Stainless Steel Media and necks

[ab_bentley]

I know this has been covered but I couldn't find the answer I was looking for throughout the records.

I just used the SS kit for the first time and I am having some serious issues with my necks and seating bullets. I thought maybe if I get a few firings on the necks the bullets would seat easier with a bit of carbon in them, wrong. I am on my 3rd firing and still having to lube the inside of the necks before seating or the jackets will strip.

When I seat without lube nothing matters as far as loading practice is concerned, the bullet always print a .75" 3 shot group at 100yds in a triangle pattern, like it needs tuned more. When I lube they will drill a 3 shot group under .25" with ease.

Is there a cure aside from lubing the necks? Does this dissipate as firings multiply?

This is a 6BR with Varget and I am using Redding FL S dies without the expander.

Adam

 

[LHSmith]

Yep, I had my worst start in matches with them shiny in-side out cases. Gotta have that carbon in the neck. I have learned that patina trumps shiny when accuracy is on the line. You also probably need to chamfer the necks again. Lot of extra work just to look good.

 

[geraldgee]

I ss wet tumble as well and I am familiar with the challenge you are dealing with. My solution is to wrap #0000 steel wool around an appropriately sized bronze bore brush and polish my necks after ss tumbling. I find that seating is far more consistent and group size shrinks measurably.

 

[BigBlueandGoldie]

I would love to see a study where someone compares the internal capacity of virgin brass to brass that has been fired a few times without tumbling. If there is no appreciable difference, I don't see a reason to SS tumble brass other than vanity.

 

[zipollini]

Here is what works for me.

1. Decap all cases

2. Anneal all cases

3. SS tumble all cases for an hour with 1 tsp dawn and 1 tsp Lemi Shine and hot H2O

4. Rinse all cases in filtered H20

5. Final rinse in 99% isopropyl alcohol

6. Dry in oven fat 200 deg F. for 1 hour

7. Spray all cases with One Shot spray lube so that both outside of case and inside of necks get lubed

8. Full length size with Redding full length "S" type bushing die without expander ball

9. Expand necks with Sinclair Gen II expander - carefully pay attention to force required to expand the neck and use this info to sort cases. Can easily detect differences in neck thickness.

10. Slightly trim necks after SS tumbling to square up the necks and to remove damage to the necks from the tumbling.

11. Chamfer the inside of neck with this - http://kmshooting.com/small-17-6mm-reamer.html

12. Chamfer outside of neck with any chamfer tool

13. Polish inside of neck with 0000 steel wool wrapped around a bronze brush and spin with a motorized device.

14. Re uniform primer pockets

15. Re uniform and chamfer flash holes with this - http://kmshooting.com/flash-hole-uniformers/std-0-080-pro-flash-hole-uniformer.html

16. Rinse cases in 99% isopropyl alcohol and brush inside of case neck with a nylon brush to remove any One Shot lube on cases

17. Dry in oven at 200 deg. F for 1 hour.

18. Prime

19. Charge with powder

20. Seat bullets using Wilson seater die and 21ST Century Hydro press and checking seating pressure for consistency

21. SD for samples of approx. 20 rounds is usually in the mid single digits.

 

[Smalltruck]

A couple of things I noticed when I tumble mine.

First I use the harbor freight cheapo 45 dollar tumbler. It uses 2 containers that are about 4 inches across. I have about a pound and a quarter of pins in of the rubber tubs. Then I fill with brass to a little more than 3/4 of the way up the side. Then its dawn, lemishine, and hot water to cover. That gets me about 4 pounds in each of the tubs.

Because of the size of the rubber tubs and how full I fill them, and the relatively slow rotational speed of this tumbler I seem to get a lot less impact damage from the pins. Or at least thats how I read what others are saying they get for results. I would guess if I was using a thumlers setup and tumbled it with a less than full load that I would see a lot more impact damage on the brass.

I'm using redding dies with neck bushings and try to stay at about .002 for neck tension. I think I should do more neck chamfering than I do. But I do see that while I'm loading that every so often a bullet seats harder than most of the others. I'm chasing the why on that but don't have any answers yet.

One thing I have tried on my neck expander is polishing it. I chuck its mount rod in my drill with the expander ball on the end sticking out and spin it at about 500~600 rpm's while using a sheet of plain white paper to carefully polish any small rough edges away. Carefully is key here, you're not trying to remove metal.

I know what I'm doing hasn't got me perfection yet but its better than where I was.

 

[waldo1979]

less carbon means more tension. Reduce tension through dies or reduce interior resistance. I've resorted to a shorter wash and I'm going to try the expander and #0000 method mentioned above.

 

[Smalltruck]

I timed my last wash cycle for 6.5 creedmoor brass. From the time I pulled the tumbler out to the time I put it away was 53 minutes to setup, tumble, rinse, and put the tumbler away. For drying I set the oven at its lowest temp and let it get good and warm. Stick the clean but damp brass in it, in one of those tinfoil cooking pans lined with a little paper towel and shut the oven off. Pull it out in 2 hours or over night and its dry and ready to go.

 

[alb]

For drying, I use a Frankford Arsenal air dryer; it's got 5 trays and looks like a food dehydrator. It'll hold the same amount of brass that their SS tumbler will, which in my case is 350-400 .308 cases. At the 165 degree maximum setting, a full load of brass is dry in 45 minutes.

From time to time you see food dehydrators at garage sales; invariably, they're very cheap. Not getting 'the look' from the spousal unit while using the oven to dry brass: priceless.

 

[Scott Harris]

Here is what works for me.

1. Decap all cases

2. Anneal all cases

3. SS tumble all cases for an hour with 1 tsp dawn and 1 tsp Lemi Shine and hot H2O

4. Rinse all cases in filtered H20

5. Final rinse in 99% isopropyl alcohol

6. Dry in oven fat 200 deg F. for 1 hour

7. Spray all cases with One Shot spray lube so that both outside of case and inside of necks get lubed

8. Full length size with Redding full length "S" type bushing die without expander ball

9. Expand necks with Sinclair Gen II expander - carefully pay attention to force required to expand the neck and use this info to sort cases. Can easily detect differences in neck thickness.

10. Slightly trim necks after SS tumbling to square up the necks and to remove damage to the necks from the tumbling.

11. Chamfer the inside of neck with this - http://kmshooting.com/small-17-6mm-reamer.html

12. Chamfer outside of neck with any chamfer tool

13. Polish inside of neck with 0000 steel wool wrapped around a bronze brush and spin with a motorized device.

14. Re uniform primer pockets

15. Re uniform and chamfer flash holes with this - http://kmshooting.com/flash-hole-uniformers/std-0-080-pro-flash-hole-uniformer.html

16. Rinse cases in 99% isopropyl alcohol and brush inside of case neck with a nylon brush to remove any One Shot lube on cases

17. Dry in oven at 200 deg. F for 1 hour.

18. Prime

19. Charge with powder

20. Seat bullets using Wilson seater die and 21ST Century Hydro press and checking seating pressure for consistency

21. SD for samples of approx. 20 rounds is usually in the mid single digits.

No offense intended, but this long list highlights exactly why SS tumbling is not an improvement over dry tumbling. After years of fussing with all the unintended side effects of stainless tumbling, I finally switched to corn-cob tumbling...shoulda done that long before. Here's my list:

1. Toss brass into the corn-cob media tumbler for 8 hours.
2. Load em up.

My SD is mid-single digits too.

 

[alb]

I think that for many of us, anything worth doing is worth overdoing...

I'm fairly simple with SS tumbling. Decap about 400 cases, tumble for 1.5 hours with a little Lemishine and a squirt of Dawn. That's for MG-fired 7.62 NATO range scrap; an hour will do otherwise. My tumbler's countdown timer goes to 3 hours, but I can't imagine what would need that much time.

I pour the result out over a couple of circular gold-panning trays, the kind that fit over a 5-gallon bucket. The first tray has a mesh that lets the pins drop through; the second has mesh that traps them. Rinse with water and separate the pins, into the dryer for 45 minutes, done.

I don't dry the pins; they just go back into the tumbler for next time.

For my part, I like the clean cases, but it's the zero dust that's huge for me. The cleaning ingredients are cheap and last a long time, and you're always just pouring away the gunk, so the cleaning media is always fresh.

The one thing in the process that I found to be difficult was separating the pins, but the gold panning trays changed that. I ordered mine from Amazon; they're listed as 'SE GP2-14 Patented Stackable 13-1/4" Sifting Pan'. The pair I use are 1/4" mesh (traps the cases) and 1/50" mesh (traps the pins). Prior to using these, I personally found the separation step, even with a magnet, to be a bit annoying. With the sifters, not a big deal at all.

 

[Endyo]

I would love to see a study where someone compares the internal capacity of virgin brass to brass that has been fired a few times without tumbling. If there is no appreciable difference, I don't see a reason to SS tumble brass other than vanity.

I found carbon fouling equated to 0.2 grains of water volume in a once fired case in .284WIN

 

[alb]

And, getting back to the OP's question, the following thread I found to be helpful on this topic.

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/stainless-tumbling-media.3860705/

 

[zipollini]

Finally solved the neck peening problem tonight !!!!!!!

Bought 4 ft. of some clear flexible tubing that snugly fit over my 6XC brass necks and cut it into 1/2 inch lengths. Slid each length over the necks of 100 pieces of brass and SS tumbled it for 2 hours. Pulled the brass out and guess what - NO NECK PEENING AT ALL !!!! Pulled the tubing off and dried the cases and took some .0000 stainless wool to the outside of the necks and now I have PERFECT brass with clean primer pockets. No need to retrim to clean up and square up the necks. No need to rechamfer the inside and outside of the necks anymore. Will now cut tumbling time back to my normal 1 hour.

Woo hoo. !!

 

[Joe R]

zippolini said:
Finally solved the neck peening problem tonight !!!!!!!

Bought 4 ft. of some clear flexible tubing that snugly fit over my 6XC brass necks and cut it into 1/2 inch lengths. Slid each length over the necks of 100 pieces of brass and SS tumbled it for 2 hours. Pulled the brass out and guess what - NO NECK PEENING AT ALL !!!! Pulled the tubing off and dried the cases and took some .0000 stainless wool to the outside of the necks and now I have PERFECT brass with clean primer pockets. No need to retrim to clean up and square up the necks. No need to rechamfer the inside and outside of the necks anymore. Will now cut tumbling time back to my normal 1 hour.

Woo hoo. !!

I'm glad you found a solution that works for you. I just decided to add more pins and cut back to 30 minutes of tumbling and the whole problem of peening went away.

ab_bentley said:
I know this has been covered but I couldn't find the answer I was looking for throughout the records.

I just used the SS kit for the first time and I am having some serious issues with my necks and seating bullets. I thought maybe if I get a few firings on the necks the bullets would seat easier with a bit of carbon in them, wrong. I am on my 3rd firing and still having to lube the inside of the necks before seating or the jackets will strip.

When I seat without lube nothing matters as far as loading practice is concerned, the bullet always print a .75" 3 shot group at 100yds in a triangle pattern, like it needs tuned more. When I lube they will drill a 3 shot group under .25" with ease.

Is there a cure aside from lubing the necks? Does this dissipate as firings multiply?

This is a 6BR with Varget and I am using Redding FL S dies without the expander.

Adam

Adam,
Personally I've found neck tension to be the toughest nut to crack. I have resorted to using a combination of neck thickness/thinness, Sinclair expander die and custom made mandrels to reduce neck tension. I have to go down to the 1:10,000 precision to get it right, a real journey into steel hardness and grinding. I have polished the inside of the necks with steel wool but I did not see any real benefit (maybe because the necks are already being polished by the ss pins), I'm also concerned about changing the neck thickness with repeated polishing.

Using the Imperial Dry Neck Lube helps with consistency in reducing ESs. I also have concluded that bushing dies increase runout. So I stopped using them and use the mandrels to get me to the seating pressure I want.

Kindest regards,

Joe