Brass drying options?

[HornDog87]

Hello all,

Pretty much like the post says, does anyone one know a great way of drying brass in bulk? Let's say thousand or two pieces of brass in one go. Much appreciated for any and all info ?

Semper fi
Horner

 

[Punkur67]

I use an old dehydrator. I can fit about 500 .308 on the trays and works great. Way better than firing up the oven

 

[Cascade Hemi]

Goodwill food dehydrator or three.

 

[HornDog87]

Punkur67 I never though of a dehydrator, been using the big lebowski towel drying method for years.
Does the brass come out water stained or does it look like new brass. Do you dry tumble after at all?

 

[Punkur67]

Punkur67 I never though of a dehydrator, been using the big lebowski towel drying method for years.
Does the brass come out water stained or does it look like new brass. Do you dry tumble after at all?

Just rinse the cleaner off and dry. Comes out spot free

 

[velvetant]

I use my oven, it goes down to 170

 

[The Muffin Man]

I usually air dry mine spread out over a large grate. Spin and shake them real good to get as much water off and then towel dry them and put the. On the grate overnight.

 

[2aBaC̶a̶]

Dry with a towel and then in the oven on [warm] for about 45min. I use a couple of those cheap tin pans like you would cook a turkey in. Got them from the dollar store.

 

[kriller134]

I use my clothes dryer. I have a shoe rack that I put a towel over and lay the brass on it.

 

[kthomas]

By not getting it wet in the first place

 

[Punkur67]

This is what I use but there are definitely cheaper ones. I used it to make beef jerky long ago. Just found a better purpose for it

FD-1010 Gardenmaster Pro Food Dehydrator | NESCO®

Our "Top of the Line" unit! More powerful and larger than any other. Unit comes with four trays and expands to a giant 30 trays with the purchase of additional trays so you can dry large quantities all at once! 1000 watts of drying power means you can dry more, faster. Patented Converga-Flow®...

www.nesco.com

 

[BoltActionBrotherhood]

Another thing to do is buy one of those spikey baby bottle drying mats, and set it on a box fan

 

[Mordamer]

I had read about an almost instant process that involved dipping the wet brass in a bucket of acetone (might have been a different fast evaporating chemical). The process was to have the brass in a strainer, dip it straight in, and pull it out. The chemical would displace the water then evaporate almost instantly leaving clean dry brass. I never tried this because I dry tumble. I also avoid large amounts of chemicals when possible. This needs to be done outdoors or in a very well vented area. Maybe try to look this up on google.

I keep thinking that it wasn't acetone, but some other chemical that was fairly accessible and cheap that evaporates just as fast.

 

[The Muffin Man]

Another thing to do is buy one of those spikey baby bottle drying mats, and set it on a box fan

Think my wife will notice if I snag the one she currently has sitting in the sink to use for my brass?

I would imagine it would be fairly time intensive putting every piece of brass upside down skewered the spikey's? I also tried using the plastic rifle cases that the box of 20 bullets come in for like Hornady but putting them into the holes ended up being the most time intensive part of the process so I went back to just drying them on a grate.

 

[918v]

Throw them in a bucket filled with alcohol, then pour out the alcohol, then spread them on the floor and they should be dry in a few minutes.

In the alternative, use a Q-tip or many Q-tips followed by a hair dryer.

Or just shake out the water, roll them on a towel, and dry overnight.

 

[ditter]

Im in South Florida, so I have the weather advantage. I put them on a towel and lay them on the car hood. then I let the orange ball in the sky do its thing.

 

[Fig]

Wow. There are some complicated methods above to dry a piece of metal.

Usually when I process brass I want to start and complete the process in one go. I can get impatient. After tumbling the pins away I spread them on a baking sheet and pan slowly over them with a Wagner heat gun set on max temp and low fan speed. It gets hot as hell and will melt your flesh. It will get the brass too hot to touch almost instantly, and the water is gone before your eyes.

 

[Jake the dog]

I don't do thousands at a time, but a cookie sheet in a 200* convection oven for 20-25 minutes works.

 

[lightman]

There are lots of choices. Using a food dehydrater, the oven, a baking sheet laying out in the Sun, a wire basket laying on top of the outside AC unit in the Summer, on a towel in front of a fan. I use a baking sheet (my own) in the oven. The heat does fade the waxed shine somewhat.

There was an on going thread here on SH back when wet tumbling started getting popular. One of the members built a drying box from an ammo can, a light bulb and an axel fan.

 

[hondo1312]

I had read about an almost instant process that involved dipping the wet brass in a bucket of acetone (might have been a different fast evaporating chemical). The process was to have the brass in a strainer, dip it straight in, and pull it out. The chemical would displace the water then evaporate almost instantly leaving clean dry brass. I never tried this because I dry tumble. I also avoid large amounts of chemicals when possible. This needs to be done outdoors or in a very well vented area. Maybe try to look this up on google.

I keep thinking that it wasn't acetone, but some other chemical that was fairly accessible and cheap that evaporates just as fast.

I use methanol for this.

 

[101stinfantry]

I don't do thousands at a time, but a cookie sheet in a 200* convection oven for 20-25 minutes works.

I usually do 700-800 @ a time using this method, except I use a temp a little above boiling. Easiest, fastest, cheapest way I know of. The wife isn't a huge fan of it, but she tolerates my strange ways.

 

[Fig]

Why not 400deg or 500? You think you’re going to anneal brass in a conventional oven? I hit them with a 1,200deg heat gun and it does nothing.

 

[marchboom]

I use a Lyman Cyclone brass dryer. 5 large trays that hold a lot of brass. 60-90 minutes (depending if rifle or pistol) is all that is needed to COMPLETELY dry the brass. I REALLY like this dryer.

In the summer I might put the brass in the sun.

 

[BigPrince]

Old dehydrator. A tumbler full of brass from my Frankford tumbler easily fits and I let it dry over night usually. Doesn't need that long but simple enough to just let it go and turn it off in the morning.

 

[Snuby642]

Wet tumble just sounds like too much work.

I dry tumble for two hours and get a thin wax coat on at same time.

Lazy I suppose.

Range brass.
I do admit primer pockets not as clean but no bullet cold welding and enough wax to store for shtf day.

Everything is a tradeoff.

 

[mark5pt56]

South Florida, Towel, black truck bed, works great. Just remember not to rest the underside of your arms on the bed sides when checking them!

 

[918v]

Wet tumble just sounds like too much work.

I dry tumble for two hours and get a thin wax coat on at same time.

Lazy I suppose.

View attachment 7260637

Range brass.
I do admit primer pockets not as clean but no bullet cold welding and enough wax to store for shtf day.

Everything is a tradeoff.

No it isn’t.

Wet tumbling doesn’t contaminate the media. It doesn’t leave dirt inside the case under a layer of wax. And graphite eliminates any neck welding issues. It’s a win/win.

 

[Snuby642]

Have fun with picking out steel pins and drying while I'm seating allready.

The used dryer sheets trap a lot of the contaminants and the wax soup just keeps getting better.

Lol

 

[918v]

Have fun with picking out steel pins and drying while I'm seating allready.

The used dryer sheets trap a lot of the contaminants and the wax soup just keeps getting better.

Lol

I don’t have any issues getting pins out of cases and I dry them overnight while I sleep. Maybe you load while I sleep but I don’t.

 

[natdscott]

@918v Sparkling cases inside and out is not necessarily a positive for the accuracy of the next loading.

If you’re a proponent of graphite in the necks...why don’t you just leave it there in the first place?

 

[918v]

Because it’s not the same graphite.

Second, I don’t like dirt and mud in the case.

Third, this thread is about drying brass, not about the virtues of dry media tumbling.

 

[natdscott]

@918v

I don’t hear any complaints from the OP.

I can agree about the mud and birdshit, but being that a shitload of BR records—probably almost all if them—were set with what it sounds like you consider “dirty” neck brass..well, I guess I wonder what are your standards there?

Graphite is graphite unless it’s a tetrahedron. Then it isn’t.

 

[Krob95]

I’ll dry mine off with a towel and throw them in a toaster over I got off Facebook market place for 20 minutes @ 200 degrees. I only do about 70 at the time tho (as that’s the most I tumble at once.

 

[918v]

@918v

I don’t hear any complaints from the OP.

I can agree about the mud and birdshit, but being that a shitload of BR records—probably almost all if them—were set with what it sounds like you consider “dirty” neck brass..well, I guess I wonder what are your standards there?

Graphite is graphite unless it’s a tetrahedron. Then it isn’t.

My standard is I don’t want brass with dirt in it. Dry tumbling does not get the dirt out. It cleans the outside. Not the inside.

BR is not the same as field shooing. You don’t get anything dirty. I’m talking dirt, mud, shit like that.

Carbon from firing is not the same thing as imperial graphite dry lube. If it were then the expander ball would just simply slide over it but it doesn’t. It makes a god awful noise as it pulls through the neck.

 

[natdscott]

You’re speaking to a hunter and a touring Highpower guy. I get the dirty brass thing. Other than ceramic media, there’s not a brass tumbling option I have NOT used.

Don’t use an expander ball. S-Type FL, Whidden, etc. all work.

Dry tumbling in nishiki rice cleans EVERYTHING as much as it ever needs, even inside the little .223 casings.

I do that, and my stuff doesn’t damage anything including dies, and it shoots between 1/4 and 5/8 Minute, even in ARs. Well, one box stock Remington is about 3/4, to be fair to the whole fleet.

Hey @918v, I’m surely not telling you what to do. I’m just letting everyone else know that your approach isn’t bulletproof from critique.

So to speak.

 

[CZp-01]

I use the food dehydrator with Frankford Arsenal name on it..lol I wet tumble for 90min then dry them for 90 min. Rotating the trays at 45 mins. Gives me enough time to do both. Can get a few batches done in a day when I'm not doing much or the weather is lousy.

 

[HornDog87]

Hello gents,

Marchboom, Im leaning towards your lyman cyclone. It's actually cheaper than the food dehydrators I've found around town.

Mark5pt56
Being in Alaska, unfortunately I can't use the old truck bed method. Right now if I were to give that a go, I think the brass would flash freeze infuse itself to my truck ?

 

[HornDog87]

There's been a ton of different methods suggested on this thread and it's been grately appreciated! Unfortunately Im forbidden from the oven method, as the baker/chef,/ master commander of the house ain't having it.
As for the dry methods, it was said in the thread earlier it doesn't fully clean the primer pockets and the inside of the casing. Maybe if I do an ultra super sniper shooting challenge then I'll give the brass an extra shine, as dry tumbling makes them shine.