I'm a bench rest shooter 308 cal. Shoot an average of 25 rounds in 2.5 hours.I'm always reading & trying different things. I ordered a rotary tumbler from Harbor Freight, the 3lb. tumbler, will use the stainless steel pins,liquid soap & lemi shine. Like to reload with my brass as clean as possible. Any one out there clean your brass this way. Waiting for the tumbler to come, I have all the other stuff.
Cleaning brass
- Thread starter cw308
- Start date
Again, for the worst of cases I use vinegar. I only use vinegar fro 15 minutes maximum for the life of the case. For everything else I use tumblers with media. I have one that holds 1,000 30/06 cases called a Thurber 45. The 45 designation limits the amount of weight as in maximum of 45 pounds. Also have a Thurber 10, it holds 10 pounds total.
I have a friend that has just about every kind of tumbler that is sold. When he fires all of them up his shop sounds like a B36 flying with the engines out of sync.
He purchases one of those tumblers with stainless pins, I ask 'WHY?' I helped him build a tumbler that would hold as many cases as a cement mixer, all he had to do was fill it with stainless pins, distilled water and some kind of acid. When comparing his new purchase to the one we built and the ones he owned it could best be described as comparing a glove box with the bed of my pick up.
F. Guffey
I have a friend that has just about every kind of tumbler that is sold. When he fires all of them up his shop sounds like a B36 flying with the engines out of sync.
He purchases one of those tumblers with stainless pins, I ask 'WHY?' I helped him build a tumbler that would hold as many cases as a cement mixer, all he had to do was fill it with stainless pins, distilled water and some kind of acid. When comparing his new purchase to the one we built and the ones he owned it could best be described as comparing a glove box with the bed of my pick up.
F. Guffey
brasscollector
New member
I use a rotary tumbler with the stainless pins. Really cleans the cases well if you ask me. Some of those advertisement 'results' you see are likely dolled-up a bit from my experience. I have a separator that I toss the cases/pins into. Mine is an RCBS but many others works the same. I fill up the bottom of the tub halfway with water. The splashing seems to loosen up the pins and they fall out of the cases and into the tub. Never found a pin in a case unless it was stuck there, (1/4" long pin stuck sideways in a 25-06 neck which was painfully obvious). I also make sure that the cases I'm tumbling do not interlock at the case mouth (38/357's and 30cal rifle shells, for example). Also picked up a food dehydrator and the brass will dry off rather nicely in about 25-30 minutes.
oldmanFCSA
New member
SS Pin cleaning
all my pics are too high resolution to load - sorry
ALL mt brass looks brand new - some even better
all my pics are too high resolution to load - sorry
ALL mt brass looks brand new - some even better
Exactly, with some refinements. Go to Wally World and buy a jug of apple sauce. the plastic bottle is round on the ends, but has a molded in hand grip in the middle, so it tumbles well. One will fit on the H.F. tumbler and hold nearly as much as the two normal containers, but it's a LOT easier to load. Fill with enough water to cover the brass and pins, but not too much more than that.
I use automatic dishwasher gel because it doesn't foam up as much as Dawn. I usually tumble .223 or 6mm cases for 90 minutes, more or less.
You MUST buy a Frankford Arsenal Standard Media Separator, nine bucks on Amazon. It fits down inside a standard dry-wall or Home-Depot bucket so that you can stir and shake your cases and pins to separate them without the pins flying all over the place. A cooking colander is not nearly as good and a rotary media separator is even worse because they are expensive, bulky, and overly complicated.
Dump the separated pins into a fine sieve, pour them into your storage container, and pick up any strays with a magnet. Something like the Magnetic Separator Pickup Tool with Quick Release, $6 on Amazon, is a real plus.
Shake the brass when you're done, dump them into a towel folded like a mini-hammock, and work them back and forth to remove most of the water. Then either dry with a heat gun or put them in a mesh bag and use a shoe drying rack in your wife's clothes dryer or simply trap the mouth of the bag in the door so that the bag hangs inside. Don't let it tumble.
That harbor freight tumbler is puny for tumbling brass. I used a dual drum unit when I first started. I now use a vibe unit as I just aint that OCD to do wet tumbling unless my brass has been sitting outside in the mud for a while. Even then I just use laundry soap and no pins.
For those of you using stainless steel pins......how can you pick them up with a magnet as stainless is not magnetic?
For those of you using stainless steel pins......how can you pick them up with a magnet as stainless is not magnetic?
g.willikers
New member
With that small amount of brass to clean, and how persnickety bench rest shooters are, it's surprising you don't just do it all by hand, rather than letting them get beat up in a tumbler.
That way the cases can be closely and individually inspected, too, inside and out.
Just a thought.
That way the cases can be closely and individually inspected, too, inside and out.
Just a thought.
Being thrifty (aka cheap), I didn't want to spend any money on SS pins to try wet tumbling, although I have wet tumbled with plastic pyramids. I had a bunch of small SS cotter pins from my boating days so I used about 1/2 lb. in a small HF drum with water, Dawn and Lemoshine. Yep, got excellent, virgin looking brass, but didn't/don't care for the extra steps (and I have no need to have ultra shiny polished primer pockets). It worked quite well, but I'm not into trying to impress anyone with my "Ultra Bright" handloads and actually I'm the only one to see my handloads now that I shoot alone. Yep, I hear folks talk about "pride in workmanship", but I judge my handloads by how they preform, not how the look (my ammo is not "all show and no go") 
Wet tumbling with SS pins will give you new looking, polished looking brass...
Wet tumbling with SS pins will give you new looking, polished looking brass...
Yes. I started with a HF 3Lb unit - just to see how ss pin tumbling worked, without making too big of an investment. However, I only load for handguns and it's too small for my purposes. I can't imagine 308 - might hold 40 or 50 pieces?? (100 pcs of 38 Spl weights ~ one pound.) Remember, "three pounds" means: one pound water, one pound pins, and one pound brass.
At any rate, the little Harbor Freight unit worked great and so I graduated up to the Frankford Arsenal big boy. Got a batch tumbling in it right now, in fact. Very pleased with it. Can't imagine loading without it now. SS pin tumbling is the way to go, IMO. Nice n clean - inside n out - and primer pockets.
Ole Joe Clark
New member
Just a quick note on stainless steel.
Most SS weapons are made from 400 series stainless, which is heat treatable, and magnetic. 300 series SS is not magnetic and not heat treatable. It has to do with the ferrite content.
I remember useless stuff like this from 40 years in manufacturing.
Most SS weapons are made from 400 series stainless, which is heat treatable, and magnetic. 300 series SS is not magnetic and not heat treatable. It has to do with the ferrite content.
I remember useless stuff like this from 40 years in manufacturing.
Bucksnort1
New member
For those of you who are power loaders, here is a suggestion for you.
A big time seller of reloading components at the Denver Tanner Gun Show, cleans thousands of cases at one time by using a mortar mixer, like the ones brick layers use. He dumps in a quart of mineral spirits and something else, which I can't remember what he said it is. If I bring one of those in the house, anywhere, I should probably move my bed and toothbrush to my loading shed. Of course, I have no need for something of this caliber.
A big time seller of reloading components at the Denver Tanner Gun Show, cleans thousands of cases at one time by using a mortar mixer, like the ones brick layers use. He dumps in a quart of mineral spirits and something else, which I can't remember what he said it is. If I bring one of those in the house, anywhere, I should probably move my bed and toothbrush to my loading shed. Of course, I have no need for something of this caliber.
g.willikers
New member
Record holder shootist Jerry Miculek uses one of those cement mixers, too.
Wish I had a place and a reason to use up that many rounds.
Wish I had a place and a reason to use up that many rounds.
Bucksnort1
New member
Mikld,
Cheap is cheap and "thrifty" is ok but the ones I like to use, when I'm trying to impress someone are, frugal, parsimonious, and "prudent and especially parsimonious.
Cheap is cheap and "thrifty" is ok but the ones I like to use, when I'm trying to impress someone are, frugal, parsimonious, and "prudent and especially parsimonious.
CW308,
Given that you run 6 minutes of cooling between shots, the first thing I would recommend is that you take a Lee decapping rod and a small hammer to the range with you (bottom of a Lee Loader works, too) and deprime while the case is still hot. Carbon hardens as it ages. You'll find the warm primer residue falls right out and you can put a dab of something that dissolves carbon, like Gunzilla or Boretech C4 Carbon remover into the primer pocket with a swab and even do the same inside the case. Board member Hummer70 came up with this method, though I think he was using Ed's Red as the carbon solvent. Check it out in the first post in this thread. Anyway, if you do this, whatever cleaning method you use will work faster and easier at removing carbon subsequently.
For cleaning the quantity you have, rather than set up stainless pins, you might look into ultrasonic cleaning. The pins do put small impact marks on the brass surface. I've not seen an issue with them, but if, like a lot of benchrest shooters, you are trying to squeeze 50 loads out of your carefully selected and prepped rifle brass, then you might want to avoid the extra surface work hardening that comes with those pin impacts.
Below are some corroded .30-06 cases I cleaned in by ultrasonic in a solution of 5% citric acid plus a teaspoon per gallon of dishwashing liquid to act as a wetting agent and suspend brass. Subsequently I tumbled them in Lyman green corncob media and all the pink (where corrosion had preferentially taken zinc from the surface and left copper wash behind) turned to polished brass.
Note that these cases sat in a bag that got flooded, causing the corrosion, and that the primers in them had been their for a good decade, so the carbon was well hardened. I didn't take a photo of the insides of the cases, but I did look with a borescope and found them essentially clean as the proverbial whistle inside. The main point of interest for me was that the inside of the necks be clean for consistent bullet pull friction, and they were.
Given that you run 6 minutes of cooling between shots, the first thing I would recommend is that you take a Lee decapping rod and a small hammer to the range with you (bottom of a Lee Loader works, too) and deprime while the case is still hot. Carbon hardens as it ages. You'll find the warm primer residue falls right out and you can put a dab of something that dissolves carbon, like Gunzilla or Boretech C4 Carbon remover into the primer pocket with a swab and even do the same inside the case. Board member Hummer70 came up with this method, though I think he was using Ed's Red as the carbon solvent. Check it out in the first post in this thread. Anyway, if you do this, whatever cleaning method you use will work faster and easier at removing carbon subsequently.
For cleaning the quantity you have, rather than set up stainless pins, you might look into ultrasonic cleaning. The pins do put small impact marks on the brass surface. I've not seen an issue with them, but if, like a lot of benchrest shooters, you are trying to squeeze 50 loads out of your carefully selected and prepped rifle brass, then you might want to avoid the extra surface work hardening that comes with those pin impacts.
Below are some corroded .30-06 cases I cleaned in by ultrasonic in a solution of 5% citric acid plus a teaspoon per gallon of dishwashing liquid to act as a wetting agent and suspend brass. Subsequently I tumbled them in Lyman green corncob media and all the pink (where corrosion had preferentially taken zinc from the surface and left copper wash behind) turned to polished brass.
Note that these cases sat in a bag that got flooded, causing the corrosion, and that the primers in them had been their for a good decade, so the carbon was well hardened. I didn't take a photo of the insides of the cases, but I did look with a borescope and found them essentially clean as the proverbial whistle inside. The main point of interest for me was that the inside of the necks be clean for consistent bullet pull friction, and they were.
Unclenick, thanks for the info.The ultrasonic did a nice job, just received the HF Rotary unit, its running as we speak. I could see the ultrasonics would have been a better choice & for calibers smaller then 30 cal. Where the pins could create a sticking problem. I will get back in 1.5 he's how the HF unit worked.
schmellba99
New member
I switched over to SSTL pins a couple of years back, mostly because of this thread where the OP took some of the dirtiest and nastiest brass I had and turned it into something nearly new again. No amount of vibratory cleaning or, at least in my experience, ultrasonic, would have had this type of before and after. Made a believer out of me for sure.
http://http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=520125
1 gallon of water
5 lbs of pins
brass
1 tsp of citric acid
1 tsp of Armor All Wash-N-Wax (the wash-n-wax cleans like normal detergent does, but leaves a slick wax coating on the brass when dry. Helps prevent oxidation and gives some lubricity to the brass that is stripped with regular detergent).
For normal brass I usually do a 3.5-4 hour tumble, rinse well and let air dry with a fan blowing over it. If it's horribly corroded/oxidized or dirty I do a 2 hour tumble, change the water and solution then do a normal 4 hour tumble. Pretty much all of my brass looks near brand new every time it is cleaned.
http://http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=520125
1 gallon of water
5 lbs of pins
brass
1 tsp of citric acid
1 tsp of Armor All Wash-N-Wax (the wash-n-wax cleans like normal detergent does, but leaves a slick wax coating on the brass when dry. Helps prevent oxidation and gives some lubricity to the brass that is stripped with regular detergent).
For normal brass I usually do a 3.5-4 hour tumble, rinse well and let air dry with a fan blowing over it. If it's horribly corroded/oxidized or dirty I do a 2 hour tumble, change the water and solution then do a normal 4 hour tumble. Pretty much all of my brass looks near brand new every time it is cleaned.