Rotary case cleaners: Frankford Arsenal vs National Metallic

[Chuck Perry]

I'm ready to try wet case cleaning and have it down to these two brands. They appear identical in form and function, but the National Metallic is $60 cheaper! Does anyone have experience with these that can offer some advice? Buy once cry once with Frankford, or take the money and run with National Metallic?

[gkainz]

I got the Frankford Platinum this summer and have cleaned a couple thousand 9mm and the same 5.56. Very happy with it. I don’t use the steel pins. Dawn and Lemishine work good enough for me.

[Moleman-]

I got the big Frankford wet tumbler for Christmas Last year. It's amazingly fast compared to my vibrating tumbler and with the ss pins, lemishine and car wash and wax it leaves the cases shining inside and out. really wish I'd of got one sooner.

[Bmi48219]

I’ve had a Frankfort for several years, tumbled hundreds of thousands of cases withou a glitch. I looked up the National Metallic unit just now. I like that it has a 4 hour timer and Stay On setting. My timer tops out at 3 hours and I find 3 1/2 hours results in a better cleaning.

[dannyd]

It's looks like a FART, so go with what you can get the best price on. I like my FART and it has served me well. I do have the bigger drum.

[iflyskyhigh]

I have the Lyman. All do the same thing. Lyman came as a kit with a little media separator. I actually use the orange Lyman tumbling media separator to separate pins and brass. Got it down to a science.

Use a harbor freight dehydrator to dry them.

I only wet tumble rifle brass and not every time. To much work.

I still use my giant harbor freight vibratory tumbler to do large quantities of pistol brass.

Also the cases that are wet tumbled will dull. Use the vibratory tumbler to shine them up.

[2A-Jay]

I have the National Metallic Wet tumbler. it works very well. I also have the National Metallic Media Separator . Have never had any problems.

[Chuck Perry]

Also the cases that are wet tumbled will dull. Use the vibratory tumbler to shine them up.

I didn't know this, interesting.

[Mytmousemalibu]

I don't know how you might get dull wet tumbled brass short of just not running it longer. With or without pins, wet tumbling has yielded me the brightest, shiny brass i have ever laid eyes on! All I use is warm water, a tsp of Lemishine, and tsp of Maguires wash & wax car soap. It is perfectly clean in 45min but 1.5 - 2hrs it shines like the sun! Ive compared to brand new Starline brass and the tumbled is brighter.

Couple guys in our pistol club do like to vibratory the freshly washed brass just to dry it. It will do that and eliminate water spots. I just don't like the dust. I pour washed brass in a drywall mud tub, spread it out and put a fan on it overnight. In warmer months, put it in the sun.

[Moleman-]

The dull finish I believe comes from the rinse water. We have a water softener so there's some salt in the water. No car wash-n-wax and they don't come out as shiney...at least for me. I've got two 5 gal buckets of 45acp that were prepped last december including running through the frankford wet tumbler with pins, lemishine and maguires wash n wax. Also ran a bunch of 556, 308, 30-06, and 357 brass since you can do so many in a short period of time compared to a vibrating tumbler. Still looking like they just came out of the tumbler. Haven't run out of 45acp yet or else I'd have them loaded by now. Bought cases of primers in 2018 when they were cheap, but seeing how much 10K lp primers would be to replace is concerning.

[Mytmousemalibu]

My water here is pretty hard, no softener. It does leave waterspots on some of the brass but it doesn't bother me in the least. I use a regular hand crank media separator to get the pins out and to knock most of the water off. If I do that and give the brass a couple stirs in the drying tub, almost no spots. Still very shiny and I personally believe the wash & wax keeps it looks nice over time from oxidation. Perhaps a little slicker running through the press too. I typically will use pins because I like to process the brass decapped and the pins clean the primer pockets good. No chance of trapped water in the primers afterwards either. Its more work but for me its worth it.

[Sasquatch-1]

I built my own wet tumbler with a windshield wiper motor, some 4" sewer pipe and an endcap and cleanout cap, inline skate wheels and some wood and all thread. It works great and only cost me about $20.00 tops.

As for drying the brass, I dump them on a towel and separate the pins with a magnet. I then dump the brass in my vibratory tumbler with Lizard Litter and a couple of caps of Nu-Finish. Brass is shiny and takes quite a while to tarnish.

[TNsailorman]

I have owned and used the Frankfort Arsenal wet tumblers and I now have a Thumblers Tumbler. The Franfort's did the job but were a little bit of a pain to gt the stainless pins out of them. They also leaked a little but not real bad. I even bought a magnet and though it helped, it was still more of a chore than I wanted to put up with. So I sold the 2 Frankfort's and bought athe Thumblers Tumbler and it is the best money I have spent for cleaning brass. Yes it is more expensive but if you can afford it, it is money well spent. I use an old food dryer (fruit and jerky) to dry my brass and it only takes a few minutes with it to get them dry inside and out. I am a happy man with this set up. my experience anyway, james

[GWS]

I haven't had any dulling....maybe it's the Scottsdale Smog? Kidding......we probably have more smog with our coal-fired power plants.
Here in Northern New Mexico under our 2 soon to be closed (thanks to the Liberals) coal power plants. We do have a little some days, but it doesn't make brass dull. I was told early on that rinsing in hot water or using too much Lemishine can dull brass....I rinse in cold. I use only a .45acp case full of lemishine with one long squirt of Dawn dish soap and New Mexico very hard water. The Thumber's batch may be a little bigger then some others too......so maybe you have too much Lemishine/batch.

Here's one batch of 9mm tumbled on my Thumblers Tumbler drying in the New Mexico sun:





Didn't do much shooting after that 2 years ago as I spent some quality time at home recuperating from a heart attack. Back to normal but still haven't shot that batch....now stored in a clear plastic nut jar.


Just shot some 357, so recently tumbled a batch of that. Picture of it drying in my Garage.....not so sunny in the winter.....but next day it's dry.

[JimB..]

I find that the brass is dull if there was insufficient soap. If I open the tumbler and there are no suds left, the brass tends to have a micro-thin coating of grunge.

If brass is really dirty I’ll run it for 30-45 min, dump the solution, refill and add soap and lemishine again, and run another 30-45 min.

[Kenstone]

I find that the brass is dull if there was insufficient soap. If I open the tumbler and there are no suds left, the brass tends to have a micro-thin coating of grunge.

If brass is really dirty I’ll run it for 30-45 min, dump the solution, refill and add soap and lemi-shine again, and run another 30-45 min.

Funny you mention SUDS...
I add some fabric softener to knock-down the suds, I have found that some pins become suspended in the suds and never contact the brass.
OP: sorry for the drift,

[JimB..]

Funny you mention SUDS...
I add some fabric softener to knock-down the suds, I have found that some pins become suspended in the suds and never contact the brass.
.

I think that fabric softener is just a broken down oil developed because clothes were getting uncomfortably clean. I’d suggest that you add more water, leaving only about an inch of air. If pins float in the suds at all it won’t be enough to matter.

[fatnhappy]

I built my own for an out of pocket around $10.
I used a 1/4 HP motor, rollers and a variable speed controller I scavenged at work. Another $30 for pins and I was off to the races.
Food grade citric acid is about 20¢ on the dollar compared to lemishine. A 1/4 teaspoon and a squirt of dawn will do 2,000 .45s in an hour. If you need to remove imperial sizing die wax or lanolin using a dram of woolite instead of dawn will do the trick.

I would politely opine shiny doesn't matter. Clean matters. Clean protects your dies, your chamber and aids case inspection.

YMMV






I wish I had gone to wet tumbling 30 years ago.

[gnappi]

After digging out my stash of brass calibers I found a LOT of severely tarnished cases and I'm glad to see this thread, I've been toying with the idea of getting a large Frankford tumbler and never heard of the National Metallic. Thanks, 2A for the heads up.

[dverna]

I keep thinking about "taking the wet plunge". I do not like the dust that I get with dry tumbling, but it is convenient not to need a water source, a place to dump dirty water and a way to dry cases.

My cases do not come out as shinny and that would be nice, but it is not necessary for my needs. I think I will start a thread on dry tumbling to see if there are ways to reduce or eliminate the dust issue. I do all my case prep indoors and the dust cannot be good.

That National Metallic unit looks like a decent way to though. Thanks for posting about it. Had not heard of them before.