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Educate me on tumbling brass


Marshal Hangtree

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I use a regular vibratory with either walnut or cobb and add a little nufinish polish. Timer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Do not deprime first. Seperate the media and brass then reload. Have never had a problem with primer pockets. Simple and I've never felt the need to switch to the rotary methods. Looks like they both work well.

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If you are using walnut media, watch the dust that comes of the media when shaking it out.  I now use disposable masks and gloves when handling dirty brass.  After nine years of loading for myself and the kids my lead level has elevated.  I always thought my lead level would be tested when I had physicals, but it isn't.  Do not mean to take   away from your thread.  Have no idea the volume you will be loading.  

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Thanks, Kirk.  I've known about the lead contamination issue for the past 2 years.  That's another reason I'm leaning heavily toward wet tumbling.  I'm probably going to order the Frankford Arsenal Lite tumbler tonight.  Midsouth Shooters Supply has them on sale right now.

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Thanks, I will look it up myself.  

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32 minutes ago, Attica Jack #23953 said:

I checked out the Riogrande.com site.   Stratosheen is a little too expensive for me.......don't have a problem with separating the pins.  Thanks.

I bought a box of it about 8 years ago and I still have enough for 8 more years or so.

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Yul: without the pins the insides and the primer holes don't get clean enough for me. The insides get pretty dirty with BP. More than one way to skin a cat.

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2 hours ago, Yul Lose said:

I bought a box of it about 8 years ago and I still have enough for 8 more years or so.

The stuff makes a huge ++++ difference both in wet tumbling and dry vibratory processes.  And you use just a tiny amount. 

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9 hours ago, Shooting Bull said:

 

^ This X 1,000.  Yul clued me into Stratosheen a year or so ago and it's an absolute Godsend.  Brass comes out as shiny as new with no messing around with having to separate pins from brass. Saves tons of time and effort.  

And very few microscopic scratches that make the surface appear dull. 

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10 hours ago, Marshal Hangtree said:

I didn't start reloading until I started SASS shooting about 2 years ago.  So I don't have as much experience in the subject as most of y'all, so please lend some advice that a relative moron can understand.

 

I've been using a regular vibratory tumbler with ground walnut media for cleaning my brass (.44-40 and .45CS).  It seems to do a good  an acceptable job on cleaning the exterior of the brass.  I normally do not de-cap the brass before tumbling because the walnut media gets into the primer pocket very easily on large primer pockets and gets tedious in removal.  This results in eventual crud building up in the primer pockets, making re-priming more difficult.

 

If I were to switch to rotary tumbling with stainless steel media, would that alleviate my problems with cruddy primer pockets?  Is the stainless steel media just as likely to get wedged in the pockets?

 

Overall, I'm just looking for the best way to clean the brass, and at the same time clean the primer pockets to reduce fowling in that area.

 

Please load me up with advice.

 

Thanks, y'all!

If you use the same separator that you would use for vibratory, 99.9% of the steel pins will separate out.  But with that said, the other 0.1% occasionally bends a depriming pin.  I also find it helpful to rinse the Dawn off the cases before I dry them.  I just turn the separator in the sink, under the running faucet.  

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11 hours ago, Marshal Hangtree said:

...If I were to switch to rotary tumbling with stainless steel media, would that alleviate my problems with cruddy primer pockets?  Is the stainless steel media just as likely to get wedged in the pockets?

 

Yes SS pins will clean primer pockets.  

I have never had SS pins wedge in 45 Colt primer pockets.  Rarly in .223 primer pockets.

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14 hours ago, Yul Lose said:

1/4 teaspoon Lemishine, squirt of Dawn, tablespoon of Stratosheen. Load your brass in the tumbler, add water and then the three cleaning agents. Close it up and tumble for an hour or so, open it up, dump the brass into a colander rinse a couple of times with cold water and spread on a cookie sheet out in the sun to kill the covid-19 virus (that’s a joke folks) and dry. Doesn’t get much easier.

Accually Yul,   a study was found that high heat (133 deg.) kills the virus.

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8 minutes ago, Major General Shagnasty said:

Accually Yul,   a study was found that high heat (133 deg.) kills the virus.

Yep, I know but I was attempting levity.

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29 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

Yep, I know but I was attempting levity.

 

29 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

Yep, I know but I was attempting levity.

I had a fella give me a bunch of 5/4x10"x10' ruff sawn Madrone, it's been air dried for 4 years. If ya ever get up to Oregun and want some for free, one woodworker to another your welcome to pick some and take home. 

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12 hours ago, Matthew Duncan said:

 

Yes SS pins will clean primer pockets.  

I have never had SS pins wedge in 45 Colt primer pockets.  Rarly in .223 primer pockets.

 

I have had one pin in a primer pocket in a 44-40 in thousands of rounds. I didn't see it in the primer pocket, I saw it in the empty primer cup on the press.

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I don't handle dirty brass and don't want to foul up my case feeder with it either, so primers (for straight wall cases) don't get removed before cleaning. Everything is loading okay and has been going bang! My only priming issues are with new brass.

I use walnut media. I have some lizard litter but haven't tried it or used it as a mix. I never got the result I wanted or shorter run time until I tried media additive with some mineral spirits to thin it. Common car polish seems to work well enough and is cheaper than specialty products. I look at wet tumbling and can't justify the cost or the amount of handling, given what I already own.

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9 hours ago, Major General Shagnasty said:

 

I had a fella give me a bunch of 5/4x10"x10' ruff sawn Madrone, it's been air dried for 4 years. If ya ever get up to Oregun and want some for free, one woodworker to another your welcome to pick some and take home. 

Amazing that after four years of air drying it didn't check or split.  Yul, this is a VERY generous offer.  Cured unchecked Madrone is hard to come by and it is beautiful stuff.  Sounds like a trip to Oregon could be a good use of all the spare time from canceled matches right now.  Just carry food from home and don't stop to eat at restaurants enroute.  

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3 hours ago, Dusty Devil Dale said:

Amazing that after four years of air drying it didn't check or split.  Yul, this is a VERY generous offer.  Cured unchecked Madrone is hard to come by and it is beautiful stuff.  Sounds like a trip to Oregon could be a good use of all the spare time from canceled matches right now.  Just carry food from home and don't stop to eat at restaurants enroute.  

 

@Yul Lose  And make sure you take some TP with you :D

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Hello the fire,

 

I have tried dry media tumbling, wet tumbling with stainless steel mix of shapes and have settled on wet media with 3mm ceramic balls. I also use Dawn and instead of any commercial product, just a 1/8 to 14 teaspoon of citric acid. I use a 3 pound tumbler and run brass that has been rinsed to get the grit and large chunks of dirt off. Running it for about 3 hours with a timer makes it come out looking brand new. I have radiant heat floor so I put the rinsed and drained brass in a screened tray and just leave it for a few days on the floor. This works for me, others may do what works for them.

 

Chelsea

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30 minutes ago, Chelsea Kid, #47400 said:

Hello the fire,

 

I have tried dry media tumbling, wet tumbling with stainless steel mix of shapes and have settled on wet media with 3mm ceramic balls. I also use Dawn and instead of any commercial product, just a 1/8 to 14 teaspoon of citric acid. I use a 3 pound tumbler and run brass that has been rinsed to get the grit and large chunks of dirt off. Running it for about 3 hours with a timer makes it come out looking brand new. I have radiant heat floor so I put the rinsed and drained brass in a screened tray and just leave it for a few days on the floor. This works for me, others may do what works for them.

 

Chelsea

 

OH-LORD, forgive me for what I'm about to ask. :lol:

Where did you get your ceramic balls?

OLG 

 

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For years, I've read that stained, clean brass shoots just as well as new, shiney brass.  And, while my experience tells me this is a truism that should be self-evident, this past weekend I found out there is a whole 'nuther point that's never been discussed.

 

I've been house-bound, recovering from having a bit of cancer (& my lower lip removed)... and although I've successfully avoided doing my taxes, I finally got perturbed at the mess that's my living room.  So I started picking up after myself... (my wife would have been proud, and disappointed for it only took a 14 months)!!!  Anyway, I picked up my favorite gun belt off the back of the couch, and the strongside holster moved from it's usual placement... and I spied three 45 Colts in loops that'd been in hiding under it.  Two were formerly nice shiney cases, and were heavily coated with verdigre... the other was a clean, but very badly stained, nearly black case that had NO verdigre anywhere on it.

 

So... my take away is keeping your brass stained, black from many reloadings of BP is actually a GOOD thing!  Much ado about nada! ;):P

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1 hour ago, The Original Lumpy Gritz said:

 

OH-LORD, forgive me for what I'm about to ask. :lol:

Where did you get your ceramic balls?

OLG 

 

In a really, really, really bad part of town ......

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On 3/16/2020 at 3:23 PM, Kirk James said:

If you are using walnut media, watch the dust that comes of the media when shaking it out.  I now use disposable masks and gloves when handling dirty brass.  After nine years of loading for myself and the kids my lead level has elevated.  I always thought my lead level would be tested when I had physicals, but it isn't.  Do not mean to take   away from your thread.  Have no idea the volume you will be loading.  

 

 

good info , ive not checked mine but i see where this might be a concern if you handle a lot over the year , the dust from mine is noticeable , i do handle outdoors but, ill start wearing a mask , 

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4 minutes ago, watab kid said:

 

 

good info , ive not checked mine but i see where this might be a concern if you handle a lot over the year , the dust from mine is noticeable , i do handle outdoors but, ill start wearing a mask , 

 

Dust gets on your clothes and all around where you tumble. Anyone that handles your clothes also comes into to contact with the lead dust.  Unless you do everything outdoors wearing a disposable suit, in a location you never go otherwise, you are just spreading the hazard around. I switch to wet tumbling and have not regretted it one bit. The levels of lead in my blood have also went down.

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glad to hear yours are down , i will get mine checked , i only tumble 1-2 times a year right now , outside and im not in that area when it is going on , i do my own laundry and the wife is gone more than home - never when im making racket like that , but i appreciate the pointers , 

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Lumpy,

 

I think I bought them from Amazon. You can find them by searching for ceramic tumbling media. There are different shapes and sizes. The small 3mm rods tended to become wedged in my .45 cases and really stuck in .223's. The 3mm balls will fill up the cases and are kind of held in by the water and don't take much to shake out. I use a screen colander from the kitchen to separate the liquid and then the brass. I learned about the ceramic media when I worked at a ball bearing manufacturer. I hope this helps.

 

Chelsea

 

 

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17 hours ago, Griff said:

For years, I've read that stained, clean brass shoots just as well as new, shiney brass.  And, while my experience tells me this is a truism that should be self-evident, this past weekend I found out there is a whole 'nuther point that's never been discussed.

 

I've been house-bound, recovering from having a bit of cancer (& my lower lip removed)... and although I've successfully avoided doing my taxes, I finally got perturbed at the mess that's my living room.  So I started picking up after myself... (my wife would have been proud, and disappointed for it only took a 14 months)!!!  Anyway, I picked up my favorite gun belt off the back of the couch, and the strongside holster moved from it's usual placement... and I spied three 45 Colts in loops that'd been in hiding under it.  Two were formerly nice shiney cases, and were heavily coated with verdigre... the other was a clean, but very badly stained, nearly black case that had NO verdigre anywhere on it.

 

So... my take away is keeping your brass stained, black from many reloadings of BP is actually a GOOD thing!  Much ado about nada! ;):P

Interesting!

But I think I'll pass on picking up brass for you at matches.  My near eyesight is getting so bad I even have trouble seeing the real shiny stuff (or my gun sights).   Trifocals help only +-. 

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6 minutes ago, Dusty Devil Dale said:

Interesting!

But I think I'll pass on picking up brass for you at matches.  My near eyesight is getting so bad I even have trouble seeing the real shiny stuff (or my gun sights).   Trifocals help only +-. 

S'no problem... I catch my brass as it's ejected from the rifle... why do you think a pencil roll on hats were invented? :P

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I'm with coffinmaker……...no need to deprime before you load. If anything IMO that primer keeps stuff out of the primer pocket. Then the press pushes it out and it's clear of obstruction. Compared to many folks here I haven't been doing this as long but in the 20+ years I have been reloading and shooting 1000+ rounds a month I have never had a squib or failure to fire so for me it's not worth my time. 

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On 3/19/2020 at 7:19 AM, Cowboy Junky said:

I'm with coffinmaker……...no need to deprime before you load. If anything IMO that primer keeps stuff out of the primer pocket. Then the press pushes it out and it's clear of obstruction. Compared to many folks here I haven't been doing this as long but in the 20+ years I have been reloading and shooting 1000+ rounds a month I have never had a squib or failure to fire so for me it's not worth my time. 

Likewise.  FWIW, I only clean primer pockets on rifle ammo that I'm going to be either hunting or target (precision) shooting with.  

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I use a "LEE " de-capping Die and One shell holder "LEE " #14 this works for all my brass ,,, .38 WCF , .44 Spl. and .45  Colt ...

I do it at the Range / Shoot  then into the Soap and Water ...  Rinse at home , dry  and Tumble in a Mixture Of Corn Cob and Walnut Shell  the sort into Buckets  and Size ,,,,,,  the Sizing Die Clears the Primer Hole ...

I find that the brass is easyer to clean after using Holy Black than the Odd time I use Smokieless ....

 

Jabez Cowboy

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