Stainless Tumbling Process? Save The Pins!!

[reckoner]

First, I dump both the brass and pins into a fine-meshed strainer from Walmart, and then rinse all the soapy water off.

Then, I dump the brass and pins into a cheap salad spinner, fill it halfway with water, and then agitate by hand for a few minutes to separate the pins out.

Same idea as the Frankford Arsenal separator, but it uses way less water.

[stilly]

Get a set of these:



And the .380 addition plate.



Everything smaller than a .380 will flow through into a holding bucket. Then you can sort the brass without worrying about the pins.

Drain the pins and put them back in the tumbler.

I haven't yet begun tumbling brass, but the sorter is great.

I am curious as to why you have that ".380 plate" .

You should try to sort the brass without that plate. BECAUSE I have no issues sorting brass and the yellow catches the .380/9mm all the time. The only things that fall through are like, .32 acp and sometimes 30 carbine, and all the .22 and .17 hrm/mach 5 whatevers.

Just saying, if you can return that plate, you might want to get your money back. I was too cheap to buy it in the first place and then after I got the set I was like, why do they sell that plate?

[Grunt81]

I don't think there's a need to spend the money on an overpriced media separator from Frankford Arsenal, Lyman, or RCBS. There's no need to have the ability to spin anything. Decant the drum to get rid of all the dirty water. Then pour out the brass and the stainless steel pins into a large strainer. If you pour it out in batches, like 5lbs, at a time for a total of 3 times per drum, you can get a away with a plastic pasta strainer. Don't get one that has round holes. Get one that has elongated holes. The pins will fall through faster. Just circle the brass with your hand a bunch of times and pick up a few handfuls and drop them, while running water. You're rinsing off all the LemiShine and dish soap and grime. The running water rinses the brass off and helps the pins fall through into a container underneath.

Here's my set up. $2 at the Dollar Tree and as good as anything for separating stainless steel media from brass.

[Dozer94]

I don't think there's a need to spend the money on an overpriced media separator from Frankford Arsenal, Lyman, or RCBS. There's no need to have the ability to spin anything. Decant the drum to get rid of all the dirty water. Then pour out the brass and the stainless steel pins into a large strainer. If you pour it out in batches, like 5lbs, at a time for a total of 3 times per drum, you can get a away with a plastic pasta strainer. Don't get one that has round holes. Get one that has elongated holes. The pins will fall through faster. Just circle the brass with your hand a bunch of times and pick up a few handfuls and drop them, while running water. You're rinsing off all the LemiShine and dish soap and grime. The running water rinses the brass off and helps the pins fall through into a container underneath.

Here's my set up. $2 at the Dollar Tree and as good as anything for separating stainless steel media from brass.

^^^ This. I run the exact same setup but I got mine from the $.99 store. It works like a charm and I've never had any pins stuck in the brass. To separate the pins and water from the container, I use a small fine mesh strainer. Pour the water through and voila, all the pins have been saved. Shake off excess water and place back into the tumbler.

[stilly]

I did my final batch tonight with the Dillon media separator and it DID trap 4 pins where it opens and closes, they found their way in there but it was no biggie. I have now cleaned about 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket of .45 acp and thank god I am done...

The Dillon did work great. Small batches is another option, but when I gotta plow through things I just want them done so being able to process about 12+ lbs of brass at a time worked great, then I can just take the cage off and run water over it for another rinse and then pop it open and put the shells into the dehydrator/ dryer...

I had a strainer similar to the ones above but I always was looking to process faster and in greater magnitude and I ended up not liking it. But who processes that much brass at once on the average?

Anyways. Maybe I will keep this Dillon and get rid of that other media separator that I have. It is taking up space now...

A walmart strainer on a 2 gallon bucket would be smaller and easier to maneuver though. I will have to look into that as well.

[Michael in California]

I don't think there's a need to spend the money on an overpriced media separator from Frankford Arsenal, Lyman, or RCBS. There's no need to have the ability to spin anything. Decant the drum to get rid of all the dirty water. Then pour out the brass and the stainless steel pins into a large strainer. If you pour it out in batches, like 5lbs, at a time for a total of 3 times per drum, you can get a away with a plastic pasta strainer. Don't get one that has round holes. Get one that has elongated holes. The pins will fall through faster. Just circle the brass with your hand a bunch of times and pick up a few handfuls and drop them, while running water. You're rinsing off all the LemiShine and dish soap and grime. The running water rinses the brass off and helps the pins fall through into a container underneath.

Here's my set up. $2 at the Dollar Tree and as good as anything for separating stainless steel media from brass.

Ditto. My walmart strainer has a bit bigger holes. I put it over a 2 gallon bucket and pour water, brass and pins in. I fill the bucket/strainer to overflowing while agitation the brass. By the time the water is clear, the pins are in the bucket. Pins separate better under water.

Remove strainer and pour brass on a towel.

Decant water from bucket until the pins just want to spill out. Then transfer pins back to the drum and put all away. The pins don't need to be dry, nor does the drum.

['ol shooter]

Just goes to show there's more than one way to skin a cat. Good thread.

[SonofWWIIDI]

OP, couldn't you also try a large magnet? It would pickup the pins, but not the brass.

Just a thought.

I am curious as to why you have that ".380 plate" .

You should try to sort the brass without that plate. BECAUSE I have no issues sorting brass and the yellow catches the .380/9mm all the time. The only things that fall through are like, .32 acp and sometimes 30 carbine, and all the .22 and .17 hrm/mach 5 whatevers.

Just saying, if you can return that plate, you might want to get your money back. I was too cheap to buy it in the first place and then after I got the set I was like, why do they sell that plate?

Got the whole set as a gift. I don't even have a .380...yet.

[AdamVIP]

Ok I just tested out my new tumbler and here's what I did when it was done.

I poured the excess water into a bucket. I then dumped the media and brass into a separator and give it some vigorous spinning. I then poured the brass into the side without pins and rinsed with fresh water. I pulled the brass by hand and spread over a towel. The water was then transfered to the pin side for a rinse for those. The water was then poured off into the dirty water bucket. The dirty water bucket is run through a strainer as it's disposed of to catch any stray pins. I still have some damp pins but figure those will air dry.

[LynnJr]

You guys know we're in a drought, right?

Spyder
The wet works better than any other method if your time has no value and your into dishpan hands and more time into the clean up than you have in cleaning your brass.
I just did 4000 pieces of 223 brass in my cement mixer. That is a single batch and no clean up and no dishpan hands.
Someone will now post how long it takes them to do 4000 pieces of 223 brass using the wet method.

[Psychbiker]

I'm debating a cement mixer. Plenty used. Like the poly drum one but read the worm drives breaks down. Granted I'd only have like 20lbs bras 15lbs media and couple gallons of water. Much less stress than concrete.

The sink colander is not enough. I don't lose much pins if any. Just seeing if there's a faster process. My FA separator sucks. Works but flimsy.

[stilly]

Based on new evidence and procedures, I am starting to think that decapping the shells might not be necessary for wet process unless you are hung up on the primer pockets (that get a steel pin rammed through them when you decap...) AND it might be very well possible that you can dry them all quickly AND not have soggy primer pockets when you decap/resize. That would shave off about 2-3 hours from my decapping.

HEH, You might also try just mixing in dry media with some polish in the tumbler and letting it go with the shells in it. That is another thing that I am going to try out once I get some polish. Oh but wait, I have some cool cleaning media that I got from fleabay... I will mix that in with the walnutz.

[Lead Waster]

Use a super magnet to pick up dropped pins.

[llazyjs]

Switching to Stillys big pins saved me a lot of headaches. Those small pins will go thru screen door screen and those mesh type kitchen strainer/collonders. The big pins are heavier also.
I have a plastic laundry room sink I set out on the back lawn.
I dump the black water out of my Frankford Arsenal rotary tumbler in the sink just to where the brass and pins are almost going to fall out, fill it up, swish it around and dump it out a couple more times then put a Lowes 5 gallon bucket in the sink, put my Frankford Arsenal brass separator in the bucket and dump everything into that. Some of the pins fall down into the bucket. Then using the sprayer on the sink faucet I rinse everything off real good, water and pins falling into the Lowes bucket. Then I stand there picking up the cases 2-4 at a time and dump the pins out into the brass separator. I can do 500 cases in 8-9 minutes. Then I take the brass and throw it into the blue Frankford Arsenal salad spinner thingie and give a few spins in case I missed a pin or two. Rarely do I find that I missed a pin but that process also spins some of the remaining water out. Takes about 1 minute. Then brass goes into the dehydrator for one hour.
Going back to the pins I grab my Frankford Arsenal pin magnet and grab all the pins remaining in the brass separator dropping then into an one of those alum foil casserole or turkey cooking throwaway trays. Then I pour the water out of the bucket which since the pins are heavy you can drain 99% of the water without losing a single pin. Grab the pins with the magnet, drop the pins in the alum tray, tray goes in the oven for an hour to dry the pins and I'm done. That whole process of dealing with the pins takes me about 90 seconds. Ezy pezy. I de-prime and re-size before I tumble because, well because I like clean holes. Dirty dies you say? When my sizing die get dirty I take a rag and hold it under the die and spray carb cleaner up into the die with the red plastic spray nozzle. Ezy Pezy. 15 seconds spent there.
Brass comes out of the dehydrator HOT, and goes straight to my Frankford Arsenal vibratory tumbler with corn cob and Nu-Finish for a two hour spin. I think that HOT brass helps melt any clumped up Nu-Finish wax too. I don't have any problems with pins getting stuck in the cases using the bigger pins and out of 500 cases I get maybe 20 with corn cob media stuck in the flash holes. I keep a plastic gun cleaning pick handy and as I'm parked on the sofa with my wife watching TV weeknights after work hand priming my brass when I come across a plugged flash hole I just clear it out with the plastic pick. Ezy Pezy. I can prime 500 cases in one evening. I only tumble brass on the weekends. I can set the timers and walk away from it. My brass comes out better then new clean and shiny. That's just how I like to do mine. Works for me.

[stilly]

Switching to Stillys big pins saved me a lot of headaches. Those small pins will go thru screen door screen and those mesh type kitchen strainer/collonders. The big pins are heavier also.
I have a plastic laundry room sink I set out on the back lawn.
I dump the black water out of my Frankford Arsenal rotary tumbler in the sink just to where the brass and pins are almost going to fall out, fill it up, swish it around and dump it out a couple more times then put a Lowes 5 gallon bucket in the sink, put my Frankford Arsenal brass separator in the bucket and dump everything into that. Some of the pins fall down into the bucket. Then using the sprayer on the sink faucet I rinse everything off real good, water and pins falling into the Lowes bucket. Then I stand there picking up the cases 2-4 at a time and dump the pins out into the brass separator. I can do 500 cases in 8-9 minutes. Then I take the brass and throw it into the blue Frankford Arsenal salad spinner thingie and give a few spins in case I missed a pin or two. Rarely do I find that I missed a pin but that process also spins some of the remaining water out. Takes about 1 minute. Then brass goes into the dehydrator for one hour.
Going back to the pins I grab my Frankford Arsenal pin magnet and grab all the pins remaining in the brass separator dropping then into an one of those alum foil casserole or turkey cooking throwaway trays. Then I pour the water out of the bucket which since the pins are heavy you can drain 99% of the water without losing a single pin. Grab the pins with the magnet, drop the pins in the alum tray, tray goes in the oven for an hour to dry the pins and I'm done. That whole process of dealing with the pins takes me about 90 seconds. Ezy pezy. I de-prime and re-size before I tumble because, well because I like clean holes. Dirty dies you say? When my sizing die get dirty I take a rag and hold it under the die and spray carb cleaner up into the die with the red plastic spray nozzle. Ezy Pezy. 15 seconds spent there.
Brass comes out of the dehydrator HOT, and goes straight to my Frankford Arsenal vibratory tumbler with corn cob and Nu-Finish for a two hour spin. I think that HOT brass helps melt any clumped up Nu-Finish wax too. I don't have any problems with pins getting stuck in the cases using the bigger pins and out of 500 cases I get maybe 20 with corn cob media stuck in the flash holes. I keep a plastic gun cleaning pick handy and as I'm parked on the sofa with my wife watching TV weeknights after work hand priming my brass when I come across a plugged flash hole I just clear it out with the plastic pick. Ezy Pezy. I can prime 500 cases in one evening. I only tumble brass on the weekends. I can set the timers and walk away from it. My brass comes out better then new clean and shiny. That's just how I like to do mine. Works for me.

You should get photos and make a PDF file. I am going to start making info PDFs for powdercoating and wet process as well as loading faster on the turret...