Tips for Wet Tumbling?

Onagoth

Onagoth

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Just got myself a wet tumbler and looking for tips.

I have the magnet to help separate pin media from the brass....but the manual doesn't exactly say how much brass can be loaded into the drum, what additives to use (besides their own brand) and other tips that might be helpful.

I load only 9mm....kinda of wondering if it makes sense to resize and deprime before cleaning or if I can just clean and then run them through (like I've always done when dry tumbling)

Thanks in advance,


FYI...it's all frankfurt arsenal stuff
 
Couple of quick tips off the top of my head:

Decap at least before tumbling. Sometimes I use a universal decaper, then tumble, then size. Sometimes I decap and size and then tumble.

Get a small wire mesh drain screen for whatever sink you'll be pouring the water down. It will catch any remaining pins that don't otherwise get captured. A cheap one from the dollar store works fine.

Figure out how you want to separate pins and brass. Separating works well if everything is under water. If you pour the water out and then try to separate, it really won't work well. I currently use a plastic generic media separator that has a flip over/closed top. I run lots of water through everything, then toss the brass and pins into the separator and as long as I make sure the lower half of the separator is full of water, spinning everything for about 30 seconds gets pretty much all the pins out of the brass.

I rub my brass dry on a towel then spread them out in a metal mesh tray to air dry. No real head to heat dry. I use a big dollar store plastic serving tray under everything during this process as well to catch any wayward remaining pins.

In the end my brass is so clean that it causes some difficulties on my Dillon Square Deal B progressive press. I now give the mouths of my brass a little spray of lanolin/alcohol lubricant before running them through the press to load.

Best of luck.
 
I don't think you will have a problem doing 1000 9's in a go at 3 hours. I use a squirt of dish soap and a squirt of lemon or lime juice from the fridge (citric acid) makes em shine like the sun. Think all else has been answered. I clean them for cleaner primer pockets. Anything else in the cleaning process is just to make pretty and doesn't help really in any way.
 
For pistol brass I just dump them in - no pre-prep. You want sparkling clean pockets then decap.....

FA manual says max 30 lbs (including drum).

So - For 9mm I can get around 1000 cases in there with 5lbs of pins. Water to the bottom of the mouth opening.
Couple of good squirts of Dawn dish soap and a 9mm case full of Lemi Shine (from Canadian Tire htt p://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/lemi-shine-dishwasher-detergent-booster-0534063p.html#srp - it is Citric Acid)
Tumble for 3 hours.

YMMV

Experiment with the amount of Lemi Shine - depends on the hardness of your water.

I separate pins as much as I can dumping into a 5 gallon bucket and rinsing a few times changing the water until it runs clear (with both sifting inserts on - shake, swirl, rinse, repeat), then final separation in a rotary media separator.

I bought an inexpensive dehydrator to dry the brass (about 60 bucks on Amazon).

As per Fusilier I have had to really polish the powder drop funnel on my Dillon 550 as the super clean cases stick now and again - 9mm worse than 45. I'm not wanting to lube pistol brass.
 
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Easy on the lemon shine .. less is more ..

Two stainless pins will fit in a primer hole .. you wonder how they get there .. not every batch.. and when I say you wonder how they get there, that seems very strange, but the first time you reach for a pair of mini needle nose plyers ( to get them out ) you will understand ....
 
Your tumbling time depends on the diameter of the drum and its rotation speed "and" how much brass you put in the tumbler.

I gave up eyeballing and guessing on how much brass to put in the tumbler and now weigh the cases.

My eyeballing and guessing was way off and I was overloading the tumbler. Now that I weigh the cases the brass is cleaner in much less time with less case mouth peening.

Instructions_Website.jpg


How much brass to add?

After the water and media is in the tumbler, you have about 2-4 lbs. left for brass. This is for the 17 pound capacity tumbler.

4 Lbs of Brass Equals “about” (for brass not listed below use the caliber close to the same size and adjust quantity accordingly)

300 Ultra Mag 100-125

300 Mag 120-150

30-06 130-175

7mm Rem Mag 120-160

7wsm 120-150

.308 150-230 pieces

.223 275-300 pieces

.45 300-345 pieces

.40 410-430 pieces

9mm-410-430 pieces

50 BMG 40-50 pieces

.243 190-230

http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com/tips/
 
thanks guys.

First batch is underway.

Gotta pick up some lemi shine but the tumbler included a sampler pack of the frankfurt shine so I'm good for today.

We'll see how it turns out.

Cheers,
 
Onagoth...

Best way to wet tumble your brass is the way banger does...

Lol


That said... I have great results using plain old original Dawn dish soap from the dollar store and a half 9mm case full of lemishine... My home built tumbler will do about 1k of 9mm cases and I'll run it for about two hours...
My separation process may seem tedious, but it doesn't take too long and pretty much guarentees you won't end up with any pins left stuck inside any flash holes...
 
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Lately, I have been omitting the stainless pins. I find that the results are almost as good without the hassle of separating pins from brass. If you want to clean primer pockets and case interiors to as-new condition, you will need to use the media.

I would not deprime pistol cases before tumbling; that is way too much extra work for me. Bottleneck cases are only cleaned minimally to protect the sizing die before sizing/depriming and tumbled afterwards to remove lube and clean to a shiny state. If you wet tumble (or wash) rifle cases with primers in, make sure you allow ample, heated drying time.
 
first batch went well...

didn't have much trouble separating the media, but I didn't deprime first. I don't think I will deprime at all.

Frankfurt gives a strainer attachment, so I found I was able to shake out 90% of the media into a 5 gallon pail. I added a bit of water to the drum a second time while the brass was still in it and was able to get almost all the rest of the media. I then put the brass on a towel, pat dry...and swept over it with my magnet to get all the remaining pins.

I drained the 5 gallon bucket of all the water careful not to also drain the pins. I just left the pins in the bucket for now and virtually all the water is gone.

A lot simpler than I thought it was going to be.

Brass is bright and holy #### was that water dirty
 
Ya,I've been doing my nine without the pins.
Still comes out nice and clean, using dawn and lemi shine.

But if you keep using the pins, you should run those through a cycle,every now and again.
They get dirty and mess up your brass.
 
Onagoth said:
That's interesting...might try without the pins next time.
Click to expand...

Same recipe. Hot water, small squirt dawn,small sprinkle lemi shine, tumble for three hrs.
I dump them on a towel, roll em around a bit.
Then put them in a card board beer flat, and put them by my forced air heat vent, shake them around every so often, until dry.
 
Quote: Get a small wire mesh drain screen for whatever sink you'll be pouring the water down. It will catch any remaining pins that don't otherwise get captured. A cheap one from the dollar store works fine.

I use wifey's old panty hose stretched around a hanger ...IT WORKS
 
silverfoxdj said:
Quote: Get a small wire mesh drain screen for whatever sink you'll be pouring the water down. It will catch any remaining pins that don't otherwise get captured. A cheap one from the dollar store works fine.

I use wifey's old panty hose stretched around a hanger ...IT WORKS
Click to expand...



I use a round magnet (from an old speaker) that fits inside the drain of my sink... any pins that spill are caught by the magic of the magnet before they can disappear down the drain. ..
 
silverfoxdj said:
Quote: Get a small wire mesh drain screen for whatever sink you'll be pouring the water down. It will catch any remaining pins that don't otherwise get captured. A cheap one from the dollar store works fine.
Click to expand...

SF,
Able to give a bit better explanation?

667 said:
I use a round magnet (from an old speaker) that fits inside the drain of my sink... any pins that spill are caught by the magic of the magnet before they can disappear down the drain. ..
Click to expand...


great idea!
 
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