Originally Posted by
JeepHammer
Not to throw a wet blanket on things...
And this won't apply to smaller volumes, I do about 10 gallons of brass at a time in a cement mixer...
Smaller volume or occasional cleaners will have to adjust their process as needed.
Keep in mind here I'm cleaning to PROCESS brass, not looking for high polish (that comes last in the process).
I just need brass CLEAN so they don't wear my dies in production, carbide dies aren't cheap...
Decap, swage, trim and open case mouth to accept a bullet. (Trimming die undersized mouth/neck slightly)
While J.Morris said he builds for DRY cleaning media, I use an initial 'Wet Wash' to remove range crud from Milbrass.
Nothing like red clay, rocks, etc.!
I use a grease cutting detergent (low suds) and a dab of Lemi-Shine (hard water here), and NO PINS.
The friction of brass on brass cleans the outside, cement mixer action, bars inside the drum tumbling brass, knocks the crud out of the cases.
Grease cutting detergent gets 99.9% of everything off/out of the cases and they come out looking real good.
Strainer/separator removes the last of the rocks or other FOD from brass and it's ready to process.
I use steel pins/chips for corroded cases, and a much longer tumble time.
They also come out looking good, corrosion/tarnished removed.
Chips actually do a better job than pins on corrosion/tarnish...
When brass is cleaned (not polished or coated) and separated, I throw it directly into dry media and tumble for about 10 minutes, separate again.
The dry media dries out the wet cases and they are ready to process without using heat or wasting the time to air dry.
The very small amount of moisture the cases carry into the dry media just prevents a lot of dust and the media lasts a LONG time since the cases are clean and 99% dry when they go into it.
A pass through neck qualifier to reject blanks, loaded rounds, .222/.204 cases, mangled cases, etc,
Then off to lube, lower case roller to restore lower case size, rim & extraction groove,
Then a quick lube tumble (5 gallon bucket tumbler) and into processing for primer/pocket, trim, neck sizing.
I find NOT using pins on everything speeds things up considerably and isn't necessary on anything but the most tarnished/corroded brass.
Your needs/process may differ, but in my case I let the mixer/detergent do the job, and the cases look really good most times.