Brass cleaning/polishing with stainless steel

OK, everybody, I broke down and bought a Frankford Arsenal stainless steel pin tumbler last January and have been testing it since. Observations: (1) the technique isn't perfect, but it's close, (2) does its best on straight walled cases, (3) bottle necks interfere with the sliding/abrading action of the pins during the tumble movement, (4) Dawn dishwashing liquid does as well as any additive to the water for keeping debris suspended during tumbling, (5) I had a couple of occasions where pins stuck inside 9mm cases, (6) some of those posted photos of 'magical' cleaning performance may be photoshopped as I couldn't get some .30 carbine brass free of stains after 3hrs of tumbling (is Lake City brass different from commercial?), (7) I'm glad I got the SS pin equipment!

PS: Those little SS pins can be a nuisance to handle so keep a magnet handy to pick up those little critters.
 
No the pictures are not touched up. With the right combination of dawn and Lemishine even the worst looking brass will come out like new.
 
wileybelch - Are you adding Lemishine of citric acid to your mix? Straight water and Dawn (of Great Value for us cheap folks) will still leave the brass somewhat dull. A little Lemishine gives the high shine look.

My recently tumbled .223 Lake City brass cleaned up just fine. Appeared no different that the Federal and other headstamps cleaned at the same time.

so keep a magnet handy to pick up those little critters
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Magnet? What do you use a Magnet for? I still haven’t figured out what you guys are doing with magnets. My pins are contained 99 percent of the time. The few strays are easily rounded up.

My key piece of equipment - $2.00 stacked (nested) plastic bowl and colander set from Walmart. The colander must have slots instead of holes. This combination works because the slots allow the pins to easily drop through the colander into the bottom bowl below.

I store the pins in the tumbling drum. Before I tumble a batch of brass, I use the colander and bowl to prewash the brass. This prewash removes the majority of the sand, mud, small gravel, spiders, grass and whatever, which helps keep my media clean.

Brass is placed in the drum, along with water, dish soap and Lemishine. After tumbling, I pour off water from the tumbler barrel, fill the barrel a couple more times as a “pre-rinse,” decant and then pour brass and pins into the stacked colander and bowl. By the time I’ve filled the bowl twice with water, while stirring the pins/brass in the colander, the whole lot is rinsed and sorted – brass in colander and pins in the bowl below. Pick up the colander out of the bowl and shake it to remove the excess water before dumping the brass unto a towel, where it is wrapped up for shaking out remaining excess water. Pour the water out of the bowl and dump the pins back into the tumbler barrel. I can’t imagine a faster method.

Full disclosure demands I state I’m using a 3# A-R1 Tumbler with 1.5 pounds of pins and 1 pound of brass (equates to 150 pieces of 9mm). My standard cycle is 90 minutes. The brass is clean in 60 minutes, but bright and shiny in 90 minutes.
 
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Couple questions.I have Frankford rotary tumbler like wileybelch my bottle neck cases are not getting as clean as ones pictured here.I use 1.0 cc lee dipper of 99.9%citric acid and a little dawn.The Frankford tumbler is advertised as 30 lb tumbler is the 5 lb of pins enough?More citric acid or something else to try.I've been tumbling 2.5 hrs.1 cc is about 1/5 of a teaspoon the reason I use this amount is because most recommend 1/4 teaspoon of Lemi-shine which doesn't contain as much citric acid.
 
Well, OK you guys, what IS the right pin/brass ratio? And what is the right Dawn/Lemishine ratio? I'll check your claims and report back.
 
I got some instructions with my Lemishine that stated "scoop one 9mm case full of lemishine per 1000 cases to clean... scale back appropriately for smaller batches. With Lemishine, LESS IS MORE".

I find that I can clean 500 9mm cases with just a pinch (less than half a 9mm case full) of the lemishine, and a tablespoon of liquid soap (really, any kind will do, but folks swear Dawn is best)

I split 5 lbs of pins between my two 6 lb drums. More than enough pins, but you really can't have too many, so long as everything can tumble and churn properly.

I am going to try the Armor All car wash that some folks say works better than Dawn. Supposedly it leaves a little protection on the brass to hinder oxidation.

DO NOT run the brass for hours and hours. If it's not clean in 2 hours, something is amiss. I have found that the brass starts to re-tarnish in the tumblers if run too long.

Hope this helps.
 
Just looked at Serf's post. It's pretty much spot on.

One note... once you've used the pins to clean about 10 loads, you might start to feel like the brass in not getting as clean. This is usually because the SS pins are getting skuzzy. Run them in a drum by themselves with a little water and simple green. This cleans them back to factory condition.
 
Can't believe as many people that wet tumble that nobody has any suggestions.
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This thread is chock full of information.

Specifically for your issue, I suspect you have may have too much water in the drum. A 30 pound drum is a big ol' honker, capable of cleaning at least 2000 9mm cases. You MUST have a churning, tumbling action where the cases and pins are aggressively scrubbing together. If you have too much water and not enough brass to fill out the volume of the drum, the brass just kinda swims and sinks.

Try this... after you pour in your brass and SS pins, fill with water until the water is level with the brass in the drum. Even less water... and run for an hour. I think you will get better results.

You can't have too much SS... you CAN have too much water.
 
i was at harbor freight yesterday and an old man was in front of me buying the big rock tumbler. he said he reloads.....like about half of everyone at harbor freight these days. do those cheap rock tumblers actually work for SS tumble? not trying to derail, just didn't want to start another thread for such a small question.

thanks.
 
It looks like we're getting closer to a consensus. Using Axis and Schmell's formulas, it looks like a pin:brass ratio of 5:3.5 (on a pound basis) is effective. The Frankford Arsenal instruction manual specifies filling their 6-sided drum to the bottom of the mouth with water (a lot more than 1gal as suggested by Schmell) with a maximum final load not more than 30lbs. That's a lot of water (Frankford) compared to the suggestions offered on this thread. So I will try the reduced water formula with the next batch.
Just for the record, Federal 9mm brass = 127 per lb; Winchester .223 brass = 74 per lb. Thus, 3.5lbs 9mm = 445 cases, or 260 .223s per batch. Maybe everybody should get one of those cheap chinese kitchen scales at WallyMart to get better consistency when filling their tubs.
The response to this thread has been very good. I'm grateful for all the suggestions. The soap formulations could use a little more confirmation from users.
 
Axis: I don't think your brass is retarnishing after 2 hours. I suspect it is so clean that the SS pins are starting to burnish the surface (some lots of brass seem more susceptible to ease of burnishing; also seems more prevalent with lighter weight brass such as 9mm and .380, .223s don't do it). The 'color' or tarnish appearance is sort of an optical illusion.
 
i was at harbor freight yesterday and an old man was in front of me buying the big rock tumbler. he said he reloads.....like about half of everyone at harbor freight these days. do those cheap rock tumblers actually work for SS tumble? not trying to derail, just didn't want to start another thread for such a small question.]
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The only tumblers I have seen at HF are a single 3lb drum and a double 3lb drum. Certainly good enough for small batches of brass if (IF) you take the "roundness" out of the inside of the drum. The brass and pins will simply slide down the walls on the smooth sided drums. So, if I were attempting to use the HF drums, I would grind some slots in the interior walls of the drum with a dremel, or put some fat beads of glue with a hotmelt gun... anything to get stuff churning properly.

Axis: I don't think your brass is retarnishing after 2 hours. I suspect it is so clean that the SS pins are starting to burnish the surface (some lots of brass seem more susceptible to ease of burnishing; also seems more prevalent with lighter weight brass such as 9mm and .380, .223s don't do it). The 'color' or tarnish appearance is sort of an optical illusion.
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Maybe. Seems reasonable. But regardless of why, the result is discolored brass when you run it too long. Also, I have never had to be so careful about getting the brass/pin/water/shine ratio measured perfect. I hope that reducing your water volume does the trick for ya.
 
Maybe everybody should get one of those cheap chinese kitchen scales at WallyMart to get better consistency when filling their tubs.
The response to this thread has been very good. I'm grateful for all the suggestions. The soap formulations could use a little more confirmation from users.
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I don't need a scale to get results- I just eyeball the amount of brass that goes into my Thumbler's Model B tumbler.

I know I have 5 lbs of pins, more or less
I know I have a gallon of water, give or take a half a cup
I know what 3 lbs of brass typically is by volume in the drum
I know that 1 tsp of citric acid works wonderfully
I know that 1 tbsp of ArmorAll Wash-N-Was cleans the brass exceptionally well and leaves a thin wax coating that protects from tarnishing after they are dry
I know that 3 hours is likely enough tumble time, but I set my timer for 4 hours just to cover my bases

Here is a great thread about it from a while back - this thread actually turned me onto sstl tumbling because of the results.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=520125

This really isn't all that difficult, and you don't need to be spot on with your ratios - close enough for government work is plenty good to get outstanding results. Not every single aspect of reloading needs to be measured to the 4th decimal place.
 
The next time I tumble I'am going to try 1 gallon of water and a little more citric acid.The Franford arsenal tumbler holds 7 liters.On some other sites people think that 5 lb of pins isn't enough for a 30 lb tumbler when full.
 
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