Wet Tumbling?

[anyracoon]

3 squirts of Dawn
1/4 teaspoon citric acid
5# of pins

add 4 1/2#s brass

Fill with hot water to about 1" from the top.

Run for 3 to 4 hours.
Rinse and dry

[Revoman]

I run a Dillon SDB and simply removed all of the dies from the die plate, leaving only the depriming pin itself. Just run all of the brass through to deprime after inspecting for splits, it goes really fast.
Doing it without the dies, especially the sizing die, can't harm/scratch the sizing die from debris on the cases.
I hand prime all of my brass, not using the Dillon priming system at all.

[bigbully]

I've always used Dawn, but the brass will tarnish after a week or two. I switched to Armor All car wash with wax that doesn't have a bunch of added chemicals and have not had any issues. STM also sells a tarnish inhibitor, but I have not tried it yet.

[OLD_skool454]

Me, myself if it's range brass or brass that was given to me I will make all the time necessary to ensure it's as clean as I want it so that I can better see any cracks, splits, rings, bad primer holes/pockets, headstamps, and correct calibers. If it's brass I already own or range brass I have previously done a deep clean and cull, even new brass...I just tumble for 30-45 minutes without primers unless I am using some really messy powder then I will go for an hour to an hour and a half...no longer than that. For reloading quality ammo, I have not seen a benefit to brass tumbled 3-4 hours vs 30-45 minutes, it may look pretty for about a week or a month but eventually it tarnishes and you'll be tempted to clean it again... I dry out in the sun throw em on a cheap flat bed sheet, spread them around, and go to lunch. In my experience the pins don't get stuck as they sometimes do in towels. Buy the pick up magnet, it helps a lot. I don't use any tools to tighten my tumbler, I make sure the inside of my cap is completely dry, the gasket is dry...all mating surfaces completely dry, then as I am tightening the cap I make sure the gasket (they are not cut very round) is perfectly centered on the mouth of the tumbler before giving it that final twist. doing it this way has only saved me an hour-two hours from having show quality brass, but now I only clean it enough o where I can load it without much fuss. Good luck.

[IVC]

@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.

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."

Keep in mind that wet tumbling will change how your press works, for better or worse. What looks like "unclean" brass from dry tumbler also makes resizing, powder funnel and crimping dies less "sticky." So, while you end up with aesthetically more pleasing brass, you might have to change or optimize your press when you switch to wet.

Brass has to be clean (some people reload without cleaning, talking about potential problems, ugh!). But "clean" means no debris, open flash hole, and clean primer pocket. It doesn't address shininess. Swaging on 1050 takes care of the primer pocket and decapping (with or without sizing) on station 1 makes sure the flash hole is open. So, if you make sure there are no external particles such as sand or stones, the cleaning is pretty much done. From there, you can make it as pretty as you want. Just keep in mind that the shinier the brass the more sticky it is, so you'll need extra lube at the minimum, even with carbide dies. Unless you want to ape the handle and shake the setup to the point where you start spilling powder or tilting bullets between the feeder and the seating die. And if you ape it to the point where the swager presses in any ringer and allows the shellplate to advance, you'll get a high chance of an audible alarm on the primer seating station when you try to jam the new one over the old one.

My loading is on 1050 and I'm looking for smooth, trouble free operation, allowing me to load a few thousand rounds in one go. To do this, I have two dozen primer tubes filled up and ready. The bullet feeder is tuned up for the bullet type and the case feeder uses the new Double Alpha turbo plate (or whatever it's called). The handle pull must be sensitive enough to detect any ringer on the swaging station. The up-stroke must be smooth enough not to allow neck expander, crimping and powder dies to shake up the press. So, when I have all this set up and running, my *only* concern about the brass is that it works with this process. That's why my view on wet tumbling is that it's a nice novelty that would be worth trying just for fun, but is unlikely to be a valuable contribution to any high volume reloading process.

[newbie1234]

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?

I used the cheap two bins wet tumbler from Haborfreight, I wanted to experiment the method works first before buy a good equipment, turned out the cheap Harborfreight wet tumbler OK so I keep using it.

[1] Yes, I de-prime first, Single Stage + Universal De-Cap die.
[2] NO steel pin media, whatever liquid dishwasher that my wife used + a Lime- Shine (very little), I used faucet warm water but I think cold water is OK.
[3] Around 1 to 2 hours.
[4] Out side California sun or inside garage. NO fan, NO oven,
[5] 2 hours under the sun, inside garage overnight.

[AdamVIP]

I always de-prime first either with a hand de-primer in front of the tv or a single stage with lee universal de-primer. I have a custom big dawg tumbler (no longer made) and do the typical dawn and lemishine. It has a built in timer for 2 or 4 hours and I generally just do 4. I dry on a towel on the floor of my garage currently. Its usually at least overnight or until I walk by it enough.

[hundy]

I have been dry tumbling with walnut or corncob media since the 90's. I switched to wet tumbling this year. Wow! what a difference. I kick myself for waiting so long. Sounds like most of your questions have been answered here. Just wanted to let you know, my experience and I recommend it.

I would defiantly repeat what has been said, Deprime first.

This is the kit I purchased and use.

https://stainlesstumblingmedia.com/stm-complete-package-2.html

Good luck,

Jay

[anyracoon]

The Rebel 17 tumblers are what my Dad would say, "The Cats Meow!"
I have 2 of them, no complaints.

[rhodesengr]

The Rebel 17 tumblers are what my Dad would say, "The Cats Meow!"
I have 2 of them, no complaints.

seems kind of pricey at $250ish. I don't have need such big capacity so I do OK with my HF tumbler but a Franklin Arsenal tumbler goes for less than half the Rebel one. Maybe there's a big quality difference.

[mindwreck]

I used the HF tumbler for damn near 7 years. works great for good range trip sized batch of brass. you can get like 4 good handfuls of 9mm per run. best part is its 2 containers.

After i went to the FART i didn't want to mix calibers and have brass stuck in other sizes so now i have to do 2 runs vs 1. I don't like having dirty brass sitting around so i clean and process brass immediately. If you have large batch runs, then 1 big tumbler is obviously more suited to that.

i have always used pins. gets them cleaner faster and the insides and pockets cleaner. don't need a lot of soap unless your trying to tumble off sizing lube. then you need a smidge more. lemishine for the HF size container has always been half a 9mm case is enough.

if you want shiny brass to stay shiny. rinse the brass after and quick toss pre dry it in a old shower towel before putting it out in the sun. like towel drying a car, prevents the water spots.

never going back to dry tumbling again. been wet tumbling for over 10 years. so much faster. on a sunny day. i can tumble and be dried ready to load in 1-1.5 hours.

[BrassCase]

My wet tumbled brass looks like new. The only problem I have encountered with it is that the brass is so clean that when I run it in my Dillon the expander powder die gets stuck to it. So, my solution has been after tumbling and rinsing to rinse again in car wash/wax solution and dry to get some lubricity.

[rhodesengr]

The only problem I have encountered with it is that the brass is so clean that when I run it in my Dillon the expander powder die gets stuck to it. So, my solution has been after tumbling and rinsing to rinse again in car wash/wax solution and dry to get some lubricity.

I mentioned this in my post. Dillion recommended using an actual case lube. I tried a wash/wax product and fir me it didn't stop the galling. Hornady One **** or either of Dillon's lube work well. Press tun so smooth.

[ar15barrels]

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.

Just beware that when going from dry tumbling to wet tumbling that your brass is going to be dust-free after it drys.
This means its so clean that it's likely to gall in your dies while you are sizing and expanding case necks.
To prevent the galling, plan on either lubing the brass or dry tumbling it to get some walnut or corn dust on it.
The dust from dry tumbling acts as a dry lube and prevents the cases from galling to your dies.

[newbie1234]

For lubrication I used the solution of:
- 10% Liquid Lanolin (Amazon)
- 90% Isopropyl Alcohol (the 91% alcohol, not the 70% alcohol) - CVS or Amazon.

Place all the brass lay down and spray a thin layer then roll the brass around. NOTES THAT:
- Spray a LITTLE solution is enough, DO NOT over use the solution
- TRY NOT TO spray the solution to INSIDE the brass because it may contaminate the gun powder.