Wet tumbling

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  • sksshooter

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    Jul 28, 2008
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    Walker, LA
    Thinking of switching over to wet tumbling with stainless pins. Ive alsays used vibratory tumblers. I did try ultrasonic once but opted to stick with the vibratory due to the aggrevation of drying the brass. I now have a large quantity of very tarnished brass from the 2016 flood that i would like to clean up and based on the youtube vids ive watched wet tumbling should do the trick. What are your methods, equipment etc for tumbling and drying?
     

    mickey

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    I decap with a Harvey Hand Deprimer. For the tumbler, I currently use a Rebel 17 and stainless media. Used a thumlers b model before the rebel, and I like the bearings on the rebel over bushings on the thumler. Usually put hot water in the drum with the brass, lemishine, and a little dawn and let them sit for 12-24 hours after a couple minutes of tumbling to mix everything up. After soaking, I fire the tumbler up for an hour and a half. Once I turn it off the tumbler I remove brass from media and water and toss it around in a towel to make sure all the pins are out of the cases and most of hot water is off. Next, after preheating the oven to 225 degrees, I place the brass in a stainless vegetable grilling pan and place them into the oven for an hour to dry out the inside of the case.
    Primer pockets and the inside of the case comes out spotless. Running them for an hour and a half does not beat up the case mouths too bad either. Next step for me is annealing then sizing the brass. Goal for me is complete the sizing process within a day or 2 of cleaning the brass. The sizing lube residue left on the case will help to keep the brass from tarnishing. I find that Squeaky clean brass will tarnish within a few weeks. Tarnishing brass and those pesky stainless pins are my only 2 pet peeves with the process. That being said, i don’t ever see myself going back to a vibratory for primary cleaning. I do keep a vibratory tumbler around just to polish processed brass that I know will not be shot for a while. A little polish on it will keep them shiny for quite some time while being stored.
     
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    340six

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    I do both j decap and wet with Model B after loading i 50/50 dry with walnut and corn to get lube off.
    I also do surplus ammo dry to inspect older surplus.
    Before the Model B I would do a 24 hour soak and it looked just like I wet tumbled with just the Acid -Lemon Shine 3 times,stronger.
    I did this with dirty outside pick up range brass. I have pics someplace
    Dry it on my wood deck and dries fast.
    I should have kept an old dehydrated I had to dry them on rainy days.
     

    AZ2VET

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    If just by chance you happened to also have some steel case stuff mixed in with your brass when it got wet and stayed submerged for a time and the steel cases rusted up, well I can tell you that using the stainless steel pins is what you need to do. Pop out the spent primers before you wet tumble them is what everyone says, I still ended up with the primer face breaking off leaving the cup ring in the pocket on plenty weather I deprimed before or after, so be prepared to check the pockets for that surprise. The brass (27,000 pieces) I got that went through the flood when I bought my 650 from the classifieds here was some nasty stuff but after separating by caliber and depriming some of it, it all cleaned up good. Now for the most part the best cleaning I got was by running a batch for 90 minutes drain the water and rinse then ran it again for another 90 minutes. But if you don't have rusty nastiness a 90 minute cycle should do the trick. A really good friend has the FA wet Tumbler and when he seen what I had to deal with he told me to bring it all to his house so we could use the pins on it.
    I decided to see how long it would take to do a batch in the vibratory tumbler, after 24 hours and not much progress I pulled the plug on that experiment. I would probably still be cleaning brass if I had not had access to a wet tumbler and I bought all of that over a year ago.
     

    mickey

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    Thinking about this more, there is a trick that the guys use at work to clean the brass light fixture guards and brass bells at work. Actually works quite well and cheap to knock the tarnish off.
    A soak in Red Kool aid...
    Google cleaning brass with red kool aid it for a recipe. Usually use 6-8 packs in a split kitchen sink filled 1/2 way up though.
     

    Expert684

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    Jul 24, 2011
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    I decap with a Harvey Hand Deprimer. For the tumbler, I currently use a Rebel 17 and stainless media. Used a thumlers b model before the rebel, and I like the bearings on the rebel over bushings on the thumler. Usually put hot water in the drum with the brass, lemishine, and a little dawn and let them sit for 12-24 hours after a couple minutes of tumbling to mix everything up. After soaking, I fire the tumbler up for an hour and a half. Once I turn it off the tumbler I remove brass from media and water and toss it around in a towel to make sure all the pins are out of the cases and most of hot water is off. Next, after preheating the oven to 225 degrees, I place the brass in a stainless vegetable grilling pan and place them into the oven for an hour to dry out the inside of the case.
    Primer pockets and the inside of the case comes out spotless. Running them for an hour and a half does not beat up the case mouths too bad either. Next step for me is annealing then sizing the brass. Goal for me is complete the sizing process within a day or 2 of cleaning the brass. The sizing lube residue left on the case will help to keep the brass from tarnishing. I find that Squeaky clean brass will tarnish within a few weeks. Tarnishing brass and those pesky stainless pins are my only 2 pet peeves with the process. That being said, i don’t ever see myself going back to a vibratory for primary cleaning. I do keep a vibratory tumbler around just to polish processed brass that I know will not be shot for a while. A little polish on it will keep them shiny for quite some time while being stored.

    This^^^
    And do it in the order Mickey states! I find the impurities released in the inside the necks from annealing along with case lube in the neck helps stop the brass and the copper on the bulletins from "cold welding" which is cause by dis-similar metals. I'll also load my ammo long for months at a time and seat to my desire depth be fore shooting to "break the neck tension. :)
     

    340six

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    Thinking about this more, there is a trick that the guys use at work to clean the brass light fixture guards and brass bells at work. Actually works quite well and cheap to knock the tarnish off.
    A soak in Red Kool aid...
    Google cleaning brass with red kool aid it for a recipe. Usually use 6-8 packs in a split kitchen sink filled 1/2 way up though.

    That is the same acid used in the dish washer stuff Lemi Shine but food grade. You can also get it on the net as bulk as used in any foods to make tangy pies etc.even Amazon has,it.
    CITRIC ACID is what the active ingredient is.
     
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    mickey

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    This is a brass Pauluhn guard in koolaid overnight compared to one not cleaned yet.

    1bf955e4bf16ed9bef6e8a2c35af1b05.jpg
     

    340six

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    Here is some range brass that was outside for God knows how long { say this as only he would know}
    This was a 24-hour soak in Citric Acid {Lemi-Shine} no tumble. Mixed it in hot water and let sit in the hot sun all day. Starting in the midday and ended midday.
    Shown next to some 7.62x54R that was SS Tumbled
    I also use the same method on steel to de-rust
     

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    sksshooter

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    Thanks for the input guys. Sounds like i will be looking to purchase a wet tumbler. Seems the frankford arsenal is pretty well liked. Anyone have anything negative to say about it?

    Also thankfully i had all of my brass pretty well sorted etc so no steal cases in the mix. I actually let some fairly black 45 acp and 38sp brass run for about 24 hours and it did ok. Its not spotless but did knock the bulk of the ugly off.
     

    Jack

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    If you’re on the north shore and have a ton you want done as a one time thing, let me know and I’ll let you use my setup. It gets a fair amount done at a time.

    2n7kqky.jpg
     
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    lilshaunsdad

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    I've been wet tumbling for 7 or 8 years now. I absolutely love it. I've run all of my brass threw the wet tumblers. I've cleaned some really nasty stuff and made it look better than new. I dont deprime anything first. I just sort by caliber and clean first. Pistol cases I load after they are dry. Rifle cases I process after they dry. Then rewash after processing ( I do dry tumble lube off first).

     
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    sksshooter

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    Lilshaun thanks for the clarification thats what i was hoping to hear. Jack appreciate the offer, that does look like a massive setup. I think im going to go ahead and jump on in. Been researching a bit more and if i dont diy it pretty soon i will be picking up a frankford arsenal setup. Not sure if it is your vid but i watched a youtube vid of a guy making a tumbler that looks a whole lot like your setup. I think i pretty much have all the parts in the shop to put one together just a matter of doing it...
     

    tikka80

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    Oct 1, 2019
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    covington la
    Thanks for the input guys. Sounds like i will be looking to purchase a wet tumbler. Seems the frankford arsenal is pretty well liked. Anyone have anything negative to say about it?

    Also thankfully i had all of my brass pretty well sorted etc so no steal cases in the mix. I actually let some fairly black 45 acp and 38sp brass run for about 24 hours and it did ok. Its not spotless but did knock the bulk of the ugly off.

    I have the frankford arsenal. 750-223 brass or 400-308 brass at a time I like that it does so many at once
     

    sksshooter

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    Finally got my wet tumbler setup. I actually got the tumbler some time back but wanted to get a sink setup in the shop before i started messing with it. Really glad i did after the first batch it would have sucked doing the whole process with a water hose. First pic is some 357 brass that was tarnished from the flood. I tumbled it in corncob for 24 hours or more. Second pic is apx 2.5 hours in the stainless pins with some dawn and a table spoon of lemishine.

     

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