble. Brass comes out almost as bright and shiny on the exterior as wet tumbled. This method does not however do anything close to the job wet tumbling does to the interior and primer pockets.
 
I prefer wet tumbling. Match brass can be full of dirt and sand.
Stainless steel pins from Frankford (courtesy of Amazon).
Citric acid, Dawn from a grocery store.
Homemade tumbler (2 litre plastic jar from scrap heap, 12V motor w/gearbox $10 from Princess Auto, 12V power brick from an old router, a couple of bearings). PA has very cheap but usable rock tumblers, they were on sale a few days ago.
Dryer not needed, just spread the brass in single layer on a plastic sheet, leave in the sun for a few hours.
 
Wet tumbling to actually get them clean like others have said. Sometimes they get water spots when drying so if you care about these things pop up in your dry tumbler to polish.

I dry my cases with a hair dryer in a bucket with perforations in the bottom.
 
Wet tumbling for sure. Especially for range picked brass. I wouldn't worry about getting a dehydrator either. After I shake out all my SS pins, sometimes I just let them air dry if I'm not in a rush. Sometimes when we are preheating the oven I'll toss them in for 15 minutes as the oven warms up. Summer time they'll sit on the back porch in the sun. All depends on how much of a hurry you're in to get things loaded
 
Demprime then Wet Tumble. Especially for range brass which might have mud and other kinds of filth inside the case.
Pat dry with a towel and set aside to air dry. Don't buy a dehydrator.... if you want to spend money on extras, then I'd recommend a 4 litre water distiller from Amazon.

Washing and rinsing in distilled water almost guarantees a spot free shine.
(If you use hard water, then you run the risk of getting black spots as your brass dries.

Don't buy detergent specifically for wet tumbling brass either... its usually expensive crap , and Dawn (with or without a pinch of Lemishine) works wonderfully
 
Wet all the way. Two things in my reloading career I've deemed to be life changing. finally buying a chargemaster, and switching to wet tumbling.

100% will never go back to dry media.

I clean my brass with lemishine and dish soap, comes out shining brighter than new. I deprime/resize them and put them in for another quick bath.

It's also super satisfying.
 
So I forgot to mention that I have a dillon xl750 and I can deprime as the casing goes down. Therefore dry tumbling sounds a bit better vs running the brass through the machine then wet tumble.

I don't care too much about the shine as in my opinion doesn't make any difference in performance (am I wrong?). I will eventually try the wet tumble but then I think there are other items I need to get to do this and one of them would be a depriming tool along with the tumbler plus the magnet for the media.

But truly appreciate the input from everyone and looking forward to get reloading. I am doing my first batch or rounds being chronographed in about an hr.
 
As many have mentioned above, I prefer to wet tumble with stainless pins - but I have never re-loaded for hand gun like I think OP wants to do. I think is also difference between "clean" - as in no grit or gunk - versus "shiny like new" - sometimes seems to get mixed together for some people?? I am not sure that "shiny" will make the round more accurate (?), but "clean" is pretty important to life of dies and chamber, I think.

For whatever reason - whether valid or not - I prefer to see the annealing colours on the rounds that I use for hunting - and I prefer to remove at least the loose crap from the primer pockets before seating a new primer, and I prefer to use the Lee case trim thingy with the pin that goes through the flash hole - so I know my flash holes are open. So I prefer to de-prime with universal tool or one by one with a long punch from old days "Lee Loader" - then tumble with stainless pins - perhaps 100, 200 or 300 cases at a time - set case mouth down in holders for brass to dry "naturally" - often on multiple folded window screen so case mouth not tight to bottom of container - usually overnight - then lube and resize - trim to length and wipe off the lube - anneal if I think they need it - then seat fresh primers, dispense powder and seat bullets. - Is usually several sessions to produce a couple hundred centre fire rifle rounds. Sometimes the resizing and annealing are reverse order - I guess that I do not do enough of it, to see a difference on targets.
 
Interesting opinions above. Pistol brass if too clean will be a birch to resize. You will have to lube the too clean brass to flow smoothly through the progressive press.
I clean my 9mm brass in a cement mixer 2000 at a time. The walnut shell/corn cob media has a bit of Meguiars polishing wax on it to help with the later flow through the Dillon XL650 press. 45acp the same way.
9mm I have multiple ISPC targets 53 rounds, 17 yards, -1. 45acp 69 rounds, 17 yards, -4. Don't over think it.
 
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