Cleaning Brass with SS Pins

[Babbott213]

Just seen this area and seen a topic on cleaning brass. For you guys that are using SS pins for cleaning your brass, take a look at the SS chips. I've used pins for 2 years plus now and just tried the chips and I'm never going back to pins. No stuck media in flash holes, no packed media in 223 cases, and much faster cleaning rates.

This guy Ryan Fannin has the chips. Here is his Facebook site. He doesn't have a website yet, but the chips work great. Thought I would pass along some new information out there for you SS Pin guys and maybe Gals.

I separate the chips from the brass with a RCBS media separator too and that works very well.

https://www.facebook.com/southernshinetumblers/

[Sparky74]

The chips seem like they may be a bit aggressive. I've been doing the ss pins with dawn and lemishine for about two years and very happy with the results. How do they compare price wise?

[Babbott213]

Their not aggressive at all. So far with the use of them, I've not seen any negative affects of the chips. I used the pins for over two years myself and for me, I like the chips as they clean faster as right now I clean in small batches, so my turn around time is much quicker and I can get my next batch to cleaning sooner. As far as price goes, I paid $37 for five pound delivered. I don't remember what I paid for the pins as I bought them over two years ago.

[bosterr]

I wonder how these chips would work in a vibrator tumbler.

[Babbott213]

I wouldn't think that they would work as they would be to heavy.

[Trapperscott]

I bought chips from him about 8-10 months ago. I've had good luck with them so far. Babbott, how far down in the bucket does that RCBS media separator sit in the water in the bucket? That is the only downfall I have with the pins or chips. I haven't found a good quick way to separate them.

[Babbott213]

Trapperscott, it really depends on how much water that you put in it. I typically put just over a gallon of water in it so that as I tumble the brass in the basket, it's taking the brass through the water. The first time I put a good bit of water in it and I had water leaking out from under the lid as I tumbled during separation. The RCBS media separator is the way to go from what I can tell so far. It's made it real easy. What I also do is once I'm done I'll scoop out some of the chips so I'll have enough for another load in my tumbler and if I want to clean the chips or just separate the chips from the water, then I place them into a gallon plastic paint pale with two nylon paint strainer bags. This way I can rinse clean water through the chips and remove the crud off the chips and keep them clean. Works for me, as I come from the paint trade anyway.

[user55645]

I've one through a number of different separators, over the years. The best one was the one I made. I put tons of 7/64" holes in the bottom of a 1gal, plastic, bucket.
To separate:
Pour clean brass mixture into 1 gal bucket and put that into a 5gal bucket.
Spin the 1 gal bucket 180*, back and forth. Sometimes a shake, or 2, helps.
Not even 22 brass will come out of the holes.

[W.R.Buchanan]

These look like the chips generated by a Nibbler. Wonder what the actual source is?

The pins are generated by Wire Bending Machines which turn out hundreds per minute.

I once went into a shop that had about 50 of these machines running 24/7. You couldn't hear yourself think! They were all mechanical machines and were all making little pieces of bent wire, like spring clips for various things. Cute little machines about 18-24" long made a long time ago.

They were sold by the pound, and I don't see how they made any money doing it as the final product was literally worth like 15 parts for a Cent. That's 1500 for a Dollar. The machines were making like 3-4 parts a second. Pins would go faster.

I don't see any significant difference in the way these chips would clean over the pins. All the pins do is agitate the crud that is softened by the solution you put in the tumbler. Pins, chips whatever the only requirement is to be small enough to get into the nooks and crannies to break the crud loose so it goes into solution in the water.

I would think it would all come down to the price per pound.

my .02

Randy

[Ric-san]

I'm thinking of using some #3 stainless steel solid rivets, can get these at work all day long....I currently use the ss pins

[OS OK]

The shape of those 'niblets' look like they would be murder to get out of small bottle neck cartridges.
They look aggressive also.

I rotate my brass in the Frankfurt Arsenal cheapo hand crank separator with an almost full bucket of water and never have a problem with 'hangout, straggler pins' trying to hide inside the brass or in the flash holes.

[StuBach]

Having no experience with SS media before I opted to give these a try given the low cost of getting 5 lbs to try compared to supposed results. I have always cleaned my brass with ultrasonic Lyman chemicals and had decent luck till recently had some cases get put away wet and got some interesting spots on them.


After hand agitating these in a small peanut butter jar for 3 minutes to see the results I have to say I'm sold. I look forward to trying them with an actual rock tumbler when I get around to buying one.

[MOA]

I've one through a number of different separators, over the years. The best one was the one I made. I put tons of 7/64" holes in the bottom of a 1gal, plastic, bucket.
To separate:
Pour clean brass mixture into 1 gal bucket and put that into a 5gal bucket.
Spin the 1 gal bucket 180*, back and forth. Sometimes a shake, or 2, helps.
Not even 22 brass will come out of the holes.

I just went to Wal Mart an got a plastic strainer for pasta and a plastic bowl. I dump the tumbler of brass and pins into it while running cold water from the sink an use my hands to agitate the brass while all the pins fall out and through the strainer into the bottom bowl. Dump the strainer into a cotton pillow case and agitate the brass back an forth till most all water is off the brass and pour onto a towel under a ceiling fan to dry, the pins in the bottom bowl I agitate with my fingers while the water is running into the bowl get a good rinsing so the lemi shine and dawn are all washed off. Then the pins get put into a alum pan an put in oven at one eighty for thirty minutes turn off and remove from oven after a couple of hours, store away for next cleaning.











Bowl, strainer, alum pan all cost less than ten bucks, and Mama thru in the tupperware storage container for the SS pins.