Note to self: NEVER tumble 9mm brass with 444 Marlin gold - er, "brass"

O

OldNewGuy

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Thought I'd take a short-cut since I didn't have a full load of 444 Marlin to wet-tumble with the stainless pins. I've often wet-tumbled different calibers before, such as 22-250 Rem or .308 Win in with my 444's if I didn't have enough of any one caliber to make it worthwhile doing a small batch. I always made sure that the caliber of brass wasn't similar to any of the other brass in the mix (i.e. never mix .270 win with 30.06 for example). And.....I find a tumbler with about 2/3 of the full capacity cleans better than a 1/4 load.

Never had an issue until today - I figured no issue with tossing in a couple of hundred 9mm Luger brass with about 100 Marlin 444.

Wrong! Turns out that a 9mm case fits perfectly inside a 444 Marlin - and danged near impossible to remove properly once the base is down near the inside base of the Marlin stuff. No more than a thou or two of clearance between the outside of the 9mm and the inside of the 444.

I can attest that it gets old really quick trying to remove the 9mm once it's found a home in there. Ended up tossing out about 25 of the hens-teeth 444 because no matter what I did I couldn't get the 9mm Luger brass out of the rifle case. I sure don't care about tossing the Luger cases, but it pained me to toss the Marlin stuff.

O.N.G.
 
I'd suggest a small pin punch that can fit through the flash hole with some room to spare, angle it slightly and tap out the 9mm round. Shouldn't be that difficult to get out without damaging the other brass.
 
The Offspring knew this in 94 "You gotta keep them separated." before stainless pins tumbling was a thing for reloaders.
Don't worry most of us learned the hard way like you :)
 
OldNewGuy said:
Thought I'd take a short-cut since I didn't have a full load of 444 Marlin to wet-tumble with the stainless pins. I've often wet-tumbled different calibers before, such as 22-250 Rem or .308 Win in with my 444's if I didn't have enough of any one caliber to make it worthwhile doing a small batch. I always made sure that the caliber of brass wasn't similar to any of the other brass in the mix (i.e. never mix .270 win with 30.06 for example). And.....I find a tumbler with about 2/3 of the full capacity cleans better than a 1/4 load.

Never had an issue until today - I figured no issue with tossing in a couple of hundred 9mm Luger brass with about 100 Marlin 444.

Wrong! Turns out that a 9mm case fits perfectly inside a 444 Marlin - and danged near impossible to remove properly once the base is down near the inside base of the Marlin stuff. No more than a thou or two of clearance between the outside of the 9mm and the inside of the 444.

I can attest that it gets old really quick trying to remove the 9mm once it's found a home in there. Ended up tossing out about 25 of the hens-teeth 444 because no matter what I did I couldn't get the 9mm Luger brass out of the rifle case. I sure don't care about tossing the Luger cases, but it pained me to toss the Marlin stuff.

O.N.G.
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Could just prime the 444 cases and see if you can't belch the 9mm out of it by firing.
 
9mm does the same thing with 44 magnum brass, but 444 is much longer and would be much worse to pull them out.I remember witling a branch off a Crab apple tree to form a tight fitting dowel to get them out.
 
I have done the same thing with .45 LC and 45-70...damn cob material wedged them pistol cases in tighter-na-cows-a$$ in fly time, didn't matter if they were in base or mouth first...I did use my kinetic puller but needed a new one before the job was done (still cheaper than buying new brass)
 
BooSSted said:
Well, that's a terrible idea... Lol

Use a small stick or a punch of some sort and put some tape on the end of it and pull the 9mm's out.
Click to expand...

Why is that such a bad idea? Worst case scenario is you have to push the 9mm casing out of the 444 Marlin barrel with a cleaning rod, and the 9mm case is damaged. It won't hurt the gun or the 444 Marlin casing.
 
There's a ton of combinations that do some version of this and it changes depending on the size of the polishing media you are using.

I'm just about to the point of never combining different cases in any cleaner any more.
 
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