This is some info I have observed and noted when using SS pins,
I have been using these SS pins for the past 6 -8 months now, they are better than sliced bread, I will never go back to walnut hulls, rice hulls etc again, no DUST,etc.
I am using a 70's vintage Thumblers Model B, hot water, Lemi shine, Dawn Dish soap, and run for about 2-4hrs, on real dirty brass, and about a hour on already cleaned brass and use an old food dryer to dry brass on over night, during the winter time.
I have a 3 gal bucket/pail that has 1/8" Hardware cloth/screen pop riveted to the cutout bottom which fits inside of a 5 gallon bucket, I dump the dirty water, SS pins, cleaned brass inside the 3gal pail, agitate while rinsing with water inside the 5 gal bucket.
All the SS pins are collected inside the 5 gal bucket during the rinse, I drain off 95% of the very dirty water and then place my HD magnet on top of the SS pins, and finish draining off the rest of the water.
I have a 4" HD speaker magnet, which is placed inside a cottage cheese plastic bucket to drop into the water after 95% of the water is drained off, this magnet will hold onto the pins, so you don't lose any while rinsing, while I finish draining off the rest of the water.
The SS pins are then dumped into the tumbler barrel, magnet will collect any remaining pins, transfer the HD magnet to thumber barrel and take magnet out of plactic tub and they will fall inside barrel, ready for the next cycle.
I noticed some brass and SS specks in the water while rinising the brass, and I think I have traced it down to the spec's of brass coming from around the primer pocket flash holes and stuck to the inside of the cases.
I did a batch without doing anything to them (NEW BRASS, never fired/prepped) and had a lot "Brass colored" specs, put a batch of well used brass only cleaned with W Hulls prior, and prepped my usual way (BR style) and the color was there, but only slightly.
Reran this same batch of (W Hulls) and the color was barely there. I kinda think that these SS pins do a thougher cleaning and it is knocking loose these burrs left around the inside of the case/flash hole area etc.
I have sectioned and measured everything (before/after) and can NOT find any difference inside or out side, some of this color was from the SS pins, I think, where they were chopped off, as a magnet would collect some of it.
If you want REAL agressive action, reduce your water level to about half a barrel, I cleaned a bunch of the Russian STEEL cases this way, made them look like they were hand buffed matt finish, (curious to see the results), left them out over night to dry and they looked like Irish Setter Pups, just from the over nite moisture in the air.
I have used these SS pins to remove the varnish finish off my 5.7 OEM cases that are formed into 17 Kit Fox cases, does a real good job.
Had a bunch of rusty sockets, water leaked into bed tool box in the PU, use the SS pins to clean up real nice, then boiled them on the stove in Hot water, remove and let dry for a minute and used WD-40 coating, can't tell they were even rusty.
I forgot one other thing NOT TO DO, don't let the cleaned brass set overnite, as you WON'T like the out come.
Rinse/clean/dry as soon as you turn off the thumbler, the brass shines and looks better.
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Well, the test is done!
I was curious to see if the SS pins could/would damage cases/brass.
So I gathered up a bunch of brass, in the following sizes, 38ACP, 38SPCL, 357Mag, 357Sig, 9mm, 380ACP, 40SW, 308, 30/06 calibers, this is all the sizes I had on hand, for this test. This was old brass,from the 60's, to present day 2013yr brass, factory once fired and reloaded lots of brass, all major makes/brands, range pick ups etc, punched the primers out, nothing more done to the brass, the total amount of this mixed brass was 300+ rds.
Filled the Model B/15# thumbler w/(1/2gallon) normally use 1 gal of Hot 2Ho, shot of Dawn and the required Lemi-Shine.
Note: by using 1/2 gal of water,this is the an very agressive cleaning action, as compared to a full 1 gallon load),which has a more cushioning effect of the water for the cases, etc.
Set up the thumbler and turned it ON, It ran for 7 days straight, 24hrs p/day,+ 12 extra hours, except for a belt break,that happened while I was checking the progress, which took less than a minute to replace. I dumped the VERY FILTHY water, normal amount of spec's in the water, no spec's of SS was collected via the magnet,still had very minor soap bubles left, rinsed/dried the cases in the normal manner,
I set up 7 cases as a control batch, took 40SW and inserted a 9mm case (old and new brass) inside,and lightly crimped the 40 case, as to retain the 9mm case inside the 40SW case. This was used to see the difference when removed, should show any difference of before & after in the outside finish, and condition of the cases before they went into the tumbler.
Note:
This is the FIRST time I have EVER had the SS pins stick in any flash hole, in ANY of the brass I have cleaned, so far. I found 10-15 9mm cases & 1-38 SPCL case with two pins stuck in each flash hole, these were set aside for closer inspection, to possibly discover, WHY.
My thumbler turns at 20 rev's p/minute, so I'll let you figure out HOW many rev's were made by this brass, It's a bunch!!!!!!! RIGHT? There were pictures taken from before and after this test,of all the brass, and this includes close ups (to the best of my ability) of the test cases, to show the difference etc.
More followup information about the results, of extended thumbling with SS pins,
On the 9mm/38Spcl cases that had stuck SS pins in the flash holes, I found the following information.
All of these SS pins had an "L" shaped little hook on the ends from where they were chopped/sheared off during the making of these pins. It appears that while thumbling around, a pin would enter from one side of the flash hole and another pin would enter from the other side and they would wedge/stick inside the flash holes.
The average flash hole diameters measured were:
.072"=380 cases
.078"=9mm cases
.078"=38SPCL cases
.072"=357 Sig cases
.074"=38 Super cases
.076"=357 Mag cases
.074"=40SW cases
.074"=30/06 cases
To remove these pins, I had to push one pin back out of the hole and then the other would fall free, I could not both pins to push out of the hole at the same time, as they would stick/hang up on the little "L" shaped ends and would not come loose. (see picture).
On the 40SW/9mm case combos, that were made as test samples, after pulling apart these cases, in every sample of cases, there were SS pins inside the 40SW case, they varied in amount of 2-4 pins (base inserted first)to 6-10 pins (9mm case mouth inserted first), and one test sample that had a primered 9MM case head inserted inside, there were 3 SS pins inside, that had entered from the 40SW primer hole.
I had weighed all the 30/06 cases before running the test and then reweighed these same cases after the test, and NO DIFFERENCES in weights could be found using the electronic scales. I figured that being the heaviest brass (in weight) that these should show any differences as compared to the lighter cases, the 308 case was resized from an 30/06 case and then trimmed to standard length, and no weight difference could be measured.
I have come to this conclusion, IMHO, that these SS pins WILL NOT DAMAGE the case/brass, at least as found in this test, I would believe that after 180+ straight hours of thumbling, well over 201600 rev's, some evidence would have shown up.
I have been retaking some of the pictures to better show the results, Hopefully, as picture taking is NOT in my bag of expertise, at least with the little Olympus FE-110 camera I use.
Note: All of this brass was nickle plated.
Tia,
Don