Freakish SS retention in 223 case

[Willie]

Donald duck did it, haha!

 

[Texas10]

Been using this cleaning method now for about 4-5 years but this is a first for me. Cleaned a bunch of Lapua 223 brass and was hand clearing them of SS pins which involves immersing the case underwater and shaking them with the neck pointing down. The last case to come out of the barrel looked a little strange and so I hand filled the case 3 time with water to see if what was in there would come out – Nope. Tape the case neck first on the table a few times hard to see if it would come out – nope. Took a closer look with a magnifier and realized it was a cluster of SS pins jammed around the inside of the neck like a semi-opened umbrella. Took this photo first so that you guys would believe me. Inserted a scalpel inside the neck and finally dislodged the cluster of pins, tapped them out and counted at least 26 pins…

Not concerned that this would be a problem for me as I weight sort my brass and pre-weight the case with primer before I put in any powder and so there would be a huge red flag but thought you guys might be interested in what I would call a “worse case” situation with SS retention inside a bottle neck case….

I've had the same issue with SS pins and 6.5 CM brass, log jam of pins in the neck. Then found a SS pin, or what was left of a pin stuck to the magnet on my Magnetospeed during a load workup. That cinched it! Switched to SS chips from Sleeping Giant, and no more stuck media in my cases.

 

[JSH]

I’ve been using it the Same amount of years this thread is old anybody look when this started 2014 ouch

Lol, usually see this in mid winter when folks get board and start digging and reading. I am guilty as charged myself.

 

[SF-Guy]

And, how many years did we use dry media very successfully?

Even if I felt the need to clean out the primer pockets, it would, to me, still be less hassle than dealing with all the water and drying the cases.

I. Agree. I used the ss pins being very careful and one day while charging cases in a tray i dropped a pan of powder ( i load at 0400-0700 becaue i am up anyway) too much coffee maybe. So i dumped powder from each case into little ketchup cups and in one case...out came an ss pin.
That was it for me. Back using ceramic media in my cement mixer. Using walnut shells in my big Dillons...and happy.
Steve McQueen in “Bullet” said “nothing new is any good only old things work every time” ( or close maybe) ( right now old guys are remembering he said that to Ali McGraw!!).

 

[Hoot]

I switched from SS pins to Southern Shine SS chip media. Faster than pins and nothing stuck in the cases. I do tumble my brass in a media separator that's half submerged in water in a bucket to get around the surface tension issue before drying my cases. Very pleased with the chips. Still have a 5lb bag of pins that I haven't opened.

Hoot

 

[Scott Harris]

Count your blessings ........... I tried the long grained rice tumbling media touted here on the forum recently. That stuff jammed up in about half the cases and was a "bear" to get loose. Dental pick, spear tipped jag and small allen wrenches to get the stuff to break loose. It appears that tube shaped media has a tendency to produce these results. Also appears that SS pins are much less likely to jam up in the case than rice. I'm still trying to find the perfect dry media. Maybe I'll get lucky before my ticket gets punched.

@gotcha
Try medium grain rice. Long grain is the perfect diameter to stick in flash holes. Medium grain is shorter and fatter....problem solved..mostly.