Stainless Media Weirdness

[gimling]

I live in florida and im on well water, doesn't matter how much lemi shine you put in it eventually u will put too much in and the brass will turn pink. I do a 1 gallon water, 1 tbls dawn, 1 teaspoon, lemi shine they come out perfect but if I leave out in garage over night to dry they oxidize, if I bring them into the house they last longer, there perfectly clean but im a perfectionist, I plan on getting some dry media with some nufinish, or I may see what it does if I just add some nufinish to my stainless media.

and an FYI don't add a brass polish ie brasso etc was the dumbest thing I have done to date on my reloading stuff u will be tumbling the same brass a few time to get rid of that ****

[altheating]

Lay the dry brass on a clean towel, give it a mist of mineral spirits and take a second towel and rub it across the brass to spread out the mineral spirits. Put the brass in a sealed container. It won't tarnish. As far as the inside, who cares I can't see it with a primer in one end and a boolit in the other.

[MostlyOnThePaper]

First batch with more lemishine is out, they look very nice being so clean inside but not as nice as a lot of the pictures in the many threads which look flat out new. I ran that batch for 2 hours, next batch will go for three and see what it looks like.

[Love Life]

Like this?

[MostlyOnThePaper]

Yup, just like that.

3hrs is better for me . Might go a teensy shade longer next time, might not. Very lucky to have a job that lets me do this stuff when it's quiet.

Thanks for the nudge in the right direction, glad I built the tumbler now.

Randy

[Bayou52]

Four hours of wet tumbling is the sweet spot for getting outsides, insides, primer pockets and flash holes pristine clean. I use no more than 1 teaspoon of Dawn and absolutely no more than 1/4 teaspoon of Lemi-Shine. Use of too much Lemi-Shine will actually discolor the brass. This is for a 15 pound Thumler's Thumler's Tumbler drum.

To keep tarnish from reappearing after tumbling, I use Lemi-Shine rinse agent in the cold water rinse. Note that this is not the crystals, but rather the liquid rinse agent.

Bayou52

[gunoil]

http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0e2ce52a.mp4

http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/...psfea7b2fe.mp4

Make one! super speed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_FpiTzVYP8

[VHoward]

That looks interesting. How many cases can be done at a time with that one? Just looks kind of small. I built my own frame for the large drum from big dawg tumblers. It will hold 2500 9mm cases or 1500 223 cases and do them in a couple of hours.

[RACWIN375]

I would bet water quality has more to do with tarnish and end results than most of the other possibilities.

I use distilled water ONLY NOW, I have well water that will turn the brass black in two days
I use it in the mix and to rinse off

Rick

[MostlyOnThePaper]

If I wasn't lazy I could be using demineralized water, but I would have to tote the machine quite a bit further to get to it. Softened city water for me.

I was initially using too little lemishine for the size of my drum. Once I use up my present supply of that I will switch to the bags of straight citric acid concentrate.

[Airman Basic]

Well, devil, I was told I was using too much Lemishine for my Model B. Now I'm confused again.

[MostlyOnThePaper]

Like so many things in life, there is a balance. Not an area I am naturally disposed to. More is not always better...
Is there such a thing as too much overkill?

[Love Life]

I have no clue what may or may not cause the bronzing of brass using SS media. It seems it is a random thing. I am not scientific in my amounts of Dawn or citric acid. 3 heaping spoons of citric acid and 4-5 second squirt of dawn. Run for 2 hours without changing the water, and dump out nice shiny brass.

My Bigg Dawg tumbler is the shiz'nit.

[dbosman]

There is a lot of great advice in this thread and one thing that sticks out is that your mileage may vary. Seems silly, but it's true.
We're cleaning a quarter million cases here, using a cement mixer, SS media from STM, Palmolive dish soap, and citric acid - so I have an opinion.

Physical cleaning takes place in the first fifteen minutes. Most of that in the first five. Dumping the dirt-y water and starting over will cut the remaining tumbling time in half. Two hours with enough dish soap produces clean brass and a two inch thick layer of stiff green foam. By the way.

After the brass is really clean and matte bright, another tumbling with fresh water, soap, and citric acid will make it really shiny. I limit that to about half an hour as what comes off at this point is brass. You can see the flecks in the water if the light is bright.

We have two drying areas on the garage floor. One is closer to the fan. Brass on that area tarnishes over night. Eight feet further takes two to four days to tarnish. Dry tumbling in corn cob with mineral spirits and NuFinish car polish restores the shine and lightly polishes for a nice shine and slightly slick feel. (Walmart has the lowest price in my area for NuFinish. It's 2/3 the cost of other stores.)
Turtle wax brand polish polishes but the brass doesn't feel slick.

[Bayou52]

We're cleaning a quarter million cases here, using a cement mixer, SS media from STM, Palmolive dish soap, and citric acid - so I have an opinion.

Just a question:

I was getting SS pins stuck in flash holes in 3 - 5% of the cases using the SS media obtained from the same vendor mentioned in your post. Are stuck pins a problem for you?

If you're tumbling that high a volume of cases, how do you check each case for stuck pins in flash holes? What's your technique for this?

Thanks, in advance, for the helpful feedback -

Bayou 52

[MostlyOnThePaper]

My pins are from Buffalo Arms, they were in the mail already when someone posted an ad here in the classifieds, if i ever have to buy more I'll likely get them here just to support a forum vendor.

I get 4 or 5 stuck oned in each batch, think I'm around 400 in a batch, so yes, maybe 3% or thereabouts.

Randy

[Love Life]

Your pins are to narrow. That is why most dealers of STM have gone to thicker, and longer pins.

[dbosman]

Just a question:
I was getting SS pins stuck in flash holes in 3 - 5% of the cases using the SS media obtained from the same vendor mentioned in your post. Are stuck pins a problem for you?

I don't de-prime the 9mm cases. They are military cases and the primer guarantees they are once fired.
The SS media I was shipped doesn't stick in the flash holes. Or maybe I agitate the brass more aggressively than you do.

For screening out the pins I use a Lyman media sifter.
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/878...o-media-sifter

For screening out corncob, I use the black Dillon shell sorter.
http://www.dillonprecision.com/#/con...8/Shell_Sorter

[RobsTV]

Too much Dawn will make it tarnish quick.

In US cleaner, 1 or 2 drops max is all it takes, and more than that means trouble.
Like Bayou mentions, I would think no more than a teaspoon in a large tumbler sounds about right.

Be careful you don't get the non-concentrated version of Dawn.

[Bayou52]

I've since switched to a larger SS pin with a diameter of 0.047" (as opposed to the 0.041" diameter pins that came with my tumbling kit). As a result, I haven't had a stuck pin in over several thousand recently tumbled cases. I'm a believer in these larger SS pins given the results.

Bayou52