Stainless tumbling or ultrasonic?

[tonyben]

Got 5 pounds of sleeping giant SS tumbling media on the way. I'm thinking to speed up drying, I may do a post-tumbling 5 to 10 minute soak in a gallon of IPA or Acetone followed by an air dry. Although I've never researched if Acetone attacks brass. At work, we use acetone as part of our ultrasonic parts cleaning process, but that is on stainless and nickel plated parts.

Tony

 

[Ned Ludd]

Rinsing with methanol, ethanol, or acetone to expedite the drying process will not harm brass in any way. Another alternative is a food evaporator, which has worked very well for me over the years. This is the one I have:

https://stainlesstumblingmedia.com/shop/reloading-products/accessories/brass-dryer.html

It is relatively inexpensive and typically, 30-40 minutes is plenty of drying time. Although it requires slightly more time, the benefit of a food evaporator is that you don't have to continually buy organic solvents and then find a way to dispose of them (pouring organics down the sink probably isn't the greatest idea).

 

[cw308]

Tony
You won't be disappointed , any liquid detergent will work , if you don't have hard water in your area you can eliminate the LemiShine . I let the unit run for two hours , pop the primers first ( Universal decapper ) your brass will look brand new inside and out . Never liked the carbon buildup inside the case . You'll never go back to dry media . Once you dump out the black water , I keep flushing the drum out until the water comes out clean . I let my cases air dry , I put them in those plastic holders that comes with store bought bullets , works well for .

 

[Shinbone]

I know the OP has already made his decision, but for future readers:

Clean brass with the least time/effort was my goal. For me, sparkley shiny brass would be nice, but was not a priority. After a bunch of internet reading, I decided that ultrasonic cleaning would best fit my goals. I have not been disappointed.

I first de-prime the brass, then scrap the primer pockets. After that, the brass goes in my ultrasonic cleaner with a little RCBS cleaning solution and hot water. 30 minutes in the ultrasonic bath at 50C, and the brass emerges bright and very clean, including the primer pockets. A couple of water rinses, and then 30 minutes in the wife's countertop oven at 180F, and everything is dry and ready to go. After priming but before dropping in the propellant charge, I brush graphite powder into the case neck with a Q-tip.

Based on ultrasonic cleaning, I can turn around 100 cases pretty quick.

 

[338 dude]

Rinsing with methanol, ethanol, or acetone to expedite the drying process will not harm brass in any way. Another alternative is a food evaporator, which has worked very well for me over the years. This is the one I have:

https://stainlesstumblingmedia.com/shop/reloading-products/accessories/brass-dryer.html

It is relatively inexpensive and typically, 30-40 minutes is plenty of drying time. Although it requires slightly more time, the benefit of a food evaporator is that you don't have to continually buy organic solvents and then find a way to dispose of them (pouring organics down the sink probably isn't the greatest idea).

Try a heat gun I lay them out on a towel blow with my heat gun three minutes maybe five if I have 100 rounds and they’re done

 

[golong]

As @Uncle Ed mentioned, case mouths take a beating with pin tumblers. I have all 3 (vibrating, pin, and UT). I made the mistake of putting some of my precision brass in the pin tumbler once. I had to go back and re-chamfer 300 6BR cases because every last one of them has the case mouth damaged. The first one I tried to seat needed well over 75 psi - not sure what it would have really needed as that is where I stopped and the bullet had barely entered the case.

UT is pretty much all I use on precision rifle brass. I use the Hornady Hot Tub with 3 pans instead of the basket or a single pan, along with Hornady case cleaner. It take a while as I only put enough brass in the bottom of each pan so they lay flat, and I don't use hot water as I am of the opinion that hot water allows the solution to penetrate further into the brass etching it more than what is needed. I also have a brass dryer.

I use the pin tumbler for large batches of semi-auto rifle and pistol brass. The buzz bucket gets used when I just want to clean lube off or the outside of the cases have something odd going on that I want to polish off.

 

[marchboom]

The thing I don't like about SS pin cleaning is the damage (my word) it does to the case mouth. I shouldn't have to "repair" the brass after cleaning it. I don't like the peening action on the rest of the case. Also the fact that a pin might get stuck in the case is not reassuring as I don't want to spend time looking inside each case for stuck pins. I watched the SS pin process on several You Tube videos and just looked like a lot of work.

After many years of handloading I have finalized my procedure. I first deprime the cases then put them into an ultrasonic cleaner for 1hr. The solution is 1/4 teaspoon of Lemishine per pint of water and a very little Dawn. Then into a Lyman Cyclone case dryer for 1 hr. Even with all 5 trays filled with .308 cases it only takes 1 hr to be completely dry. So far this has turned out to be a great case dryer. Then they go into a large vibratory case tumbler for 90 mins. I use Zilla Ground English Walnut Shells Desert Blend from Amazon. Your local pet store might also have this. I put a little NuFinish car polish in the media and let it mix in for 15 mins or so. Then put in the brass. There is hardly no dust. Then I put the brass in an old large bath towel, grab both ends and "tumble" the brass for about 5-10 seconds. That's it. The Lemishine does a great job of removing the carbon deposits and the walnut shell tumbling puts the final shine on the brass. You may fine a very little primer residue in the pocket of a few cases but that won't hurt anything. The final result is VERY clean brass with a great shine.

 

[cw308]

I hear this alot about peening the case mouth , I have been clean 45ACP & 308 cases with zero problems . Maybe your not adding enough water 1/2" from the rim is recommended or possibly over filling the drum with cases .

 

[tonyben]

I'm not worried about the case mouths. Nearly all my reloading is for 308 through an M14, so my cases stretch a lot! I got tired of trimming and now use a Giraud Tri-way trimmer after every resizing anyway, so any beating on the case mouth is irrelevant. My case mouths get banged up anyways upon ejection and I frequently find dented case mouths when picking up brass.

I don't mind buying ultrasonic for small batch later when I get serious about my bolt guns. For now, I'm still too heavily invested in the brass-eating M14.

My brass only lasts maybe 5 times through the chamber and its done. Less if I'm running hot 175's as the case heads begin to show signs of separations at around three cycles.

Tony.

 

[5spd]

Im a SS wet tumbler convert. Did the dry walnut for eons, then tried wet and never went back. Dawn & lemishine do the job every time. The cleaner sold at gun joints do a good job as well, but I have a hard time with $17+ for a bottle of the stuff.

 

[tonyben]

All shiny and new! Only an hour and a half in the Thumler's Tumbler with hot water, dawn and lemmi-shine. I used five pounds of stainless chips (not pins) from sleeping giant brass. Nothing stuck in flash holes and nothing stuck in the case necks.

Ninety 308 XM80 FC-18 marked cases and two 30-06 cases.

Tony.

 

[Richard Coody]

I see no reason to wet tumble brass. Most of my brass i just wipe off the exterior with a cloth dampened with ballistol. If it hit the ground for some reason i will tumble in corn cobb media. Brass that looks like jewelry holds no attraction to me. Over the years i have tried it all. I have emiminated those that haven't reduced my group size. Now i do do extensive brass prep but cleaning is not one of them.

 

[tonyben]

For me, I can’t stand the dusty dirty mess of dealing with dry tumbling. Been doing it that way for 20 years and still don’t like it. I’ll be avoiding it at all costs from now on, if I can.

Tony.

 

[corsair4360]

Drying the brass with a wet system became a mess for me, bought a "food dryer" worked good, until it died. Now I use a tumbler with coated tumbling media, not quite as clean as wet, but no drying wet cases. We have snow and cold at least 6 months of the year here, got sleet today for a bit.

 

[people]

If you are getting mouth damage you are doing too much brass at one time or going way too long.

I will de-prime my brass then run it in pins using hotwater, dawn and lemishine for 20 minutes max. After this stage I will separate the pins and brass and put them on a towel with a fan blowing over the brass.

Now I will work my brass. What ever needs to be done. I do not trim unless I have to.

Then I give it one more go in hot water with dawn and lemishine. Just 20 min. Separate out the pins and lay the pins on a towel with a fan blowing on them.

I used to try to cram as many as I could and the mouths took hell. With experimentation I found doing a little less brass per load (than what they suggest) and cutting the time way down did everything I needed it to do. The primer pockets do not come clean unless you are doing very recently fired brass. Granted cleaning them is super easy far easier than trimming.

 

[rogina]

If you are getting mouth damage you are doing too much brass at one time or going way too long.

I will de-prime my brass then run it in pins using hotwater, dawn and lemishine for 20 minutes max. After this stage I will separate the pins and brass and put them on a towel with a fan blowing over the brass.

Now I will work my brass. What ever needs to be done. I do not trim unless I have to.

Then I give it one more go in hot water with dawn and lemishine. Just 20 min. Separate out the pins and lay the pins on a towel with a fan blowing on them.

I used to try to cram as many as I could and the mouths took hell. With experimentation I found doing a little less brass per load (than what they suggest) and cutting the time way down did everything I needed it to do. The primer pockets do not come clean unless you are doing very recently fired brass. Granted cleaning them is super easy far easier than trimming.

Never tumble more than 1 hour. It will peen the case mouths.

 

[memilanuk]

Never tumble more than 1 hour. It will peen the case mouths.

IME, that depends a lot on how many cases you have in there, and what size they are. A few hundred 223 Rem cases can go for quite a while with negligible damage, but fifty 338LM may be lucky to make it an hour without peening the mouths.

 

[cotntop]

IME, that depends a lot on how many cases you have in there, and what size they are. A few hundred 223 Rem cases can go for quite a while with negligible damage, but fifty 338LM may be lucky to make it an hour without peening the mouths.

The 17 bucks is cheap if you recapture your solution and follow instructions. Been reloading for 50 plus years and love the ease of wet tumbling with the right solution. I used Dawn and Lemishine until I learned better. With the right solution tumbling is cut way down and drying is real quick with no oxidation and no peening.

 

[longtrapshootn]

I used an ultrasonic for the first time last weekend...hated it! Took a few warm cycles to get it done. Yes, it cleaned well but had to replace water/cleaner a few times for batches and had to keep coming back to reset timer. Can't speak to SS media but I am definitely picking my normal tumbler over ultrasonic from now on.

 

[Ccrider]

I used an ultrasonic for the first time last weekend...hated it! Took a few warm cycles to get it done. Yes, it cleaned well but had to replace water/cleaner a few times for batches and had to keep coming back to reset timer. Can't speak to SS media but I am definitely picking my normal tumbler over ultrasonic from now on.

Interesting. You are doing something wrong.