Stainless Tumbling Pins Question

[USMC87]

Ok, I use stainless pins with remarkable results on my brass, I got a phone call from a few fellow reloaders who tell me that you can only use the pins one time on brass cases because the pins remove brass and will cause them to split or prematurely wear out. I have never heard this and was wanting you fellas input on the subject. What they are saying is that you have to keep track of the brass that has been through the pins and not to tumble the same ones again in pins. Any comments are appreciated.

[rondog]

I call Bravo Sierra on that. The pins I use aren't that aggressive.

[ncbearman]

As a rule of thumb it's always good to watch for tell tale signs of brass wear of course. But I have tumbled and re-tumbled in SS for several years now and see no signs of unusual wear and tear on my brass. I shoot mostly 9mm, 45acp, 45 Colt, 30 carbine, and have just started on AK. Maybe with the higher pressures of larger cal. rifle it may make a difference, but if we are inspecting brass each time I would think you would catch any issues that may arise. SS tumbling after universal de-capping is the way to go in my book.

[longranger]

32-20 WCF to 7mm Rem Mag. Zero issues no obvious premature wear. I have some .41 Rem. Mag brass that has been reloaded 20+ times and still going strong.Those that say "it work hardens" brass have no experience with it and more internet B.S.

[Love Life]

Sounds like something somebody heard from somebody who heard it from somebody else who read it on the internet. Probably read it on the high road to boot.

[Baja_Traveler]

[ncbearman]

Well.............I was trying to be subtle but I'll play along. In a nutshell like lovelife and baja said, sounds like bulls**** to me. Could have saved some typing the first time around :0

[dbosman]

Dry tumbling removes brass too. Oxides specifically. And - that's using relatively soft corn cob or crushed walnut.
My son and I processed 250,000 cases this summer so I believe I have some expertise here.
Tumbling brass with Stainless Steel pins will remove brass. You can see the flecks in the rinse water.
For that reason we stopped the wash process when the cases were shiny but not blindingly mirror bright.

So, can SS pins weaken the brass?
.....Can running water erode rock?
.....Can tumbling rough "almost zero values" rocks produce smaller, "semi-precious" shiny rocks?
Yes, yes, and yes. The time frame is kind of important. For fun, we wet tumble agates for a month or more.
For this reason I don't recommend wet tumbling brass for more than a couple of hours.

[mold maker]

The difference in weight and wall thickness between brands is of more concern than what the SS pin cleaning will do.

[Dutchninja]

I've got 200K plus run though my tumbler, both brass and nickel pistol and rifle. I do not run it for hours on end, max maybe 3 to 4 hours and even that's on the top end. I can get clean brass and pockets on some pretty rough brass in about 3hr or less. If i have only 100 9mm or a similar smaller load like that, maybe an hour and a half. If I load the tumbler complete full of brass then I set it to go for about 4-5 hours.

I am not discounting dbosman's comment above about brass flakes but agree about erosion over time, however I have not seen in my experience any brass in the rise water or in the media when I return it back to the tumbler. I have run certain batches of brass through it multiple times as well without any problems. I think the brass would be shot out long before any noticeable loss or damage to the point of the brass being unusable would happen first.

[rondog]

When I empty my cement mixer after tumbling a bucketful of cases, I dump it all into a big plastic tub. Yes, there's extremely tiny specks of brass swirling in the water, but certainly not enough to wring my hands and fret over. Anybody that would is far too anal for their own good.

[Dutchninja]

Rondog - just a question to put out there, could it be smaller burrs coming off from the flash hole? When I cut 5.56 for 300 black out i take the cases and chuck them back in the tumbler for about an hour. It rounds them off and acts like a deburrer.I can then run them right through the sizer die without the added step. Just a random thought and I still don't think case erosion is an issue at all with SS pins.

[3006mv]

You must now question anything else that comes out of said fellow's mouth from this time forth post haste

[nun2kute]

I built my own tumble washer for stainless pins, washed a lot of brass clean, rarely more than two hours. I like bright and shiny, but I've never had tarnish cause a FTF, or FTE, so close is good enough here. The bucket that I drain everything over has gotten real black at the bottom over time, but I've never seen anything, small or large, shining at the bottom when I dump that ugly water out. Doesn't mean it's not there, just means I haven't seen anything to raise my concern. But I'm always watching for pins that might slip through. (or BOUNCE out)

[WFO2]

I have wet tumbled a lot of brass . First with a Thumbler and now with a Rebel 17 . The only time I see brass flecks is if I have trimmed and chamfored them first . Untrimmed brass no brass fleck . In my case I suspect it is just bits of brass from the trimming process .

[Andy]

Since you're tumbling in water with very lightweight individual pins with rounded edges (at least once they have been used a little bit) I can't see how any brass is getting removed from anything. As others have said I imagine this is probably someone erroneously interpreting brass flakes from trimming as being from the pin tumbling.

I don't have any controlled testing to verify this, but it just makes sense. Maybe if the pins were sharpened to points, weighed 10 times what they do and were in a huge drum without water, but not the way people actually tumble brass. The pins are very smooth so I can't imagine them abrading too much just from the surface rolling, given that soapy water is between them and the brass at all times.

[Lagamor]

When I started tumbling I saw some flakes, but they got fewer and fewer as time went on. I think the brass has worn down my pins. The ends are really rounded and most of them have a small curve to them.
Im not buying that story.

[JimB..]

I get brass flakes, and in batches where I have not sized, trimmed or uniformed the primer pocket, simply decap and toss them in. It's a tiny amount, and I have always believed it to be from the burrs at the flash hole and any crimped primer pockets.

Brass is malleable, the pins are not striking it with enough force to chip off flakes, and the pins aren't sharp enough to be gouging the brass, so the only thing left is that it's breaking off tiny sharp edges.

[dipstick]

What ever you do, don't fire that ammunition. High temperature gas at 60,000 psi will erode brass from the cases.

[Tmaloy]

I see brass flakes when I rinse rifle brass wet tumbling. I think that those are leftover pieces from trimming and breaking off the pieces off the case neck. Honestly, you can barely see the flakes..as others said, visually check your brass for possible failure.