The power of brass cleaning with stainless

[thomashoward]

Some really bad looking brass. Before I went to the stainless pin cleaning process I would have tossed these. These will never get clean with walnut


These are average condition and will clean up OK


ready to tumble


Surprise, surprise. I had to clean these before I can even deprime ,to avoid major brass scratches and potential damage to expensive dies.


Drying brass on the heater until hot to the touch.

I can only tumble 200 cases per batch to avoid giving my little rock tumbler (formerly) a hernia.

[Cowboy T]

Saw similar results with .38 Special cases and a buddy who does the stainless method. Yes, it works, and your results are typical. It gets .223 cases just as spic 'n' span.

[jeepaddict]

why do the cases need to be dried? Stainless media appears to be dry, do you adda liquid to the mix?

[stilly]

LoL. Yeah.

The MAIN ingredient in SS tumbling is water. Water, Dawn, Lemishine, pins and shells...

I use a handpress and universal decapper to deprime my shells though because I HATE putting spent primers in the water. The water is NASTY black after it comes out and it seems like it NEVER ends no matter HOW much I rinse it out. Then I got black gunk to deal with in the pockets later on... Yuk.

[Turbinator]

Incredible. I'm going to have to look at this stainless steel method..

Turby

[problemchild]

Do they shoot better than corn cob cleaned media?

[Gowking]

I don't think anybody has bothered to see about that. However the tumbler is quieter, the media doesn't wear out and is dust free. It comes down to the cost of water, soap and lemishine vs media and polish.

-MRA

[Cowboy T]

The other thing is that with highly tarnished or otherwise dirty brass, it gets so clean that you can easily see defects in the cases. This is good; we want to be able to see case defects. It also makes "too dirty to clean" cases "useable" again, which is always a plus.

[Cowboy T]

The other thing is that with highly tarnished or otherwise dirty brass, it gets so clean that you can easily see defects in the cases. This is good; we want to be able to see case defects. It also makes "too dirty to clean" cases "useable" again, which is always a plus.

[the86d]

How bad was that water after those?!?!

[thomashoward]

why do the cases need to be dried? Stainless media appears to be dry, do you add a liquid to the mix?

I use a tablespoon of dawn dish soap and 1/2 tablespoon of LemiShine I got from Target.All goes into the tumbler and fill with water. I tumbled for three hours by a plug in timer.
The water is black when done. Pour the black water out. I pour remaining brass and pins into a 5 gal bucket and begin rinsing and pouring out.
I need one of those squirrel cage things to go on the bucket to cut down the rinse time and water usage.
Keep a magnet handy to capture the pins that get away,they cost plenty but don't wear out
Nice and clean inside, outside and primer pockets. That dusty corncob will not do that. Plus you can tell where they are in the grass.
Some people don't mind dirty brass with scratches.To each his own. I inherited the rock tumbler, it can only do 200 rounds per batch.When it dies I have to get something bigger but for now this works

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdvq3Kc_Vm0

[problemchild]

While I think this is good for the small batch hobby shooter it would not work for my 3-5k 223/308 brass cleaning batches unless I had a cement mixer and $10,000 in SS media.

[ahren111]

While I think this is good for the small batch hobby shooter it would not work for my 3-5k 223/308 brass cleaning batches unless I had a cement mixer and $10,000 in SS media.

Just wondering? What kind of tumbler do you have that will hold 5k of 308 brass? Thats like +-75 lbs of brass right? Must take a lot of corn cob.

[Fishslayer]

I think ya got a .45 GAP mixed in there.

[Darklyte27]

where do you get those pins? how long do you tumble for?