Wet Tumbling?

[rfanalyzer]

I'm going to give in and try wet tumbling. Looking for advice from wet cleaning pros.

1. Do you de-prime first?
2. What additive(s) do you use?
3. How long do you wet tumble?
4. How do you dry?
5. How long do you dry?

[rhodesengr]

I won't claim to be an expert but I do wet tumble.
I do deprime first so the tumbling cleans out the primer pocket.
I researched what people tend to use and its usually a mix of some detergent like Dawn dish detergent and some form of citric acid. Lemi Shine is popular.
I also found that to really clean brass use need to add media. A very popular type of media is steel pins from Franklin Arsenal.

I use the inexpensive Harbor Freight two-drum tumbler. I add a teaspoon of detergent and 1/2 to 1tsp of Lemi. Some say you should add less Lemi, like 1/4 tsp.

I use a Franklin plastic media separator to get most of the pins away from the cleaned brass.

I pour the wet brass in a large stainless baking pan and I dry at 175F for about 30 minutes.

This process makes very clean brass. The problem is wet tumbling can leave the brass "too clean". I found that my brass was galling to my expander die and hanging up my press. This was especially bad with 45 ACP. The solution is simple. If you wet tumble brass, you must spray the brass with case lube (both inside and outside) before loading. Hornady One Shot works well as doo any of lanolin lubes.

[rice_man]

I've been running a FART (Franklin Armory Rotary Tumbler) with stainless pins, a squirt of Dawn and a 9mm case full of LemiShine. About two hours gets me where I need to be.

I lately discovered the secret ingredient - Strat-O-Sheen. Add about a .40 cal case of this and brass comes out like fine jewelry. It's a mild jewelers abrasive compound that does wonders in the rotoray tumbler/

[Revoman]

I had used Dawn dish soap for quite a while, along with Lemi-Shine for spot free brass (DO NOT ADD A LOT), then thought about Mcguire car wash or similar.
It works even better (IMO), no Lemi-Shine needed as it dries spot free, just like on a car. I use about a half an ounce, adding it to the water in the tumbler. If you put the car wash in first, it'll stick in some cases.
I do use some minor Imperial Wax when reloading on every ten pieces of brass. It simply makes it easier to run through the dies.
Yes, use SS pins.
Yes, deprime to clean the primer pockets.
I usually simply spread the brass out on a towel, do the cradle rock back and forth to get the bulk of the moisture out, then let them sit for a day before repriming and reloading. I suppose that you can speed that part up by either using an oven or setting them in the sun to bake dry.

[golfish]

I'm going to give in and try wet tumbling. Looking for advice from wet cleaning pros.

1. Do you de-prime first?
2. What additive(s) do you use?
3. How long do you wet tumble?
4. How do you dry?
5. How long do you dry?

1) yes
2) I like the stuff from Frankford Arsenal
3) about an hour
4) I rinse the clean brass in RO/DI or distilled water then lay em on a towel
5) until dry

[eric90503]

Basically what everyone else said to some degree, all will work. However, this is the biggest tip I can give you. Get a big poly type mixer (slightly quieter). Kind of like this.

https://nh.craigslist.org/tls/d/salem-kushlan-450dd-multi-purpose-food/7653269277.html

After messing around with the thumbler and HF type hobbyist tumblers, dry tumblers, etc. You have to ask yourself how much is your time worth.

I've done about x6 5gal buckets of 9 and 223 in a couple days. This will last me a while. If I was really smart I'd just work some OT and just buy factory

[tuna quesadilla]

If you get a FART (probably the most popular wet tumbler for reloading), I highly recommend also getting a FART Extractor. It sounds like a joke, but it's a real product. Very helpful for getting the lid tight enough so it won't leak, and also for those times when it's stuck on and you can't seem to get it off.

[baih777]

I use one of these to tighten the lid.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-24-in-Dual-Materal-Strap-Wrench-with-8-inch-Capacity-H8STRAPWR/300117125

You need to get it on tight or else it leaks as its spinning.
Or it makes one big mess.

[ARFrog]

I'm going to give in and try wet tumbling. Looking for advice from wet cleaning pros.

1. Do you de-prime first?
2. What additive(s) do you use?
3. How long do you wet tumble?
4. How do you dry?
5. How long do you dry?

1) yes, deprime first so you can get the primer pockets clean

2) normally a couple squirts of Dawn with a 9mm cap full of Lemishine. Sometime I use a car wash soap/wax combo.

3) Frankin Arsenal Rotary Tumbler with stainless steel pins. Was going to build my own out of Harbor Freight parts but the FA works great out of the box.

4) 30 - 45 minutes, change dirty water for clean and then another 20-30 minutes. If you use too much Lemishine it can leave the brass a rose-gold color.

5 & 6) use a spin separator to spin off excess water and throw out the stainless steel pins. Then put cases on a towel to air dry until dry. Also, I have a dehydrator I can use if too cold in the garage.

Get a large FA magnet, or something similar, to pick up the pins and put them back in the tumbler once dry.

[angry]

WASH&WAX NO PINS 3HRS
LOAD ABOUT 10000 A YEAR THAT WAY

[23's Dad]

The biggest benefit to depriming first is that the water doesn't get trapped inside the cases. You can dry your brass outside in the sun in a few hours if it's decapped.

I use the FART and a cat litter box that has a screen tray to rinse/separate.

[golfish]

Rinsing in RO/DI or Distilled water removes all of the hard water deposits from your faucet water. It really cleans up the brass.

I also use SS pins and chips

[IVC]

Plenty of good answers here, so I'm going to address a slightly different angle.

When deciding on the cleaning process you should consider the "why-s," not only the "how-s." What is the goal of you cleaning process? To have brass that loads easily? To have reliable ammo? To make it look pretty? To satisfy an OCD? Based on what you decide your final metric is, you'll come up with some quite interesting revelations about what processes work, which one you should use and for how long.

I would suggest that you start with the reliability of your assembled ammo as the ultimate goal. The next is how well your loading process works, which includes how well your press runs, how well your dies work, what kind of stress you're putting on the machine and yourself, etc. Distant last is the "looks." But, as the saying goes in the real world, "fishing lures are designed to catch fishermen, not the fish." So looks tend to matter.

[rfanalyzer]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens.

@IVC, I already have consistently reliable reloads. I was hoping to save a little time cleaning, satisfy my OCD, have a little "prettier" brass, and make myself the envy of the neighborhood, range and interweb. Not sure I'm going to save any time with depriming, cleaning, rinsing, cleaning, rinsing and drying, as opposed to throwing in a dry media tumbler for 3-4 hours and walking away. However, I'm always up for a new challenge. If this doesn't save me any time at all, I might be going back to my antiquated cleaning method.

[ARFrog]

Wet tumbling does indeed have a few more steps. It also has slightly less noise and definitely less dust/debris.

I run a Dillon 650XL and for 9mm do not deprime from station 1. Instead, I add a step to deprime with a dedicated FW Arms depriming die on a separate tool head before cleaning the brass. I can use the case feeder and move through the brass relatively quickly. Any dirt and debris can be cleaned up and not cause problems with the actual reloading.

After cleaning, station 1 is only resizing since there is nothing for the station 1 decapper to do and there are no rocks, dirt or wrong caliber cases to foul up the process.

I agree with IVC, cleaning brass is not a "beauty contest" event but I figure there are many benefits from clean brass - less primer pocket issues, perhaps less press issues, perhaps less gun malfunctions from dirty cases, perhaps better ammo consistency, etc - yet I have to admit clean cases are "PURRDY."