Wet Tumbling brass always dirty

[Xathane]

Hello, no matter what I do my brass comes out with a thin layer of carbon film.
It looks grey/OD green and is tacky to the touch. If I run it through my fingers or wipe it with a rag/papertowel it comes off quite easily and the brass has a magnificent shine. You can see how this would be problematic and overly time consuming when dealing with hundreds of pieces of brass. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

I'm using a Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler with 5lb steel pins.
I wash the brass in a bucket with soap and hot water, then rinse away the soap, dirt, and particulates.
I've washed the pins numerous times with Tide laundry detergent and Dawn dish soap. The pins appear clean.
I've also washed the tumbler with Tide and Dawn but it seems that carbon or some black substance has impregnated the rubber lining on the inside of the tumbler. I scrub the liner with a soapy cloth and carbon type grease stains appears on the cloth. It seems never ending. I have tried drying out the tumbler and rolling corn cob for 90mins but situation no change.

 

[Butcherbill]

If you think it’s in the rubber lining of the tumbler I’d try soaking it in some type of degreaser, Home Depot etc should have some sort of citrus based degreaser like Zep or Simple Green that might work. Let it sit for for a bit or run the tumbler and see if that makes a difference, can’t say I’ve had that problem with my FA wet tumbler but you never know. I use the pins, a squirt of blue dawn or blue no-name laundry soap and a case full of citric acid of whatever cartridge I’m cleaning. Comes out brilliant looking and the pistol brass I’ve been cleaning has been filthy, I mean filthy.

 

[dtkb]

I had same problem with my Frankford tumbler. I ran the tumbler with a cup of commercial degreaser that I got from a janitorial company and water. Been business as usual since then. There had been carbon build up from tens of thousands of cases being cleaned and eventually they came out the same as you described.

This is what I cleaned my pins and drum with

 

[dtkb]

Sorry about pic orientation, not sure what happened there

 

[Xathane]

I forgot to mention that the first few thousand casings (3-5k) came out beautifully. I will try a heavy duty grease remover and run it in the tumbler for 3hours. Thanks for the photo.

 

[Mudduck]

I have used SPRAY 9 a few times as a grease cutter to help with that same problem and it worked well

 

[bertn]

I also think it is your liner.

Maybe try a different soap.

I never had this problem as my drum is from an uncoated 6" pvc pipe (is louder but I run it in my insulated shed).

However what I do is after only running for 10-15 minutes I refresh the water. Most of the carbon flushes out and then put in new water to run the rest of the session.

 

[B]

What lube do you use? I found RCBS' stuff in the little bottle caused me the exact issues you are talking about. It took several rinses to get back to normal.

 

[Potasz]

All I use is dawn and a bit of lemishine - no issues
It might be the liner as others have mentioned

 

[mac100]

I had this same problem from not cleaning the case lube good enough off my cases. I use purple power degreaser and then rinse before I put them in the tumbler. Then a squirt of any dish soap and a cap of Lyman turbo sonic cleaner and they come out like gold.

 

[Potashminer]

All I use is dawn and a bit of lemishine - no issues
It might be the liner as others have mentioned

This is same as I do - same machine as the OP mentions - easily several dozen cycles without those symptoms - 100 to 300 brass in tumbler, 5 pounds of pins, then fill with tap water as per instructions - healthy shot of Dawn Dishwashing soap and 1/4 teaspoon of Lemi-Shine powder. Cycles have been from one hour to three hours - needs good rinse, but I use that roller / separator thing from Frankfurt Arsenal to do that - either in laundry tub or outside with garden hose. Wash water most definitely comes out VERY dirty - I presumed is where the soot and carbon from inside the brass cases went. I do not recall finding any slime or crud on exterior of the cases - maybe is yet to be experienced. Most recently I used "ground walnut shells" - "lizard litter" - dry - in an attempt to polish up some bullets - I think 4 x 3 hour cycles. I have not tried to wet tumble with pins, since that walnut shell attempt.

 

[Xathane]

What lube do you use? I found RCBS' stuff in the little bottle caused me the exact issues you are talking about. It took several rinses to get back to normal.

No lube since I've tumbled 9mm and 45acp only

 

[Potashminer]

What lube do you use? I found RCBS' stuff in the little bottle caused me the exact issues you are talking about. It took several rinses to get back to normal.

For perhaps 20 years I have been using RCBS Case Lube-2 - is water soluble, it says on bottle - I wipe off lubed case while case is in the case spinner to trim to length. Older version was not water soluble - I was using white gas (naphtha aka "camp stove fuel") to remove that stuff.

For whatever reason, I de-prime (RCBS Universal de-prime die or punch thing from old Lee Loader kits) and then tumble with stainless pins - then I lube and re-size and trim / chamfer - de-lube at same time - I have not tried to tumble after lubing / sizing / trim / chamfer the cases - maybe I should? But I only process perhaps 100 or at most 200 cases at once - none are for handgun.

 

[B.C.Jay]

Clean the pins/drum with any of the metasilcate degreasers. There's a zillion out there. Spray 9 is probably the most recognizable name.

 

[veeshooter]

Tagged

 

[NaviDave]

Dawn, lemishine and HOT tap water always works for me. Deprime first.

 

[ZREXER]

I dry tumble with Princess Auto walnut and a cap full of Nu Finish car polish with deprimed lubed cases (RCBS lube) and have none of these issues. Super shiny brass that is ready to load.

 

[redryder]

I dry tumble with Princess Auto walnut and a cap full of Nu Finish car polish with deprimed lubed cases (RCBS lube) and have none of these issues. Super shiny brass that is ready to load.

Once you poke all the walnut out of the flash holes.

 

[ZREXER]

Once you poke all the walnut out of the flash holes.

Maybe 5% have walnut in flash holes. I clean the primer pockets anyway to get rid of any residual carbon, so this takes care of the few cases that may have primer pockets clogged with walnut.
I went from wet tumbling back to dry tumbling years ago. Less issues and no more case erosion from stainless pins. Brass lasts much longer now.

 

[Potashminer]

Dawn, lemishine and HOT tap water always works for me. Deprime first.

I have that Frankford Arsenal rotary tumbler - I used to use hot or really warm water - but, as if the warmth will stretch the plastic - I could not get the ends to seal so there are no leaks. I ended up to get a strap wrench would let me get the ends to be tighter on the barrel - then started to use room temp water in there - leaks seem to have stopped, now. If I was to do that again, I would get TWO strap wrenches - so that I could tighten both ends against each other.