Stainless Pin Tumbling, A Curious Observation

[dudel]

Thanks for the info. How much Dawn+Lemishine do you put in your HF drum with the 100 45 cases?

I don't use Dawn, but I do add a capful of Blue Coral car wash/wax and 1/4 tsp of Lemishine (maybe even a bit less for one drum). Don't need much Lemishine.

[DerekP Houston]

I don't use Dawn, but I do add a capful of Blue Coral car wash/wax and 1/4 tsp of Lemishine (maybe even a bit less for one drum). Don't need much Lemishine.

I just add a "squirt" of dawn to the same mixture. If I don't get a good sudsy bubbly look while running I usually end up with some of the dirty residue on the brass still. Our water is pretty rough here though so I attribute it to that.

[murf205]

Thanks, our water where I live has a lot of lime in it and I guess you could say it is hard too. I had to clean out my water heater 2 times a yr to get the hardened lime pellets out.

[Wally]

I did an experiment...I used a Lee Loader to size a number of 9mm Brass cases then put into my Thumbler Tumbler; 300 of them w/ SS pins/Dawn/& Lemi-shine. The Lee Loader really scuffs them up badly and I did lube them. After the cleaning the scuff marks had vanished. Same deal on rifle brass...

[MOA]

Sorry guys, whenever I hear or read stuff about cleaning brass with the SS pins I always get this image in my head so I just can't help sharing it, I know, I'm guilty of just wanting to look at my pictures again. Ha, ha.
All of the 45acp have sat in a box for 25 years hiding in the closet, so you can imagine my delight when I got them out of the SS tumbler an saw what they looked like. I had a smile that lasted for at least an hour on my face.

[DerekP Houston]

Those pictures above are what convinced me to buy one. If my brass is just a little dirty from the range I'll toss it in my regular tumbler with corncob and call it good enough. Sometimes I get some nasty brass for one reason or another (scavenging) and the SS pins really do clean it up better.

[crowbuster]

I've seen 'gold dust' after pin tumbling brass. I think it comes from micro-burs in places like case mouths. After loading and tumbling several times, the dust stops appearing, so I do not think the pins are digging out chunks of brass. Really, this process is much too mild to expect any sort of brass removal.

In manufacturing, tumbling with hard media, such as ceramic shapes, is used to debur parts fresh from machining, so the appearance of metal dust is to be expected if burs are present.

When loading new brass I always uniform flash holes and debur. If you have never done this you will be amazed the chunks of "gold" you get from when they punch the flash hole. This is my guess, and why it stops after a few cleanings. nothing to get alarmed about.

[25ring]

I think one of the best features of using SS or ceramic media is the fact that the brass is much easier on your reloading dies.Tumbling in corn cob or walnut always left a certain amount of residual dust on the cases and I always seemed to get more scratches from a piece grit in the die.

[Walter Laich]

Thanks for the info. How much Dawn+Lemishine do you put in your HF drum with the 100 45 cases?

I do 250 cases per batch so let's see: 1 oz of Armor-All Utra Wash/wax, 1/4 teaspoon of Lemishine.
Guess you could cut that in half to 100 cases.

Like mentioned above I just love the way they look when the come out of the tumbler. Since my shooting isn't top notch I want my brass to look top notch

[murf205]

I cannot find any good reason not to make my handloads look as good as possible. I know that stained brass handloads might shoot as well as purty ones but there is a pride factor involved, not to mention the reduced wear and tear on sizing dies. I have a set of 9mm dies that I bought for cheap and the sizer scratches cased horribly. I polish it every so often with clover compound and one day I might get all the scratches out, but every time I think about dirty rounds, this die is the first thing I think of.

[TXGunNut]

Good thread! Reminded me I had some BP-fired 45-90 cases in my range bag from last Tuesday. Just punched out the primers and put them in a juice jug with just a little dab of dishwashing soap and some hot water for an initial shake & soak session. Then a good rinse and into an ultrasonic cleaner for an hour or so. Then another rinse and they get to dry in this hot Texas sun. If I want them a bit more shiny they spend a bit of time in the walnut shells with some Hornady One-Shot brass polish. Yes, I like shiny brass. No, I can't replace this brass for 15 cents.

[NyFirefighter357]

I use a Frankford Arsenal Platinum Series Rotary Case Tumbler. It works great. I have found the smaller rifle cases hold water. I de-prime my cases first, this prevents water from holding in the brass & allows cleaning of the primer pocket. I use Dawn & Lemi Shine. When clean I drain the water & pins into a 3 gal. bucket, fill it again & add a strong magnet, this catches any stray pins, tumble for a few minutes to rinse. Drain again and "dry" tumble for a minute with a couple of strips of chamois cloth drying towel, tumble for a few minutes and it removes most of the water from the brass. Then I air dry on a towel with the ceiling fan on. I lube the cases for sizing or protection from tarnish in storage by adding synthetic wire pulling lube. It's water based and won't effect the powder. This is done after the "dry" tumble, before air drying. Then store in sealed bags. I then pour off most of the water in the bucket and either leave the pins wet or remove them with the Frankford magnet and place them in a container for storage & let the dry naturally.