Case cleaning but in bulk?

[44Blam]

I've got a little vibratory cleaner, but I just organized all my spent brass and it is a LARGE amount...
I've got several thousands each 40s, 357s and 44 mags...
Then hundreds (or maybe low thousands) 45-70s, 308s, .223s, etc...
And about 200 tokarev cases (need to load/shoot more of this).

In my little vibratory cleaner, this is gonna take a loooong time...

Anyone have any advice for bulk cleaning?

[mulespurs]

I might try a portable cement mixer.

Jerry Miculeck had some video's on how to bulk process brass.

[Winger Ed.]

I do about a thousand or so of one caliber at a time.
I wash the brass in soap & water, let them dry a day or two out in the sun.
I fill my Lyman turbo until it about chokes.
Then let it all run overnight in the corncob media & polish compound.

If I have more than one load for it, I've got plenty to do while the next batch goes in and it'll run all night too.
However much was in the first run, its always more than I can reload in one evening anyway.

[Winger Ed.]

I might try a portable cement mixer.
Jerry Miculeck had some video's on how to bulk process brass.

That'll get on with it.

I never tried this myself, but somebody once talked of putting them in a big bag of shredded newspaper
and running it in the dryer with the heat off.
Upon further contemplation, I'd venture to guess that fella was single.

[44Blam]

That'll get on with it.

I never tried this myself, but somebody once talked of putting them in a big bag of shredded newspaper
and running it in the dryer with the heat off.
Upon further contemplation, I'd venture to guess that fella was single.

I cannot use our dryer - I would never hear the end of that. Nor can I use our oven...

It seems like I need to buy some land and make a range.

[country gent]

The mortar mixer dies food and allows the option of wet cleaning or medias, It takes a little trial and error to find the right load ratio. I have seen old driers convert to case polishers also but these may need some new drive to slow down. The bigger case polisher do a fast quick job on large batches also. Or one can be made

[EDG]

Just mix up some Birchwood Casey liquid case cleaner in a plastic bucket. No tumbling is needed. I would deprime it first.

[Walks]

My Dad used a little old portable cement mixer when I was a kid (1960's). Wish I had it.

[Pete44mag]

Harbor Freight makes a small plastic cement mixer. Get 5#'s of stainless steel pins from one of the suppliers, mix Dawn dish soap and a small amount of Lemi-shine and tumble for 2 hours. One of the members at our gun club who shoots about 3000 rounds a month showed me how he does it. Works for him.

[rancher1913]

I use a small cement mixer but I have seen a plastic tub that you roll on the ground for mixing cement that would work just as well

[trails4u]

I took a standard 5gal round water jug, and fitted it to run on my wife's treadmill. Drilled a hole through the bottom and top, ran threaded rod through it, put locknuts on both sides on the bottom to secure the threaded rod, and then a washer and wingnut on the 'lid'. Left the threaded rod long enough on both ends to fit 'bushings' of copper pipe, to act as a sort of bearing, I guess. Fitted a wood frame to sit above the upright legs at the front of the treadmill, with legs running parallel to the tread, and attached open eye bolts to the ends of those. Simply load the cooler with all you please, plus media, and set the 'bushings' of copper pipe (over the exposed threaded rod on each end of the cooler) into the open eye bolts at the end of the wooden frame, and set your speed. (3.2mph seemed good). Walk away and come back to 2,000 pieces of shiny brass! I'll post pics if anyone wants....hard to explain, but super simple to build.

[Winger Ed.]

I took a standard 5gal round water jug, and fitted it to run on my wife's treadmill. .

That's brilliant.

And the perfect excuse why you can't use the treadmill yourself.

[Winger Ed.]

. Nor can I use our oven....

Me too.
In the old days, I'd scrounge up a few gallons of range brass, wash it with soap & Water.
Then dump it out in a big roasting pan, put it in the oven at about 250 or so to boil off the water.

It was a great system, and got them ready to run in the polisher without getting a bunch of dirt in it.

,,,,,,,,,,,,After the second live round of .45 ACP cooked off,,,,
I've been permanently grounded from drying brass in the oven.

[trails4u]

Me too.
In the old days, I'd scrounge up a few gallons of range brass, wash it with soap & Water.
Then dump it out in a big roasting pan, put it in the oven at about 250 or so to boil off the water.

It was a great system, and got them ready to run in the polisher without getting a bunch of dirt in it.

,,,,,,,,,,,,After the second live round of .45 ACP cooked off,,,,
I've been permanently grounded from drying brass in the oven.

And I got fussed at for simply leaving 5.56 brass-shaped stains on a pizza pan!

[Winger Ed.]

And I got fussed at for simply leaving 5.56 brass-shaped stains on a pizza pan!

That's funny.

I was always thoughtful enough to put Alum. foil in the pans.

[44Blam]

Harbor Freight makes a small plastic cement mixer. Get 5#'s of stainless steel pins from one of the suppliers, mix Dawn dish soap and a small amount of Lemi-shine and tumble for 2 hours. One of the members at our gun club who shoots about 3000 rounds a month showed me how he does it. Works for him.

OK... This sounds like a winner...

[JimB..]

Post up your location, someone local might be willing to help.

That said, you don’t have a lot of brass. If you attack the problem like you have a lot of brass you’re going to end up with too much equipment taking up space. I’d get a FART and just work through the backlog. Be depriming a batch while an earlier batch is tumbling.

[kevin c]

The FART works for me. I skip using the SS pins, as I don't care if the case interiors and primer pockets aren't gleaming, and minus the weight of media, I can put several more pounds of brass in per run. Citric acid and Armor All Wash and Wax in hot water and about a thousand 9mm cases run over 90 minutes, a few rinses in tap water followed by a spin in the separator to get the water out, a quick toweling if you want (reduces water spots) and out on a mesh screen in the sun.

[poppy42]

Hey I’m broke and have learned to be cheep. No money for high dollar brass tumblers. I wash my brass in a little dish soap and citric acid for 15 to 30 minutes. Depending on how much and how dirty. Rinse in fresh water and dry. It takes most of the grime off. If need be I then run it through my vibratory tumbler. Mine holds close to a 1,000 9 mm. The most I’ve had to run the tumbler for is about an hour. I once did 8,000+- 9mm in a day. Drying takes the longest. But if ya wash a bunch, dry it. Your ready to tumble. I’d wash all (or as much as ya can) one day. Then just start tumbling as needed. Oh and add some nu-finish car wax to your medium.
For drying I use a mesh washer bag hung outside. You’d be surprised how much brass they can hold.
That’s how I do it but like I said I’m broke and cheap !

[Winger Ed.]

[QUOTE= and cheap ![/QUOTE]


Personally, I prefer the term, 'frugal'.

[Swede 45]

When my old frontloading washing machine burnt out the heater element I moved it to my garage. I can run several thousands of 9mm cases at once. Since I have no water/sewer connections, I fill it with hot water manually and run the wool program. Slowly rocking motions and no spin cycle. The water stays in the machine so I can pump it out manually into a bucket for later re-use.

[whisler]

Hot water, citric acid and a splash of Dawn works great. All you need for larger batches is a larger container.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive got the big Dillon vibrator. It holds LOTS of cases. It takes a bit more time to clean then my two lyman smaller units and it isn't cheap but it does hold a lot. probably you least expensive alternative would be just to buy a second cheap franklin arsenol vibrating tumbler. I think there around 50 bucks new. there not a bad unit. I had one I used the crap out of and gave to my son in law and another that I dump 10lbs of bullet in at a time and pc coat them. Its done thousands of heavy loads like that and still runs like new.

[6bg6ga]

I use the ultrasonic cleaner and in 15 min or less my pickups from the range go from black to brass color. I rinse them and set them in the sun for a while to dry. Once they are dry if I'm looking for a high sheen I put them in the large Dillon tumbler for 1/2 -3/4 hr and they come out like new.

[lightman]

If you are really looking at tumbling large amounts of brass regularly look at an inexpensive cement mixer. But if you are just trying to get caught up tumbling your brass stash just use what you have and stay after it until you're done.

I have a "Big Dawg" tumbler with their largest PVC drum but I find that I prefer using my Thumlers drum. Last winter I organized my brass stash and spent days depriming, tumbling, drying and sorting brass. As soon as the timer shut the tumbler off I would dump it and refill it. While that batch was running I would dry, resize and sort the previous batch.

This is all for wet tumbling. I also have 2 of the larger Dillon units. I run them with corncob with a splash of mineral spirits and a cap full of liquid car polish. It takes them 12 hours to do what my wet tumbler will do in 2 hours.

[smithnframe]

I use a cement mixer from Harbor Freight!

[T_McD]

I've got a little vibratory cleaner, but I just organized all my spent brass and it is a LARGE amount...
I've got several thousands each 40s, 357s and 44 mags...
Then hundreds (or maybe low thousands) 45-70s, 308s, .223s, etc...
And about 200 tokarev cases (need to load/shoot more of this).

In my little vibratory cleaner, this is gonna take a loooong time...

Anyone have any advice for bulk cleaning?

Unless you shoot AND reload thousands of rounds a day, it will keep up fine.

[robg]

Don't put 357 mag cases in with 45-70 brass they fit inside and you can guess the rest.

[fcvan]

I do bulk, just not all at once, but fast. First, I de prime everything in a single stage as I don't like the residue getting in my press. Brass gets washed in hot soapy water and strained, but not rinsed. I size even if still damp, soap/water residue acts like lube. If lubing rifle brass I put that into a container with lid having dribbled some vegetable oil. Shake vigorously. When sizing, you need to wipe your finger over the case mouth to lube the expand-er ball.

Hot soapy water (twice if rifle cases) with lemon juice in the mix. Strain, save your mix, it will last a while. When funky, replace. My brass goes straight from strainer to tumbler while wet. My polishing media periodically gets a tblsp of Turtle Zip wash in the media. The wet brass does 2 things. 1) it wakes up the Zip wash, 2) it causes the worn media to swell and become abrasive again.

Your brass and media will be dry in an hour due to the vibration/turning over and the heat from the tubmler. The Zip wash leaves a very light wax coating in the pores of the brass which keeps the brass shiny like new for very long periods of time. I like that. While the brass is tumbling I am usually processing the next load of brass for the next hour. You can work an hour at a time or a day at a time.

My polishing media is darkly stained but still very serviceable. Every 10k pieces of brass or so, the media gets thrown in a zippered burlap bag and soaked/agitated in the sink. After a while I rinse until the water runs clear and I'm good for another 10k.

Load your ammo, store. This may not be fast enough for you, but it works for me. IF I needed to do more than I do (wife is a shooter, hard to keep up) I would get the small mixer and use sand as I have seen commercial operators use. I load by thousands, heck, I used to load 250 rounds every morning before work. YMMV

[GRid.1569]

My 25 year old Lyman 1200 shook itself to pieces a few weeks ago and I decided to splash out on the Dillon CV2001.... Oh boy I wasn’t ready for the size of that beast....

I just used to fish out the brass from the Lyman by hand but I think the next thing on my list is a media separater ��

[Conditor22]

I use a media separator when I wet tumble to remove the pins.

I built a 2 gal wet tumbler using a heavy windshield wiper motor and a computer power supply can do over 1000 pieces of 45 acp brass. Got the idea on U-Tube

[44Blam]

Well, haven't been to Harbor Freight yet, but I feel a trip coming... But I am pleased to announce that I am vibrating my way through what seemed like a TON of brass...
I don't shoot 1000s of round/day, but I do regularly shoot about 4-500 a month pretty easily... There are 3 matches I like to attend which are 75-100 rounds each and then I play with loads and like to go to the long range and pick off the little steel fall down targets.

One thing, I believe that my new contraption is gonna up my round count by at least a few hundred / month:
247383
I've now got 5 plates ranging from 6" to 12" that are 3/8" AR500 steel... I have a feeling the 2x4's are gonna take some lead.

[gwpercle]

Put cases in a mesh laundry bag and wash with a load of shop rags or old towels .
After going through the washing cycles , put them into the dryer with the towels to dry .
Make darn sure the mesh bag(s) is/are securely tied !

Gary

[Conditor22]

Gary, you need longer chains (or better aim) to help protect the 2x4's :)

[44Blam]

Gary, you need longer chains (or better aim) to help protect the 2x4's :)
LOL, I usually miss low and left...

But I'm gonna go though 2x4s, chains and bolts for sure.