A Word of Warning...

[Grunt81]

I'm posting this thread because it applies to those who clean their brass using the wet-tumble method.

I've been wet tumbling for the last two years and I finally ran into an issue for the first time.

I advise those who wet tumble, to NOT WET TUMBLE after resizing, IF AND ONLY IF, you used REDDING DRY CASE NECK LUBE before resizing.

I was resizing a few hundred .223 cases and normally just wipe the lube (liquid lube for lube pad) off with an old towel, t-shirt, or sock. Well, I decided that handling each case and having to wipe lube off was getting to be a little time consuming. So I went ahead and threw 75 of them in the single-drum, Harbor Freight Rock Tumbler. I used my usual method of filtered water, a 4-5 second drizzle of dish soap, and about a 1/4 teaspoon of LemiShine. After tumbling, the brass was absolutely heinous. At first, I thought this happened because I had left the brass in tumbler for a month or so, even though it's never happened before when I've left brass in the drum for an extended period of time.

At this point, reloading .308 was the priority so I put the .223 brass to the side and once again, decided to wet tumble my .308 brass after using Redding Dry Case Neck Lube. Same thing happened. The brass was dark with black spots all over it and felt sticky. Something bad happens with this concoction so my usual tumbling time of 2-4 hours didn't work.

I have been able to salvage all the brass this happened to, by tumbling for repeated cycles, changing out the water about 3 times, and letting the tumbler go for a total of maybe 40 hours. Not cool.

I was out of Simple Green, so I submerged some of the brass in Spic&Span. I noticed after a while some of the graphite came off and it made tumbling faster.

I don't know if the same thing will happen to other graphite-based dry lubes or other types of dry case neck lubes such as Lyman's. All I know for sure is the conventional wet-tumbling method using Redding dry lube sucked some of my time unnecessarily.

In the future, I'll either just wipe the cases off by hand so they can go to the next stage of brass prep. Maybe I'll figure out something to tumble them in to get rid of the graphite before wet-tumbling the lube off, If I feel like it. Pure Simple Green has made dirty range brass cleaner than it was before. I didn't ever really have good luck with the salt and vinegar solution, even though others have.

It's not a big deal wiping off .308 since I shoot more .223.

I would have posted pics but I'm a busy man this week.

For you vibratory tumbler snobs (is that even something to be snobbish about?), this doesn't mean wet tumbling sucks all of a sudden. It just means I've exposed a limitation, as vibratory tumblers have their limitations as well.

Hope this gives you all some insight into something I've never heard mentioned before.

Grunt81

[Whiterabbit]

I don't use redding dry case lube. Now I won't. Thanks for the heads up.

[LynnJr]

You can do 500 pieces of 223 brass at a time in a vibratory tumbler and its clean in 2 hours trouble free.
You can do 4000 cases at a time if you use a $159 cement mixer.
Wet tumbling gets the brass squeaky clean but man what a wet mess doing it.

[Whiterabbit]

Lynn, some people like Rum and others like Whiskey. Still others drink Vodka and refuse to touch brown liquor. We pick our poisons and live with the benefits and costs of our choice.

As for me, I have learned that dealing with pins and the moisture bothers me less than dealing with dust and grit.

[stilly]

I am still stuck on this sentence:
"At first, I thought this happened because I had left the brass in tumbler for a month or so..."

The last time I left brass in a bucket that I dumped the thumler into for 3 weeks it looked like absolute crap... 2 cleanings later and it is still nasty looking...

[Grunt81]

I am still stuck on this sentence:
"At first, I thought this happened because I had left the brass in tumbler for a month or so..."

The last time I left brass in a bucket that I dumped the thumler into for 3 weeks it looked like absolute crap... 2 cleanings later and it is still nasty looking...

That's because you left it in a bucket exposed to oxygen. Next time, just leave your drum closed until you're ready to rinse and dry the brass and I guarantee it'll look a lot better.

[Cheep]

I don't think you should leave brass wet with anything for a month!

[Grunt81]

Lynn, what mess do you speak of?

Cheep, have you ever wet-tumbled before? Luckily, I only reload very common calibers. The brass is plentiful and expendable. Any Barrett or wildcat cases are more valuable and I agree, should be treated with more care.

But here's the reality about wet tumbling. When not dipping the case mouth into Redding Dry Lube, it is absolutely okay to leave brass inside the drum of a wet tumbler. Sometimes I've started a cycle, and shut it off at night because I don't feel like waiting the 3 minutes to rinse and separate media, or the 25 minutes to dry it in the oven.

Sometimes, when I have a nice stash of clean brass, I'll just go ahead and leave the brass in the tumbler until I feel like I need to tumble again. Sometimes it's 3-4 weeks that the brass is in the tumbler not doing anything. When I feel like tumbling again, I'll just turn on the tumbler for a couple of hours at most and the brass comes out sparkling and immaculate. Being submerged in water in an air-tight rubber drum doesn't harm the brass in any way. During the 4 week period, the dirty water tarnishes the brass a little bit, but it is easily cleaned up.

In Stilly's case, he left the brass in a bucket of water, exposed to a virtually unlimited supply of oxidizing agents that are brought into close contact with the brass via aqueous solvent (water). That explains why his brass was dirty and took a long time to clean up. It takes months for dry brass to get dark when left out on a bench.

Other perks include:
1) No media stuck in flash holes, ever.
2) No need to replace media because steel pins last a lifetime.
3) Rotary tumblers, by design, often last longer than vibratory tumblers.
4) Almost all of the carbon vapor gets immediately dissolved in the water so about 95% less of it is breathed in when the drum is opened.
5) No need to buy a fancy media separator. A strainer inside a cotainer is all that's needed.
6) Universal decapping is a lot faster than cleaning primer pockets on a case prep center or by hand. Usually 4 hours of tumbling is enough to make the primer pockets look new.
7) The inside of wet-tumbled bottleneck brass looks like a mirror. I can't say the same for vibratory tumbled brass. If anything, this helps ensure more uniform case capacity after trimming.

Perks for the vibratory tumbler:
1) Using Nu-Finish car wax in the media gives the cases a thin coat of polish. This reduces the tarnishing that would happen if a piece of brass is left out in the open for 6 months. Whoopdy doo. I always load and shoot before then.
2) Maybe you can get away with tumbling after resizing using Redding Dry Lube....hmm, or I could spend 3 seconds per rifle case to dry them by hand.

I know Cheep just expressed an honest opinion. But I think this rant was inevitable.

If any one has anything to add to the vibratory tumbling perks list, please do so.

[stilly]

That's because you left it in a bucket exposed to oxygen. Next time, just leave your drum closed until you're ready to rinse and dry the brass and I guarantee it'll look a lot better.

It was submerged with water- BUT what is water but H2O so I can get that... Well, they may not fit exactly, but I will make it fit.

I got the perfect thing for you and I made it because I wanted to not worry about checking my watch for PC and I wanted to be able to tumble for 2 hours if need be. AND, I also wanted to be able to turn the dehydrator on and off after 2 hours as well...

I made a timer for these purposes and for PC dry tumbling:

[Grunt81]

Stilly, that's very nice. I've done my share of electrical wiring.

Honestly though, I can only see that really being a benefit for the dehydrator.

PCing should only take a couple minutes with plastic BBs. With steel or copper BBs, 20 minutes should be plenty.

Wet tumbling, pshh, just let the tumbler go until you're ready to take it out, unless you don't want it go overnight.

[Cheep]

Grunt81-yes I wet tumble.

[stilly]

I lose track of time and sometimes what I am supposed to be doing when I go out to the playroom- I mean the garage.

[Grunt81]

Holy crap.

Gentlemen, it appears that heating the bullets up to 190 - 200 degrees F allows the sticky, black, graphite smears to be wiped off.

If anyone runs into this issue using Redding Dry Lube and wet tumbling, I'd recommend tumbling as is for the better part of 10 hours or so. By this point, all the graphite should be off the body of the case, and only remain on the neck. Removing the brass from the oven or dehydrator, just wipe the necks off. I was able to do it with my bare finger.

[Squ1dward]

Sorry... PCing????

[Grunt81]

Sorry... PCing????

Naw dog, hell breaks loose when you dip your case mouth into Redding graphite lube before resizing, then wet tumble the lube off.