How do you prevent stainless pin from being stuck in case?

[dddoo7]

Thanks for doing a real world test.

Im not claiming massive improvements in accuracy in every 10 shot group. What I experienced was about 5 or 10 out of 50 that would randomly fly...and those random fliers have been virtually eliminated since I quit ss tumbling. Seating pressure has also been more uniform...and I do know that different seating pressure will cause a bullet to randomly hit a different spot.

Thing is...I can shoot 1/4" groups with ss tumbling...but more groups are 1/4" with rice tumbling than with ss tumbling. Is rice the end all be all...no...but the results on paper have been more consistent than ss.

 

[orkan]

I would not be testing accuracy or precision with a magnetospeed hanging off my rifle.

 

[Milo 2.5]

Thanks for doing a real world test.

Im not claiming massive improvements in accuracy in every 10 shot group. What I experienced was about 5 or 10 out of 50 that would randomly fly...and those random fliers have been virtually eliminated since I quit ss tumbling. Seating pressure has also been more uniform...and I do know that different seating pressure will cause a bullet to randomly hit a different spot.

Thing is...I can shoot 1/4" groups with ss tumbling...but more groups are 1/4" with rice tumbling than with ss tumbling. Is rice the end all be all...no...but the results on paper have been more consistent than ss.

It has more to do with leaving the carbon in your necks, and the more firings and repeat cycles on your brass if you can control your neck tension, it will only improve with rice. It's not the rice, corn cob would do the same, but may lack some underlying benefits that rice gives.
IMO, if you would've ss tumbled after first firing, cleaned the piss out of your brass, taking it back to the way it was new, and then used imperial neck lube with media, and set your accuracy baseline concerning neck tension, it would never change over the life of the brass as long as annealing was built into your process, because things never change.
Leaving the carbon in the necks just eliminates the fiddle fucking around, you just control felt tension seating bullets with less outside assistance.

 

[snarkscarbine]

Greg,

How much use are you getting out of one tumbler full of rice? i.e., one use and toss it, or the same 3-5+ as corn cob/walnut?

 

[orkan]

Greg,

How much use are you getting out of one tumbler full of rice? i.e., one use and toss it, or the same 3-5+ as corn cob/walnut?

Somewhere between 1000 and 2000rnds I will toss it out and refill with new. Depends on the size of the cases. More lube on something like a 7LRM than is on a .223AI. It gets to a certain point where it's very discolored and just lacks absorption anymore after that. From that point on you could leave brass in there for 6hrs and it wouldn't get clean. Though when the rice is new, 30 minutes to 1hr is plenty for reasonably sized batches.

I've been told you can "wash" rice and bring it back to "new" again... but I've not tried it.

 

[snarkscarbine]

Somewhere between 1000 and 2000rnds I will toss it out and refill with new. Depends on the size of the cases. More lube on something like a 7LRM than is on a .223AI. It gets to a certain point where it's very discolored and just lacks absorption anymore after that. From that point on you could leave brass in there for 6hrs and it wouldn't get clean. Though when the rice is new, 30 minutes to 1hr is plenty for reasonably sized batches.

I've been told you can "wash" rice and bring it back to "new" again... but I've not tried it.

I've been told that about corn cob, too. To me, makes about as much sense as washing your paper towels.

 

[Milo 2.5]

I've been told that about corn cob, too. To me, makes about as much sense as washing your paper towels.

Have you never tried to re-activate corn cob? This stuff to me more of a cleaner than polish, I use corn cob for 2 yrs, but I have 2 batches, one to clean, one to polish slightly after sizing.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/2124198878/frankford-arsenal-brass-case-polish

 

[snarkscarbine]

Have you never tried to re-activate corn cob? This stuff to me more of a cleaner than polish, I use corn cob for 2 yrs, but I have 2 batches, one to clean, one to polish slightly after sizing.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/2124198878/frankford-arsenal-brass-case-polish

Never tried. The stuff is so cheap that I never really saw the point, but I'm willing to have my mind changed. I've used Nu-Finish car polish with great success.

 

[Milo 2.5]

Never tried. The stuff is so cheap that I never really saw the point, but I'm willing to have my mind changed. I've used Nu-Finish car polish with great success.

Haha, not here to change your mind or direction, my media lasts forever, but it's been 5 yrs since I've had to tumble AR brass. My system yields static, have 2 TT 18lb industrial tumblers, when I get static, spray a shit ton of static guard in bowl and then media, may help? <But no clue.

 

[canezach]

I tumble with stainless media. While I'm not going to sit here and say my way is better than anyone else's, I have never had an issue with unexplained fliers or high velocity spreads. My SD is typically 6 to 8 and my ES is 15 or lower. If I've had any fliers, they haven't been so egregious that they couldn't be confused with a bad wind call or less than perfect fundamentals when shooting from an unstable positron during a match. What else are you guys seeing that made you decide to go rice over stainless?

 

[spife7980]

What else are you guys seeing that made you decide to go rice over stainless?

The fact that rice doesnt get stuck and even if it did shooting a grain of rice down the barrel wouldn't fuck it up. Plus there is zero time drying or baking brass. It's also cheaper. Really aside from sparkling primer pockets on cheap brass I don't see an attractive quality of stainless washing.

 

[Milo 2.5]

What else are you guys seeing that made you decide to go rice over stainless?

Hate to say it, but follow the shooting community, if some top competitor shot a match with tampons shoved up his nostrils claiming not letting dust into his nasal passages balances his equilibrium, tampons would be in short supply across the country.

 

[orkan]

Hate to say it, but follow the shooting community, if some top competitor shot a match with tampons shoved up his nostrils claiming not letting dust into his nasal passages balances his equilibrium, tampons would be in short supply across the country.

When you combine this with the fact that shooters can "know" anything they want to if they just went and shot once in a while... it really is quite silly. There are so many arguments started by people that haven't tried a thing. It's really pointless. It isn't hard to do your own testing. When someone comes up with a new way of doing things, most don't try it. They just shout that dude down and make fun of them. There isn't much of a real discussion. It's sad to see.

 

[Milo 2.5]

When you combine this with the fact that shooters can "know" anything they want to if they just went and shot once in a while... it really is quite silly. There are so many arguments started by people that haven't tried a thing. It's really pointless. It isn't hard to do your own testing. When someone comes up with a new way of doing things, most don't try it. They just shout that dude down and make fun of them. There isn't much of a real discussion. It's sad to see.

Not sure what direction you're headed by quoting that quip, it was funny and has some truth behind it.
I've always said a test of one's own, if done with solid intentions worth way more than anyone's opinion.
That said, I never embraced ss tumbling, saw that one upfront, but look at the bandwagon of followers.
I never saw much use for sonic, and the first units were a friggin joke, I picked one up for cleaning suppressors and now have one that will make brass spotless in under 15 minutes, is it wise using in this fashion???? Maybe once every fifth firing.
As for rice, again I personally see no use in it for my application, and give 2 shits what others decide on it.
If your system works for you, and you feel compelled to pass it on, so be it, I'm not standing in your path.

 

[parshal]

I've been using SS media for the last year or two. I only tumble about 30 minutes and then put them in an RCBS media separator filled with clean water so the brass is being rinsed. Once I started doing it that way I only have one or two out of a hundred that have a pin stuck sideways in the neck. I use an air gun on each piece of brass so I find the ones with stuck pins quickly since I handle each piece of brass. I turn small batches and can afford the time to do it but it would be a PITA with a large batch.

I'd love to try something different and see references to ceramic media, "steel rice" and regular rice. I may have to try those. I get tired of dealing with the water.

 

[orkan]

Not sure what direction you're headed by quoting that quip, it was funny and has some truth behind it.
I've always said a test of one's own, if done with solid intentions worth way more than anyone's opinion.

No, you got it... that's exactly where I was headed with it.

 

[canezach]

The fact that rice doesnt get stuck and even if it did shooting a grain of rice down the barrel wouldn't fuck it up. Plus there is zero time drying or baking brass. It's also cheaper. Really aside from sparkling primer pockets on cheap brass I don't see an attractive quality of stainless washing.

I wrote on page 2 that I've never had a pin get stuck, but I also don't use normal pins either. They're more like chips and are probably 1/4 the size of a pin so they aren't even long enough to get stuck in the flash hole, much less the neck. I can admit it takes time to rinse the brass until the water and soap is completely gone and to pull brass out the water by hand, time that could be spent doing something else. I don't mind the time it takes to dry, though. After pulling brass out of the water, I'll give it a quick roll on a towel and stand it up in a reloading tray, then I'll use a blow dryer to get as much of the water out as I can before I set the trays on my bench to air dry.

I used to use a vibratory cleaner and corn cob media. I got tired of the mess, so I tried stainless. My stainless loads shot just as well as the corn cob loads, so I've been stainless tumbling ever since. I don't see any unexplained fliers. My velocity spreads are low. I still produce incredibly accurate ammunition. If anything had changed, I'd go back to my old way of cleaning. I will give tumbling in rice a try to see if it will give me better results, but I don't see how there can be an appreciable difference. It's not going to turn 1/2 MOA rounds into 1/4 MOA. I'd venture to say I don't have the ability to shoot the difference between the two methods.

 

[impactaddict]

orkan - did you notice any static electricity when tumbling with rice or is that problem eliminated too?

 

[orkan]

Sometimes the plastic totes I use build up static... but it isn't a big deal. I think it's from shoving them around on the carpet. Wipe them down quick with a dryer sheet and no more static.

 

[gigamortis]

I recently switched from ultrasonic cleaning to the SS pins to try it out. I love how absolutely clean and shiny my brass gets, but I do notice a little bit of mouth peening. I bought 5 more pounds of pins to try to reduce this, so I am running 10lbs total with anywhere from 50 to 70 .308 cases at a time, and still get some peening. So much for the theory of increasing the pins to cases ratio reducing or eliminating this! Grrr!

For the past couple of 800 yard matches I shot with the SS pin cleaned brass, I noticed at least a couple of hits in our 15 round relays that make me wonder about the previously mentioned phenomenon of occasional flyers. I was seeing my usual tight parent groupings, but when I get two 8 ring hits in the same relay with one hit at 9:00 and the other at 3:00, that is highly unusual for me and my rifle. With my ultrasonically cleaned brass, I was not seeing any WTF hits like this.

As far as seating effort goes, my SS pin cleaned brass exhibit noticeably less seating pressure than my ultrasonic cleaned brass. I always run about .0015"- .002" neck tension. Its seems that the SS pins polish the neck ID versus the "raw" brass finish of my ultrasonically cleaned necks. Its readily apparent that the "raw" finish neck IDs exhibit more resistance to bullet seating for me. This extra seating friction could be acting like what the Lee Factory Crimp die does - making the starting pressure for each round more consistent, especially if the copper bullet jacket starts bonding to the uber clean neck IDs after they sit for a few days after loading them. My load in ultrasonically cleaned brass has always been in single digit SDs for me. Dry tumbled brass with a little carbon in the necks running the same load usually leaves me with SDs in the mid to lower teens, so I'm definitely a fan of ultrasonic cleaning for my load and rifle.

The extra labor of wet tumbling is a non-issue for me, as I anneal after every firing. Right after I rinse the cases, they all get dried automatically from the annealing heat.

In summary, I'm going to shoot my next couple of matches with ultrasonically cleaned brass and see if I experience any more WTF hits. If they are reduced or eliminated, I will give up on the SS pin cleaning.

 

[steve123]

It's a PITA but I - SS clean - rinse - dry, trim, deburr, chamfer, anneal, use NECO case lube inside the neck every other firing. In between I don't do a thing, it's brass vacation time, don't even clean off the imperial die wax, like the old days. You guys have to at least deburr and chamfer necks if cleaning the SS method, no way around it.

Try NECO in the necks if you use the ultrasonic. I dip an appropriate sized bore mop into the applicator, then to the interior of the necks. Often long range benchrest shooter will seat the bullet long then the night before the match they'll seat the bullets the normal depth to avoid so called welding.

I don't have odd flyers, groups are normal either way, same with ES.

Occasional pins stuck in necks but I inspect every case so I've never had a problem blowing a pin down the barrel.

 

[raven88]

http://www.primalrights.com/library/articles/clean-brass-with-rice

I tried a bunch of different brands of rice. I have a link in the article to the specific rice: http://amzn.to/2acofXY

That brand doesn't get stuck in flash holes often, and is real easy to push out.

just ordered the rice.....hope one bag is enough for my thumbler 18

 

[orkan]

It is.

 

[lennyo3034]

Been using the rice for a few weeks. Seems to clean better than corn cob. Oddly it deposits all the dirt from the cases onto the bottom of the tumbler. Really caked on hard, had to use steel wool to get it off. I'll take a picture in a week or two when it comes back.

 

[orkan]

Been using the rice for a few weeks. Seems to clean better than corn cob. Oddly it deposits all the dirt from the cases onto the bottom of the tumbler. Really caked on hard, had to use steel wool to get it off. I'll take a picture in a week or two when it comes back.

That will happen to me if I don't change rice frequently enough.

 

[parshal]

I ran some of the Lyman green corn cob with 200 22-250 cases in my Rebel 17. I ran it for about 45 minutes and could see they were getting clean but I also had dust on the cases that had to be wiped off. Running it through the RCBS media separator removed all the media stuck in the primer hole. I'd never tried it before with dry media and was happy with how quickly it came out but I did have the dust to deal with.

I received the bag of rice linked earlier in the thread just as I was cleaning the cob media. I ran for about two hours and I'm impressed. They looked as clean as running steel pins and I had no water to deal with. The only issue I had is over half the cases had a grain of rice stuck in the primer pocket so they weren't as clean as the others.

 

[raven88]

http://www.primalrights.com/library/articles/clean-brass-with-rice

I tried a bunch of different brands of rice. I have a link in the article to the specific rice: http://amzn.to/2acofXY

That brand doesn't get stuck in flash holes often, and is real easy to push out.

Thank you -- you are absolutely correct about the rice.....worked very good on the 44mag cases yesterday and 308 cases today. Not too many primer pockets had rice stuck, and was very easy to remove. Way quicker than using stainless pins, and no worries about any pins getting missed and going down the barrel. Inside of brass is not as clean, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if that makes a difference or not. Took about 4hr in a thumbler vibratory unit. If you don't need the inside of the brass super clean, then rice is the way to go.

I did get some 3mm ceramic round media.......used it in my Thumbler rotary wet drum yesterday. Brass was every bit as clean as stainless, both inside and out. In addition, separating ceramic from the brass was much easier than with SS pins.....still this process is more time consuming than the rice.

not going back to those SS pins.

 

[parshal]

I did get some 3mm ceramic round media.......used it in my Thumbler rotary wet drum yesterday. Brass was every bit as clean as stainless, both inside and out. In addition, separating ceramic from the brass was much easier than with SS pins.....still this process is more time consuming than the rice.

Did you use the ceramic wet or dry? I would think running it dry would be just like the rice and never wear out.

 

[raven88]

Did you use the ceramic wet or dry? I would think running it dry would be just like the rice and never wear out.

I used the ceramic wet.....in my thumbler rotary.....with dawn and lemeshine.......worked good.

 

[orkan]

Well, after reading this thread I decided to test the theory. I have been STM tumbling for the last year. I tumble prior to annealing, lubing, and resizing. I don't tumble again prior to charging. I simply wipe the outside of the cases off with a paper towel; invariably some lube is left inside the case neck. I typically get single digit SD's, around 4-6fps and .3's. I use an auto-trickler and FX 120i. I decided to not tumble or clean for a cycle and compare uncleaned brass to squeaky clean STM brass.

Results: waste of barrel life. O difference. Both shot in the .3's and resulted in 4-6fps SD. 6 Dasher

Further practical results: in the last 60 days I have finished 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at PRS club and Field matches with STM brass.

orkan I go through a barrel about every 4 months. Wasting barrel life on pointless tests annoys me. I hope that is enough rounds per year to post on this thread. But maybe I'm just not "there yet".

One test, with a few rounds, using the most forgiving cartridge on the planet and you've got it on lock huh? ... and you're crying about barrel life? Yeah, maybe you're not "there yet."

Sounds like you have a process that works with stainless... as that left over lube is obviously critical to your success. Others have to "put" some in there. I'm happy you are happy, but you are awfully narrow minded if you consider the issue closed. Awful lot of shooters doing an awful lot of different things with an awful lot of different cartridges. ... and I'm telling you flat out there are plenty of folks that simply have an easier time achieving accuracy with walnut, corn cob, or rice than ever will with stainless.

 

[g.ross]

Stop using stainless and use rice instead.

This, SS removes to much carbon and changers the case mouth in the neck causing neck tension issues.Every step you take in the reloading process needs to be tested ,not every cartridge or calibers require the same process . Ever had new brass shoot different than fired . Find a system that works for you and your needs. I personally leave the primers in before and after the sizing process. The last step in my process is to use a recapping pin pop the primer out ,brush the carbon out and load new primer that way it allows me to check each flash hole individually .All most all media will get stuck in flash hole .Find out what works for you.
Reub, did you place in those matches due to tumbling in SS media? Sounds like it's due to practice going through 1 barrel every 4 months .Congrats on the victories keep doing what your doing because it's working!!

-GW-

 

[wpierce]

Anyone use the bullseye XL pins (.062x.495)? I doubt those would get stuck in cases as easily. I personally just check every case prior to loading, currently using the free frankford media.