Any ones opinion on SS pin cleaning ? RJ
Tumbler Cleaner
- Thread starter remington jim
- Start date
I use a Frankford vibatory and a bit of car polish. A good friend brought me several partial bottle of car polish. A little goes a long way. I used the Frankford to shine up the bullets I pulled from that CBC 75 ammo a while back.
them SS pins do clean well and you can add cheaper stuff to the wash to make the brass bright (lemishine, vinegar, detergent)
they also don't produce that nasty dust.
Initially, I would run the tumbler with the pins only for a few hours to dull the sharp points on the ss pins.
cons
sometimes, depending on the brass, it happens that a pin is the right size to get stuck inside the case
I have Always used ground up walnut shells to clean my brass - Has always worked but what can i do to make it even better and FASTER to clean my brass ? I have heard that adding DAWN ?? dish soap and others say CLR ?? to the walnut media helps - What do you use ?s RJ
Jewellers rouge, I have a Lortone rock tumbler with two barrels, one for walnut shell with rouge and one just walnut shell, use the rouge first and finish with the plain walnut shell, works very well.
Those are the ones.
I wet tumble without pins. Just put a squirt of Dawn and a spoonful of citric acid into the cement mixer, throw in a bucket of brass and add some water. In about an hour they are all clean.
I'll tumble with walnut shells for small batches or to remove case lube from rifle brass.
I'll tumble with walnut shells for small batches or to remove case lube from rifle brass.
Do you put in Nu finish or Flitz with the pins ? OR ?? RJ
I have lyman rotary tumbler and ss pins, I use 2 cap full of sonic clean and ro water. The brass and primer pockets come out factory clean, I shoot a lot of 9mm so we are talking nasty dirty range brass .
1 sort out the head stamps ( I throw out crimped brass and pesky .380 auto that sneak in)
2 throw the brass in the tumbler for 1/2 hour
3 de-cap
4 back into the tumbler for 1 1/2
Ready to load and never have to clean the primer pockets. Buy a frankford arsenal magnet makes clean up of the ss pins quicker
1 sort out the head stamps ( I throw out crimped brass and pesky .380 auto that sneak in)
2 throw the brass in the tumbler for 1/2 hour
3 de-cap
4 back into the tumbler for 1 1/2
Ready to load and never have to clean the primer pockets. Buy a frankford arsenal magnet makes clean up of the ss pins quicker
I have all three methods of cleaning brass, ultra sonic, vibratory and rotary.
1. Ultra sonic- will make the brass clean not shinny. There are some recipes out there that you can follow to try and get the brass shinny that do work somewhat but you need at least 5 cycles of 8 minutes to do 40-50 rifle brass. I use my ultra sonic to clean gun parts only.
2. Vibratory- used my RCBS one for years, did a good job of cleaning outside of cases and somewhat cleaned the primer pockets. Tried various concoctions of additives to crushed walnut , lizard litter etc and did it for years. Always had to pick out walnut from primer pockets and most of the time from inside smaller cases like .223 etc.
3. Rotary tumbler- had a rock tumbler when I was a kid and thought about using it for brass. I remembered reading an article in Handloader from the early 70's about tumbling with stainless steel pins so I tried a small batch in my rock tumbler with 2 lbs of pins I bought. Just as I was doing this someone posted on the internet about rotary tumblers and stainless steel pins and it took off from there. I made my own tumbler that I could load up 1000 .223 brass and run it for 3 hours. I then pour the brass into a separator and spread the brass on towels to dry for a couple of days. I always inspect every piece of brass for cracks and anything abnormal inside and out and I have found a couple pins inside the brass but for the way rotary cleans there is no comparison. The brass comes out like new, even range pickup with a few years of rust and mud on them.
I use my ultra sonic for gun parts cleaning, my vibratory for cleaning case lube off of large batches of loaded ammo ( lately not so much because my pistol ammo doesn't need case lube and I can't shoot .223 any more) and my rotary for cleaning cases.
1. Ultra sonic- will make the brass clean not shinny. There are some recipes out there that you can follow to try and get the brass shinny that do work somewhat but you need at least 5 cycles of 8 minutes to do 40-50 rifle brass. I use my ultra sonic to clean gun parts only.
2. Vibratory- used my RCBS one for years, did a good job of cleaning outside of cases and somewhat cleaned the primer pockets. Tried various concoctions of additives to crushed walnut , lizard litter etc and did it for years. Always had to pick out walnut from primer pockets and most of the time from inside smaller cases like .223 etc.
3. Rotary tumbler- had a rock tumbler when I was a kid and thought about using it for brass. I remembered reading an article in Handloader from the early 70's about tumbling with stainless steel pins so I tried a small batch in my rock tumbler with 2 lbs of pins I bought. Just as I was doing this someone posted on the internet about rotary tumblers and stainless steel pins and it took off from there. I made my own tumbler that I could load up 1000 .223 brass and run it for 3 hours. I then pour the brass into a separator and spread the brass on towels to dry for a couple of days. I always inspect every piece of brass for cracks and anything abnormal inside and out and I have found a couple pins inside the brass but for the way rotary cleans there is no comparison. The brass comes out like new, even range pickup with a few years of rust and mud on them.
I use my ultra sonic for gun parts cleaning, my vibratory for cleaning case lube off of large batches of loaded ammo ( lately not so much because my pistol ammo doesn't need case lube and I can't shoot .223 any more) and my rotary for cleaning cases.
