Wet tumbling never thought

K

KEYBEAR

New member
I never thought I would consider wet tumbling but things change . I have a lot of old 44 Mag brass and the primer pockets need a good cleaning . I shoot lead and have a plate rack in the back yard . Will the pins clean the primer pockets I am having problems seating primers . All my brass has been reloaded a bunch .:confused::confused:
 
Yes sir it will. I bought the frankford arsenal version and have been happy with the results.

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hmmmm 40 dollar food dehydrator or a wife with a attitude...lemmme think.....food dryer wins

of course you can always spread them out on a old towel in the shop and let nature take it's course, that does not even cost a buck
 
hounddawg said:
hmmmm 40 dollar food dehydrator or a wife with a attitude
Click to expand...

False dichotomy. Trust me. I bought the food dehydrator and my wife's attitude remains unreformed.


Keybear,

IMHO, you save yourself grief if you get a Lee Universal Depriming/Decapping Die. I leave one set up in an old Lee Challenger press I have on a plastic press stand. Makes it quick and easy. Then pin-tumble. Then you can sort rims without your hands getting dirty.

I also bought Berry's brass separator to let the pins and extra rinse water drop into a 5-gallon paint bucket. The pins are not austenitic stainless, so the magnets still hold them. I hold the magnet against the bottom of the bucket while I let the excess water pour off. You can then pour the pins into Tupperware, put the cases in the bucket and shake them around to get any hiding pins loose and then apply the magnet to the bottom of the bucket again while you pour the cases onto a rag for subsequent placement in the drier.
 
I changed to wet tumbling after 25+ years of dry. Use a universal decapper die first to pop the primers. Did you ever uniform the pockets with a uniformer ,only have to do it once , makes priming a breeze & the pockets are cut all to the same depth .

Wet tumbling the brass the brass comes out like new , first time let them run for 2 - 3 hours , don't over fill the unit with brass , just follow the instructions for what ever unit you go with and you'll be hooked on wet tumbling . For my benchrest 308 cases 30 cases I bought a small one drum tumbler from Harbor Freight , my pistol brass 45acp I let them build up to 350 cases then I'll use the Thumler model B tumbler .Hope I Helped in some way .

Chris
 
I have the Thumler model B tumbler had it a little over five years but always used it dry . I load a lot of 44 Mag mostly lead and shoot about every day at home . Last year I used a little over 18lb. of Unique yes you can buy cleaner powders but it is cheap and I like it . I am loading 240gr load 10.2 unique at about 1150 fps . Using a Dillion XL-650 that I bought in 1984 still works well . Years ago I had a Ruger three screw cut down to 4 5/8 put over 12,000 lead bullets out of it last year .
 
Brother has discovered most of the time you don't need the pins. Just Lemon Shine and something else...Simple Green,maybe? Not sure.
But most of the time,no pins. Easier.
 
Has he got some primer pocket photos to share? I've noticed that an ultrasonic will clean them, but it takes a little while. Not longer than tumbling, though, and I don't know how much is actually the ultrasonic and how much is really just the citric acid solution.
 
Big boy industrial size ultrasonic do a good job, never messed with a small unit. Saw a guy try and wash his jacket in a industrial unit once, it dissolved the thread in the stiching

But I may try my rotary one day without pins just to see what happens, if the pockets are still dirty I can retumble them for a hour with pins
 
Unclenick

It is just standard primer Pocket residue from a lot of reloading I have never cleaned them . Some of this brass was been loaded 10/15 or more times I shoot it until it splits .
I shoot around 100 at a time and may get one or two I toss out . I have cleaned some by hand and that gets old fast .
 
Stainless pins definitely scrub the pockets out very well. Dry cases on a towel in the summer sun or as Nick says in a warm oven (150F), but cover the cookie sheet with parchment paper or tin foil, or it leaves brass shadows on the wife's bakeware for all eternity.
 
False dichotomy. Trust me. I bought the food dehydrator and my wife's attitude remains unreformed.
Click to expand...

Don't know if it's a woman thing, or our wives are related... ;)
My wife says I can have all the 'Car Junk', relaoding stuff, etc I want as long as it's in the shop & she doesn't have to look at it.

Then she complains I spend all my time in the shop!

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Pins will clean out primer pockets and clean the inside of the cases.
The biggest issues I have is time, it often takes quite a bit of tumbling time to get cases 'Spotless'.

I went to a 50/50 mix of stainless pins & stainless 'Chips' which cleans primer pockets MUCH faster.
Keep in mind you will need a 'Universal' decapping die...

I got my chips from Southern Shine Tumblers and although expensive up front, they have saved a TON of time.
I saw some other places are selling chips also, but I haven't needed to buy any more in the past 3 or 4 years.

I tried the oven (wife issues), I tried dehydration (volume/time issues), finally settled on floor fan pointed up, minnow net that will hold 4 or 5 thousand at a time.
Nylon net doesn't discolor the brass like metal screens will, and it's flexible so you simply shake to rotate brass so it all dries.

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I resisted wet tumbling like the plague for years...
Finally dawned on me I needed to clean the oil crud off with detergent intended for cleaning...
Once clean, throw them in the polishing media (walnut).
Now the polishing media lasts so much longer it's not funny since I'm not using it to clean!

Don't know why it took me so long, I wouldn't have thought twice about doing the same thing with widgets in the shop, but for brass it was just ingrained in me to and dry polish the crud off, and cleaning isn't what the polish media is for!

If you do large volume, drain water, shake off excess water, dump right in polish media still damp.
The small amount of moisture keeps the dust down, and slightly hydrated walnut doesn't grind to dust as easily.
While separating brass from media, I run walnut/stainless over a magnet and 99% of stainless gets removed from walnut (and the process begins again).
 
I really like my Frankford Arsenal. Only issue I've had is throwing 357-45 and 444 straight wall cases in with bottleneck cases. Pins and cases meet and lock some of the cases together. Real pain to pull apart and ones stuck are still dirty. I use 3 caps of some liquid car wax from Walmart and a teaspoon of lemishine. Makes my brass stay shiny after months in storage.
 
Just had my first pin in the flash hole incident. On that primer test I ran the other day I had a squib. I thought it might be a bad primer since the loading procedure I use prevents me from putting a case into the loading block without powder. This morning I pulled the bullet and there was powder in the case but when I depinned it there was a stainless pin stuck in the flash hole. I estimate I have shot close to 5 K rounds since I started with the wet method. While 1 in 5K not bad I will definitely do a better inspection of my cases from here on out.
 
Hounddog, what is the diameter of your pins?

Mine fall through, I think they are .047", but every once in a while I will find an undersized primer hole.

The first batch of pins I tried were the wrong length & had square ends, they wedged in some cases.
That's what I get for trying 'Discount' stuff...
 
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