Cleaning brass with tumbler and steel pins - Advice?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Snowdog

Snowdog

Member
Joined
Dec 24, 2002
Messages
4,606
For the past 15 or so years, I've been using either corn cob or walnut media (sometimes both) with a vibratory tumbler. I've been overall content with the results, but I keep reading about rotary tumblers using stainless steel pins that never have to be replaced.

In my garage sits a bag of range brass given to me years ago by an instructor involved with a LEO range. It's all 9mm, no aluminum or steel cases and quite hefty (triple bagged) at about 45 pounds.

The only issue is that it was received dirty, like retrieved from the dirt after a few days dirty.
I've cleaned off all the dirt, but most are quite tarnished. They're in good shape, just in need a good polishing.

With cleaning these in mind, I went ahead and purchased a rotary tumbler and 6 lbs of steel pins.

Are there any tricks or tips out there on the use of rotary tumblers and stainless pins as media?
Any recommended products?

Thanks in advance.
 
Dawn dish soap. Lemi shine. Hot water.

I've got a frankford (FART).
Not sure how much brass I put in with the 5lbs of media and hot water but it's a good bit.
Then a five count of squeezing the dawn soap.
Then a 1/4 to 1/2 tap of lemishine.
Turn it on three hours and usually pull them within two as my project's for the day are rolling.
Then separate, rinse, dry in dehydrator.
 
Don't overload the thumbler with brass ( about 2 lbs. of brass , 230 9mm cases ) .
1 to 2 tsps. of dawn ( if there are no soap bubbles after you tumble you need more soap , but don't over do it ) .
1/4 tsp. lemishine .
Tumble 3-4 hours .
Rinse well , the more you rinse the better .
Dry in the sun or low heat in the oven .
I use a paint strainer over a 5 gallon bucket to dump my dirty water in .
 
I use car wash and wax (whatever was on sale that I am using on my car, Armour All, Turtle etc) and citric acid.
Citric acid can be found in the canning section of most supermarkets.
How much acid depends on your water PH and the size of your drum but between say maybe a 9mm case full or a couple of .45 cases full.

I debated about spending the money for wet tumbling, glad I did.
I wash the major crud off in a bucket and do may a 1/2hr pass without depriming the cases. Then I deprime/resize them and do another 45min-1hr pass depending on who bad they are.
Nice clean brass and clean primer pockets.
I like to prime off press anyway. Prime cases while watching the tube.
 
Last edited:
I recently switched from dry to wet tumbling using a Frankfort...
Found a vid about separating the pins using a $2 paint strainer from Home Depot and that was a game changer for me.
I posted about it here, with the vid:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...at-you-can-share.218188/page-60#post-10900384
You no longer need a magnet to collect the pins, and I haven't "lost" any pins since I started using those paint strainers.
I use a bucket type separator, not a rotary...
:D
 
I love the results I get from wet tumbling. Pins, Dawn, Citric Acid, and whatever is the cheapest auto wash and wax. The wash and wax seems to keep the brass from tarnishing and provides a bit of lubrication for case resizing for straight wall pistol cases. I keep a few thousand clean cases on hand. Magnet is essential. I have a spare room dedicated to reloading and having clean brass makes it easier to store, and reload.
 
I run 'a short gallon' of whatever caliber in my FART.
Too much citric acid is not a good thing.
Removal of pins from straight walled brass is easy enough.

Removal from bottleneck rifle is a bit tougher. (A rotary media sifter works good)
 
Leave the soap out of the mix if you are using lemi-shine or citric acid. The soap ends up neutralizing the lemi-shine/acid in the tumbling mixture making it pretty pointless to use either. Think back to the basic chemistry you had in your jr high science class and you'll remember that a base (soap) tends to neutralize an acid (lemi-shine).

With my 3LB capacity rotary tumbler I use a very small amount of lemi-shine. About a spent .22 LR case full. I'll put in a pound and a 1/3 of stainless steel pins. The same amount in weight of cases, then add water until I've reached 3 pounds in the tumbler. This ends up filling it 1/2 to 2/3 full and I tumble it for an hour or so. After that I'll use my vibratory tumbler with corn cob media and a cap full of nu-finish car polish. It comes out clean and bright plus the car polish keeps the cases from tarnishing.
 
Too much citric acid is not a good thing.
Click to expand...
Agree, go easy on the acid.
I know my tap water is very basic (pain in the but getting it the right PH for the fish tank) so I need more acid than some.
 
Use any kind of wash and wax car wash soap it makes a difference it kinda helps seal the brass and keeps it pretty :) lemishine or pure citric acid. Less is more :) make sure you rinse your brass before drying.

Get A rotary wet dry media separator
This is a good one you may find it cheaper elsewhere
https://ads.midwayusa.com/product/1...latinum-series-wet-dry-rotary-media-separator

Get a cheap food dehydrator/dryer from Walmart After you rinse your brass shake in a towel then toss them on the stackable racks of the food dryer. They get good and dry and won’t discolor or have water spots.

Get the magnet too :)
 
ih772 said:
Leave the soap out of the mix if you are using lemi-shine or citric acid. The soap ends up neutralizing the lemi-shine/acid in the tumbling mixture making it pretty pointless to use either. Think back to the basic chemistry you had in your jr high science class and you'll remember that a base (soap) tends to neutralize an acid (lemi-shine).
Click to expand...
O K.

============

Snowdog, I started with the Dawn/CitricAcid approach and soon changed to (ArmorAllWash&Wax) AAW&W/CitricAcid because the the cases both better resist tarnish and (straight-wall pistol cases) move more easily in the sizing die sans case lube.

I have some bagged cases that I did this way in 2015 that still look like I just took them out of the FART.

For rinsing & separation, I use (with great care) the old, green RCBS rotary separator in a bathtub. I have to be very careful because the RCBS unit was only designed to handle smaller & lighter loads of dry media & cases.

Enjoy. :)
 
Don't mix cases that can slide inside one another.
Get a magnet - Frankford works very well.
Get a media separator - I have the small Dillon but any of them should work.
Dawn, Lemishine (just a little), Meguiar's Ultimate Quick Wax (spray them when you spin them).
Spread them out on a towel to dry.
Most important: Get a magnet!
 
Whoa (thanks GBExpat), I see there's a lot to learn when it come to this topic. Fortunately as evident from the responses here, there's a plethora of knowledge available here as well.

So for the rotary tumbler, I did go inexpensive (okay, cheap) as I've always been a "test the waters" type before going all-in. It's an 11 lbs tumbler that can be found on both EBay and Amazon under the moniker of several brands, with a transparent drum and two dials. The reviews seemed favorable... we'll see how that goes.

Anyway, it seems there's an overwhelming suggestion for Lemi-shine, so that's going to happen. The car wax intrigues me too, as much of the brass that I've processed in the past still sits in gallon zip-lock bags. Though I may clean a couple thousand cases today doesn't mean that I'll be loading them tomorrow. As I write this, I see a couple zip-lock freezer bags of .357 magnum cases I cleaned I'm sure more than 10 years ago that I have yet to load.
Being somewhat picky in nature and appreciating a "good looking" loaded cartridge, the auto wax idea sounds like a winner.

I'll post my successes (and failures) as I move forward with this project. Some of those 9mm cases look close to a lost cause. I'll be sure to do a "before and after" for those interested.

Thanks for the responses!
 
Last edited:
After 25+ years using a dry vibrating unit with corn and walnut . Gave the wet tumbler a try with SS Pins , Dawn and LemiShine . Will never go back to dry , gave all the dry stuff to a friend . What I found worked best Sun liquid detergent not Dawn , water and the pins . LemiShine is used in areas with hard water . Turned my brass a pinkish color . I asked my wife why she didn't use Dawn , she did but Sun works much better and she was right . My brass comes out looking like brand new inside an out even primer pockets . Pop your fired primers first . Try not to overload the tumbler with brass will work much better , just follow instructions , sizing will go smoother , dies will stay clean . I'm now a die hard wet tumbler guy , you won't believe how much carbon cleans off your brass , the water will be black and your brass will look like you were panning for gold . You'll See .
 
Many guys have dropped using the pins and are happy with both the results, and less hassle messing with pins. The small amount of wet cleaning Ive done I didnt use any pins and was far happier with the results than with dry cleaning/tumbling brass. I used a harbor freight double drum rock tumbler, and just a bucket with dawn and lemi-shine when i didnt have the tumbler handy, both worked fine. Just sloshed the brass and water around in the bucket a bit, let sit a few minutes, repeat sevaral times, and rinse and dry.

For caked on mud, one guy using a cement mixer did a few minutes of warm water rinse before his regular cleaning regimen.

Several people commented that the pins made the brass "too clean", that it squeaked and bound somewhat on the decapping pin/expander, dropping the pins stopped that, the car wash/wax in the final rinse also helps size smoothly.
 
I've used warm water, liquid Tide and Lemi-shine for many years. Never tried steel pins. I tumble for 30 minutes, rinse THOROUGHLY, and dry in a 180-200 degree electric oven.

I works for me!:)
 
Tilos said:
I recently switched from dry to wet tumbling using a Frankfort...
Found a vid about separating the pins using a $2 paint strainer from Home Depot and that was a game changer for me.
I posted about it here, with the vid:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...at-you-can-share.218188/page-60#post-10900384
You no longer need a magnet to collect the pins, and I haven't "lost" any pins since I started using those paint strainers.
I use a bucket type separator, not a rotary...
:D
Click to expand...
Wow, quoted myself :uhoh:
My first batch of wet tumble brass was what I thought was clean brass that I had already dry tumbled.
The water turned black from the crud that was still there :what:.
That convinced me,


:)
 
Ran w/o pins when I started out with my HF Dual Drum. It will clean the outsides real nice, and ~some~ of the inside as well.
Pins excel when you want the primer pockets and interior cleaned up.
 
Turned my brass a pinkish color
Click to expand...

=To much acid
Also brass coated steel cases (if they slip through the initial sort) will turn a funny color.

Several people commented that the pins made the brass "too clean", that it squeaked and bound somewhat on the decapping pin/expander,[/QUOTE]
The wash and wax prevents this.

I do a a bunch up in advance and store it in plastic tubs from WallMart, they are only a about $2 or $3.
I like the Sterilite 7qt ones. They have handles that lock the lid down, not to big not to small and stack well.

The water turned black from the crud that was still there
Click to expand...
Yep, you can get pretty dirty water from clean looking brass.
Sometimes if I feel like it I will dump the dirty water out halfway through the second pass and put more clean water in.
Very happy with wet tumbling with pins, wish I would have bought it sooner.

In the summer here it is usually 100+ so brass dries outside quick.
In the winter or when is not hot outside I just put in on an old towel inside in an outof the way corner and let it dry. I have plenty for brass so if it sits in the corner two days no big deal.
 
Last edited:
I really don't ~lose~ any pins when using my separator,,,,
It's the 'couple' per batch that seem to sneak by that stage X multiple batches per 'event', resulting in a few here and few there,,, Few more on the floor,,, etc etc A magnet helps me tidy up,,, Get's the ones I can't see as well,,,,
I also dry the pins on bath towels / cookie sheets before storage. Magnet really helps me to 'corral' all the little buggers.
 
Last edited:
For small cleanings I use the Harbor Freight single drum tumbler , larger cleanings I'll use the red Tumblers B Tumbler , both work really good . When seating rifle sized brass I will use a cleaning mop lightly coated with Redding dry lube . If your wanting a smooth seating operation , wet tumbled clean brass with dry lube on the inside of the necks. Accurate reloads need the cases to be prepped as close to exact as possible , that's why I went with wet tumbling , never liked the carbon buildup inside the cases shot after shot . Now every case starts out the same . Dry tumbling could never clean the inside of the cases like wet tumbling .
 
ih772 wrote:
The soap ends up neutralizing the lemi-shine/acid in the tumbling mixture making it pretty pointless to use either.
Click to expand...

Many posters here (myself included) use both a weak acid and a detergent such as Dawn (which is not soap) and obtain very good results in terms of both cleaning dirt and carbon from the case and reversing oxidation.
 
I've done both wet and dry tumbling with a variety of media over the last 30+ years (for the first dozen years of reloading, I didn't tumble my brass).

If you want a "jewelry grade" shine, then you pretty much have to wet tumble. Low-alloy stainless steel pins seem to be preferred because they can be removed using a spinner or a magnet. Bronze pins will actually produce a higher shine but you're talking real money to buy them.

If, on the other hand, all you are looking for is brass that is clean and looks like brass, then dry tumbling can suffice.

You can also adopt a hybrid method by washing your brass - without pins - in a concentrated solution of hot water, citric acid and detergent for about 20 minutes, drying it overnight on a towel and then tumbling in dry media. Before I retired, I would do this and then put the brass in a vibratory tumbler when I went to bed and then swap it out with another batch as I left for work and get it out again when I came home, thus doing two loads per day at times when I wasn't home. I was getting reflectivity about 85% as strong as my wet tumbled cases. That was more than enough for me and I skipped the issues of getting pins out of bottleneck cases.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

T
  • Locked
How do you guys clean your brass?
2 3
Replies
67
Views
5K
bluetopper
bluetopper
J
  • Locked
Cleaning cases
Replies
22
Views
590
1SOW
1
wiiawiwb
  • Locked
Rotary Tumbler
Replies
9
Views
670
Hokie_PhD
Hokie_PhD
Cokeman
  • Locked
Wet or Dry Case Cleaning?
2 3 4
Replies
82
Views
3K
Cokeman
Cokeman
merlynski
  • Locked
Can you use walnut shell or corn cob (dry) in a rotary tumbler?
Replies
6
Views
1K
mdi
mdi
Back
Top