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Thread: Stainless steel pins

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy mhat's Avatar
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    Stainless steel pins

    Well I’m finally switching from dry to wet tumbling. Where is the best deal on the stainless steel pins. I only need about 5 lbs. this will give me a lb or 2 spares. Thanks for your help.
    Marko
    I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
    Phillippians 4:13

  2. #2
    Boolit Grand Master Bazoo's Avatar
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    I'm interested to know myself. I'm in the preocess of making a tumbler.

  3. #3
    Boolit Master murf205's Avatar
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    I am wondering if you can put a handful of pins into a corn cob media mix to use in a Lyman turbo tumbler, with success? Has anybody tried this?
    IT AINT what ya shoot--its how ya shoot it. NONE of us are as smart as ALL of us!

  4. #4
    Boolit Grand Master Bazoo's Avatar
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    Murf, that's an interesting idea.

  5. #5
    Boolit Master
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    https://tbbullets.com/stainless-stee...edia-purchase/

    Or contact the directly at rachelgale54@gmail.com

    These are "chips" not pins

  6. #6
    Boolit Buddy mhat's Avatar
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    Thanks NyFirefighter357 I’ll be placing an order tonight.
    Marko
    I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
    Phillippians 4:13

  7. #7
    Boolit Master
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    Thanks NYFirefighter357 I needed some more also.

  8. #8
    Boolit Buddy
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    You could try Southern Shine Media on FB. They are chips not pins. At the time about a year ago alot of people were talking good things about them. They seem to have a good rep.

    Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
    Last edited by XDROB; 05-21-2020 at 09:28 AM.

  9. #9
    Boolit Master RKJ's Avatar
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    Amazon has them also. I don't recall pricing but I don't recall it being too bad.

  10. #10
    Boolit Bub
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    I just bought 5 lbs on Amazon - i have done a couple of batches and they work well.

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

  11. #11
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by murf205 View Post
    I am wondering if you can put a handful of pins into a corn cob media mix to use in a Lyman turbo tumbler, with success? Has anybody tried this?
    I have doubts that they will help. But its a good idea and worth trying.

  12. #12
    Boolit Master


    Nueces's Avatar
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    That Amazon link is exactly what you want, specifically, 0.047 diameter and 0.255 long. Early pins were often 0.041 in diameter and would lodge in flash holes. Two 0.047 pins won't fit through a nominal 0.085 flash hole. Thicker pins reduce the number of pin ends per pound, which is where the cleaning takes place.

    If used in a vibratory tumbler, without a liquid carrier, I think SS pins would settle to the bottom.

  13. #13
    Boolit Grand Master bedbugbilly's Avatar
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    I buy mine off of Amazon and with Prime, the shipping has been free. I originally bought 2 pounds and then bought another 5# to have on hand - but they last a long time.

    Just my 2 cents worth . . . . .

    I never polished any of my brass until this past year when I bought one of the FA small tumblers - just to do small batches. It works great - playing with it, I put in hot water, a small amount of citric acid, a squirt of Lemonshine detergent and since I had no liquid wax, I put in a small dab of Johnsons Paste Wax on my first attempt with the SS Pins. I had some pretty grungy 223 range pick-ups - deprived them and threw them in - they came out fantastic. I rinsed in clear hot water and laid out to dry and they looked like new inside and out. For a person who used to just wash my brass in a bucket with soap and citric acid and stir it around, I am "sold" on tumbling with the SS pins. The one thing I did buy was one of the FA pick0up and release magnets. I lay the brass out on an old bath towel to dry - casings will retain some of the pins inside due to water, etc. and when dry, I just hold the case upside down and thump out any pins on the inside onto the towel - even with the texture of the terrycloth towel, the FA magnet will easily pick zip the pins and then I can just hole it over the mouth of my tumbling drum and release them and drop them inside for the next run Just my experience . . .

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    To save any of you new wet tumblers a headache, theres an important step to take. It may or may not be mentioned otherwise. Dump all your new pins in the tumbler all by themselves and do a good tumble and wash of them, perhaps twice if really nasty. Most of them are still coated with machine oil or residual coolant from manufacturing. I found out the hard way my 1st time and all that grunge coated a load of brass with a nasty film of oil. Fresh pins are also pretty aggressive so an initial cleaning tumble conditions them for 1st use otherwise they scratch the brass up pretty good. It would not hurt to rinse the pins, tumbler drum, etc after 1st wash with a little acetone or something else to get oil residue off. A 1st pin-only wash gets most of it but its still there, just suspended or emulsified in the water that will resides for a few uses. Its well worth the time to prep new stainless media of any kind.

    A friend of mine that does local brass collection/sort/wash that sells processed brass does huge batches with a cement mixer. His wet tumble media... .22LR cases!

    Works great, free media swept up into range brass buckets, separates easily, won't stick in brass. It doesn't clean the inside as well as stainless nor primer pockets but outside is pristine!
    ~ Chris


    Casting, reloading, shooting, collecting, restoring, smithing, etc, I love it all but most importantly, God, Family, The United States Constitution and Freedom...

    God Bless our Troops, Veterans and First Responders!

    Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas
    Accuracy, Power & Speed

  15. #15
    Boolit Master kywoodwrkr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mytmousemalibu View Post

    A friend of mine that does local brass collection/sort/wash that sells processed brass does huge batches with a cement mixer. His wet tumble media... .22LR cases!
    In early 70's went into local gun shop.
    They had large quantities of 30-06 brass all cleaned.
    Asked them where they got that much brass, they said follow me.
    Out back they had three cement mixers capable of cleaning a bunch of brass using river sand.
    They got the brass through the surplus scrap sales at Ft. Knox and sand from Ohio River.
    Chris,thanks for stirring up the memories.

  16. #16
    Boolit Master murf205's Avatar
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    Well, I just had to try the pins/corn cob media mix and I could not tell any difference between the mix and just CC media. I did think about the chance that a pin or 2 might get trapped in the '06 cases I tried and the idea sounded pretty scary, sending a ss pin down a barrel at 2800 fps! Oh well, experimenters, that's who we are, right??
    IT AINT what ya shoot--its how ya shoot it. NONE of us are as smart as ALL of us!

  17. #17
    Boolit Buddy LaPoint's Avatar
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    Mytmousemalibu is spot on about cleaning your new pins. You should clean your stainless steel media every so often as your pins/chips will get covered with grunge and not do a decent job of cleaning your brass. In fact it will leave a dirty grungy film on your brass. I thoroughly rinse my pins in very hot water after every use. After every 3rd or 4th use I clean my pins with purple cleaner. The purple cleaner will solubilize oil & grease so it can be rinsed off the pins. The purple cleaner will quickly damage brass & aluminum but doesn't seem to bother the pins at all. Keep it off your hands as it sucks all the skin oil out and you're left with dry rough skin.

    Added info -- Acetone will work but since I do my cleaning in the basement, and don't like the smell or the possibility of fire I prefer the purple cleaner.
    Last edited by LaPoint; 05-24-2020 at 04:22 PM. Reason: added info

  18. #18
    Boolit Master
    Mytmousemalibu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LaPoint View Post
    Mytmousemalibu is spot on about cleaning your new pins. You should clean your stainless steel media every so often as your pins/chips will get covered with grunge and not do a decent job of cleaning your brass. In fact it will leave a dirty grungy film on your brass. I thoroughly rinse my pins in very hot water after every use. After every 3rd or 4th use I clean my pins with purple cleaner. The purple cleaner will solubilize oil & grease so it can be rinsed off the pins. The purple cleaner will quickly damage brass & aluminum but doesn't seem to bother the pins at all. Keep it off your hands as it sucks all the skin oil out and you're left with dry rough skin.

    Added info -- Acetone will work but since I do my cleaning in the basement, and don't like the smell or the possibility of fire I prefer the purple cleaner.
    Thats a sound method! True about the acetone, anything that safely degreases things would probably work on stainless media just make sure before hand. Im due to flush/rinse my media and drums again.
    Last edited by Mytmousemalibu; 05-25-2020 at 04:09 PM.
    ~ Chris


    Casting, reloading, shooting, collecting, restoring, smithing, etc, I love it all but most importantly, God, Family, The United States Constitution and Freedom...

    God Bless our Troops, Veterans and First Responders!

    Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas
    Accuracy, Power & Speed

  19. #19
    Boolit Bub
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    Try wet tumbling without the pins. You may be sunrise how nice the brass comes out.

  20. #20
    Boolit Master


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    The chips are 100X better than the pins.
    NRA Benefactor.

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