Great Wet Tumbling Trick

alfalfa · Nov 24, 2014

Here's a trick I recently learned from Steve Yee at the Port Malabar Rifle and Pistol Club (Florida).

I wet tumble with stainless steel media. It used to take 3-4 days for my brass to dry afterwards which put a big crimp in my reloading and could be problematic before a match. I asked Steve if he knew of any way around this.

A food dehydrator.

Yes, it works. You don't have to worry about it annealing your brass since it shouldn't get hot enough. It dries the brass in about 3 hours. Amazing!

Jack · Nov 24, 2014

I always spread them out on a bath towel under a ceiling fan. They usually dry over night and I can fit a lot of brass on a towel

kengel2 · Nov 24, 2014

Ya, I use a cheap dehydrator and they are done in about 45 minutes. Maybe less buts that's when I check them.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

Expert684 · Nov 24, 2014

Baking pan: Walmart $2.98
Convection oven: Walmart $39.95
Set fan on and Temp at 150-160 degrees. Drys about 200 308 cases in 45 min. or less. Flip and stir if necessary.
Annealing got nothing to do with how you dry your brass unless you do it at 750 degrees, then you might have a problem.

daronj · Nov 24, 2014

I cut the leg off of an old pair of jeans. Toss the brass inside, zip tie each end and throw it in the clothes dryer for an hour. Adding an old blanket or something helps to dampen the noise a bit.

Ritten · Nov 24, 2014

Expert684 said:
Baking pan: Walmart $2.98
Convection oven: Walmart $39.95
Set fan on and Temp at 150-160 degrees. Drys about 200 308 cases in 45 min. or less. Flip and stir if necessary.
Annealing got nothing to do with how you dry your brass unless you do it at 750 degrees, then you might have a problem.

+1

I dry mine in the oven in less than 10min. 220 degrees isn't even a third of what it takes to start annealing the brass and all water is gone by the time they're cool enough to touch. Just be sure to preheat the oven or they will sweat.

340six · Nov 24, 2014

before i had a model B i would on real dirty brass just do a soak with lemi shine and Vinegar in a bucket
Wash clean with hose water and dry on the hot as hell deck never had it take long to dry

Visceral_Malice · Nov 24, 2014

I tumble in traditional media to clean mine up, deprime and size, then into the ultrasonic with simple green. I dry in my oven as well. I just use the lowest temp.

CajunTrooper · Nov 24, 2014

A towel and 2-3 minutes is all that's needed!

Here's a video from Ron Gunner.

http://youtu.be/3vCYN9Ygmlc

leeshall · Nov 24, 2014

Here's another neat trick. Forget the dish detergent. Use an automotive wash & wax product instead. The micro thin coating of wax on the brass keeps the brass from tarnishing and will help resizing and especially pulling an expander ball through bottleneck rifle cases.

bayoupirate · Nov 25, 2014

I saw that some guys that use the SS wet process follow up with a short run in a vibrator cleaner with some NU-Finish. Anyone here using that step?

Bayou52 · Nov 25, 2014

Here's a technique I use for quickly and simply drying the wet tumbled brass -

After wet tumbling, I use a rotary media separator to separate the pins from the brass. Once separated, I leave the brasses in the squirrel cage and throw in a dry towel/rag. I then agitate the squirrel cage with a back and forth motion for about 30 seconds. Most moisture gets absorbed into the towel. I repeat a second time with a second dry towel.

After this second spin dry, the brasses are 99.99% dry. Simply lay out for 10 minutes, and the brasses are completely dry.

With this spin dry method, brassess are completely dry within a few minutes with no need for dryers, fans, heaters, ovens, etc.

Bayou52

PS - I've been using auto wash & wax for years while wet tumbling. Works great and impedes the return of tarnish to the wet tumbled brass...

340six · Nov 26, 2014

bayoupirate said:
I saw that some guys that use the SS wet process follow up with a short run in a vibrator cleaner with some NU-Finish. Anyone here using that step?

No not yet but if I have any spots I will So far no spots so i have not. Looks like it depends on what your water is like at your home. As to weather you will get spots.
If i ever end up with spots ect i will just run them in the Vibrator with the walnut.corm min a short time.
Also:
Before I had SS pins and the real tumbler and had a just a Vibrator {RCBS and a Lyman} I would do a preclean / soak prior with just lemi-shine and vinegar in just a bucket. To get dirt ect off on bad outside range brass. that way the lemi and Vingar would get it cleaned some before the 50/50 walnut/corn mix Vibrater /Shaker had to clean it
I once forgot them and left them in over night and came back to this.

So never even put them in the walnut.corn mix to Vibrate. ASs they look good as could be.
I was shocked that it did so well just with a long soak so just dried them and bagged them up.
Thy look just as good as the 7.62x54R that were done in SS pins. I place that bag of SS cleaned and then sized primed 7.62x54R to show a comparison
But do wonder if that long a soak {over night} would damage the brass strength but they did come clean.

fscroggs · Dec 30, 2014

How much Vinegar and Lemi-Shine to water ratio?

Great Wet Tumbling Trick

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