Is tumbling with stainless really what its claimed to be?

Huskydriver

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I have been tumbling with a dillon 750 with corn media for awhile now but have been eyeing going the stainless pin route. I have used corn/walnut etc with and without polish and it does an okay job but its tedious and messy and I feel overly time consuming with getting all the flash holes cleared and ensuring there is no more media in the case. I would really like to speed this stage of my brass prep up so I can get on with more shooting. I am aware that obviously the cases need to be dried before I can reload going the wet stainless route but want to get a feel if this is even going to speed my process up or if this is a grass is greener scenario in my mind. I would really like to be able to toss my brass in with the lemishine/water come back some time later, chuck the brass into a laundry bag to tumble in the drier for a bit and get on with the reloading process.

For those of you who use a stainless tumbling set up how long do you have to run your brass for to get the necks and primer pockets clean?
Do you regret switching?
Any words of wisdom before I sell my cv750 and take the plunge?

Thanks!
 
I have gone the stainless route and backed off. It is great for pistol, and for cruddy pickup range brass, but not good for precision loads. For precision you are better served by tumbling brass in corn cob or walnut before sizing. Then just let the depriming pin knock out the media with the primer. Cleaning primer pockets is something I have abandoned all together.
 
I run my thumbler for, on average about 2 - 2.5 hrs depending on gas brass or bolt brass. I use dawn and lemishine which works great and throw them in the dryer on a shelf.
Not sure it will be faster because it takes awhile to get the pins out of necked brass. Magnet helps pull them out. I need to get the small cut pins but haven’t yet.


I have not regretted one day since switching.
 
I run my thumbler for, on average about 2 - 2.5 hrs depending on gas brass or bolt brass. I use dawn and lemishine which works great and throw them in the dryer on a shelf.
Not sure it will be faster because it takes awhile to get the pins out of necked brass. Magnet helps pull them out. I need to get the small cut pins but haven’t yet.


I have not regretted one day since switching.
The issue with squeaky clean brass in precision loads are:
1) Inconsistent bullet pull
2) Inconsistent seating depth ( both due to the brass being "grabby")
3) Cold welding of the brass to the bullet if left to sit over several months.
 
You will never have cleaner brass, it is a little tedious getting water and pins out (use a separator) and then you have to dry brass but it is very quick (1-1.5 hours) go for it if you like shiny brass.
 
I use a large Harbor Freight cement mixer (my buddy gave it to me, it was new, but I know I could need a new motor or belt at any time). I have ~60lbs. of pins in there I guess, and I use water (I try to start with boiling water) dish soap, I have some kind of lemon soap, and lemonshine. I guess I need to get more of that come to think of it. After tumbling for half and hour or so, I start to dump the water and rinse it and do that a few times until it's clean, no soap. Then the brass comes out and I shake out the pins (I've been doing .50BMG so I guess some thing will be different with smaller cases) and put 'em in a Dillon separator basket and spin it to remove as much water and any pins that may come out. Then they go in the back yard, during the warm weather, and on a ~2x8 foot frame with 4' legs and quarter inch screen stapled to the bottom of the frame. The whole rack dries completely on a warm day. Winter I try other methods.

It works well, the only problem is if you clean again after sizing. I decap dirty brass, then clean, then size, trim, etc., then clean again, then prime and load. The decapped brass is super clean. Like brand new clean. The sized brass? dull and dirty.

The lube sticks to the brass and so does the dirt. There are ways to fix this, like maybe a dunk in parts cleaner before going in the mixer. Something to dissolve the case lube. It's on my pins now so I need to clean those. It's not enough to make me not do it anymore, nothing else is faster and does a good job. But I do have to come up with a solution for easily removing the case lube.

For precision brass, I don't wanna run that in a big cement mixer. You can see what it does to the brass. It's nothing bad really, but it's nothing you wanna do to precision brass. Only way I know to put it, if you use one then you'll understand. For bulk brass it's a godsend. If you load .50 BMG and belt it, there's no other way to clean 10k pieces that I know of. So I have a Hornady ultrasonic cleaner I got for a really good deal. It holds a full M4 upper and has a basket to hold brass, etc. It'll hold a good bit of brass if we're not talking BMG. It'll hold a fair amount even if we are. But you can clean hundreds of .308 Lapua cases in it no problem and not do any damage and clean completely inside and out.

I'd ultrasonic everything if I could. It's almost like magic how fast and how easy and how efficient that damn thing is. But you have to know how it works or you can damage or even destroy some parts. If you can get away with one of those, if that suits your needs, do that. Ultrasonic, forget the pins, forget the tumbler (though I keep a tumbler to polish loaded ammo sometimes, carefully). Instead of Hornady, look around first, I spoke to an US guy here in WA and he said you can get bigger US cleaners for decent prices used. To look around, call around. They're pretty simple actually. A US cleaner will both do a better job and do it without even touching the brass, so no damage like tumbling, wet or dry.

In fact, the only reason I have that mixer and pins and wet tumble is because I have two 55gal. drums of .50 BMG brass I gotta decap, clean, size, clean and load. The local US cleaner wanted $1000 to clean 'em once. Not doing that twice, so here I am. But I US clean my Lapua brass, my Grendel brass, hell, any lot of brass that'll fit in the US cleaner.

Good luck whichever way you go. I kinda hope you don't need the wet tumbler because it means you're dealing with the same problem I am, in one way or another, and it sucks. Hoping a US cleaner can meet your needs, a good low cost industrial model.
 
Cleaner brass and cleaner than all the dust. For many years I used all types of media including rice and went the SST route then back to rice (my favorite of the others) and after a year or so back to SST and am happy with it. I've had rounds that sat for months and had no "weld" issues. I don't think factory ammo necks come pre carbon(ed).

I've tried graphite on the necks and not. No seating pressure issues even with some fairly heavy neck tension on semi auto rounds. It seems to actually be more consistent with the SST brass. Single digit SD's and even ES's and identical accuracy with all methods have been my experience when using the same loads. At this point, I believe there are much more important variables than brass cleaning methods. SST is not really faster but quick enough. IMHO
 
Went to stainless and wool ledet go back. Is a little quicker... but a lot cleaner. Also ther cases are a lot cleaner, with no carbon anywhere which is huge. Primer pockets neck etc.
 
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I use an annealing service to freshen up my brass after three firings. The service cleans the brass with pins.

Resizing that brass after he has provided the service sucks big time.

I use a sizing ball to repair necks and pulling that through the squeaky clean necks blows and totally fucks up the rhythm of the Dillon S1050.

Ill only use an annealing service again if the brass is tumbled in corn media or I will buy an AMP.
 
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I stopped using my wet tumbler with pins except for pistol brass. Stopped using pins entirely and switched to the little stainless steel balls found on Amazon. Trouble with wet tumbling, it beats up the lip of the neck, and gets it too clean as stated above.

For my bolt action rifle brass, I decap and use the ultrasonic cleaner with Hornady brass cleaner and Dawn. Rinse, dry, neck size, and anneal. Trim if necessary. (Full length size when necessary)

On my 12 reloading with my Lupua brass still shooting great.
 

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the trick to SSTing is to not tumble so long...as skookum pointed out clean necks cause a few issues though i have not had bullet weld even with shiny clean necks and ammo sat for 3mons...i tested this just to know....i do not doubt that it can happen but it takes longer than a few months.

i tumble 300 pcs of brass at a time and only tumble for 30mins...no need to tumble for hours...30mins and my brass is shiny on the outside but still has soot/carbon left on the inside of the neck and case so seating is smooth and consistent and SDs-ESs in the singles to low doubles.

as far as drying...i built a wood box aprox 4" tall 12" wide and long and used peg board for the top and drilled out the holes to fit my cases then drilled a 3" hole in the side of the box and put a hair dryer in that hole brass is dry in about 3 minutes...i run 600 pieces of brass at a time and it takes me about 1.5 to 2hrs to tumble and dry 600pcs.

i hear a lotta guys talking about using hot water...ive been SST for about 7yrs and ive tried just about every combo you can think of and cold water works best...just have to experiment a little and and find what works best for you.
 
Each to their own, I guess. For a while, I considered SS pin tumbling and even bought 5 lbs of pins. Thing is, I see no real advantage other than pretty brass. It’s certainly no quicker than what I do now. 30 minutes in walnut shell, 60 if really really dirty or tarnished. No issue with media in primer flash holes. Done.

My brass is clean and shiny-ish and the results in ES/SD work. I’ve decided that I hardly need to make anything more complicated than it needs to be.
 
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I bought steel shavings (look like eye drops) from somewhere like bear mountain brass. I missed it with steel pins... no issues with hands and cut down cleaning time.

Never have had issues with sizing rifle or pistol brass after cleaning with media (using dillon 1050 with mark 7, dillon 650, single stage press). I use home made lube heet with lanolin. Sometimes using imperial sizing wax.
 
I do both now. Dry media first then size and deprime everything, then into the stainless tumbler before chamfer/debur and loading. Had issues with dry media getting stuck inside the cases when I was only dry tumbling a few times so now i wet tumble after to ensure it's completely cleaned out before dropping powder and seating a bullet.
No issues with necks, sd/es, or welding bullets into cases. And i only reload for precision rifle. Definitely not a time saver the way I do it but it works for me and everything is clean and consistent.
 
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^ Yep. Dry tumble for a few minutes before sizing/depriming. Size, deprime, then into the wet tumbler. I also use SS balls rather than pins but haven’t noticed much difference other than not getting stuck inside the cases or flash holes.

Wait to trim/chamfer/debur until after tumbling because the stainless media will “dull” those edges. I made the mistake one time of tumbling after chamfering and they all needed to be re-done.

I use this method solely for precision reloads and have not once noticed anything such as brass that’s “too clean” or dealt with neck tension issues/friction issues. I run very light neck tension to begin with (.001-.002) but never noticed any resultant problems from cleaning methods. I clean after every firing and anneal every 3rd... always worked for me but I guess ymmv.

What I will say is that I don’t tumble with the stainless for very long... it doesn’t take any more than an hour to get the cases entirely clean (primer pockets, interior walls, etc.). It comes out with a good luster but I’m sure you could get it “cleaner” if you wanted. If you’re that anal about shine then I would recommend loading the cases as normal and then dry tumbling the loaded cases... that’s given my best looking results but I don’t care much what they look like anymore so long as they shoot.
 
The balance I've found with SS cleaning is to do it once in 3-4 firings. I figure I need to trim every so often and the flash holes and primer pockets need to be cleaned out. The case mouths get peened in and out so I want that trimmed off, then chamfer - debur. I use NECO dry lube for the inside of the necks via bore mop.

In between SS cleanings I don't do anything except wipe the cases off. I don't get hung up on having the cases perfectly clean every time. Neither do the benchrest shooters BTW. Also I usually load 50 at a time so no mass production going on.
 
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I stainless tumble but I also still use my corn cob tumbler.

- deprime
- wet tumble
- anneal
- lube and size
- trim, chamfer, debur
- dry tumble (mainly to remove sizing lube and get some wax on brass to protect against tarnishing)
- prime and load

Probably a little overboard but my brass is perfect in my eye. Consistency matters.

That sounds horrible for my time efficiency desires but very thorough. :)
 
I'm not tumbling anything more than 30 min. I use a dash of Lemishine and a squirt of Dawn.

I don't do it as a function of precision, hand loading. I am convinced that pin tumbling and having clean primer pockets gives me a couple of more reloads before the pockets start to give out. That's not scientific, just experience. When my brass starts to go I'd say that a couple let go early, and the next firing about 20% let go all at once, and that's my cue it's time to replace all of it. I'll reload whatever will hold a primer and shoot the rest of it, but then it all goes.

I have 500 cases (enough for two full matches) in the rotation, so a couple of more firings is a big deal for me, and well worth it. I think SS tumbling is way more gentle than cleaning primer pockets/uniforming flash holes. Again, not scientific, but I feel like that's shortening the life of my brass more than letting it smoke, drink, and do drugs (which I will NOT allow my brass to do as long as it's going to live in my house!).
 
News flash... New brass doesn't have soot built up in the necks for lubrication. There are other ways to lube a neck whether it's new brass or spotless cleaned brass. LUBE would be a good place to start. Just saying.

The only issue I've ran into from wet tumbling is from long tumbling times and too much brass. The mouths can get boogered up to the point it will actually shorten the OAL especially if you have a heavier chamfer and the mouth is a little thinner.

The two best things I've done for SS tumbling has been to run more pins and less brass (8lbs of pins and 80-100 308 sized cases) and switching from the dawn/lemishine to the new bore tech cleaner. I toss in 1oz and 1 gallon of hot water and that's it. I deprime first and tumble for 10 mins and the brass is 90% clean. There will be a little carbon in the primer pockets but after sizing and trimming I run it back through again for 5 minutes to get the lube and any brass shavings off and the extra 5 minutes takes care of any carbon in the pockets.
 
I do both SS Media and Corn Cob (not at the same time).

For the bolt gun SS media isn't needed as often as the brass shoots pretty clean even behind a silencer so I mostly use corn cob in a vibratory tumbler. Once in a while a do run it through SS media but I always finish by running it through corn cob to polish and keep it from tarnishing.

For semis I corn cob media to knock off the crude, resize/deprime, SS media, dry, and corn cob polish to complete.

Lastly, I always anneal after 3rd firings.

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I do both SS Media and Corn Cob (not at the same time).

For the bolt gun SS media isn't needed as often as the brass shoots pretty clean even behind a silencer so I mostly use corn cob in a vibratory tumbler. Once in a while a do run it through SS media but I always finish by running it through corn cob to polish and keep it from tarnishing.

For semis I corn cob media to knock off the crude, resize/deprime, SS media, dry, and corn cob polish to complete.

Lastly, I always anneal after 3rd firings.

45650501511_3479f0552a_c.jpg
That's a cool pic!
 
I have used corn/walnut etc with and without polish and it does an okay job but its tedious and messy and I feel overly time consuming with getting all the flash holes cleared and ensuring there is no more media in the case.

Switch to finer grain media. Something like 20-40 grit corn cob blast media comes in a 40lb bag for around $40 and lasts forever. Doesn't stick in even small primer Lapua flash holes.

I toss my brass in the tumbler until it's done, then put it in the rotary sifter and spin, then move onto the rest of reloading steps. You're not going to get faster or more trouble free than that.

I don't consider the duration of tumbling to be a factor in how fast the reloading process is. Whether you're tumbling for 3 hours or 12 hours it's irrelevant with corn cob. Throw it in and walk away, get back to it whenever. I'd argue that stainless might actually be more time consuming because you've got to ensure you are there to pull it out of the tumbler at the right time.
 
Switch to finer grain media. Something like 20-40 grit corn cob blast media comes in a 40lb bag for around $40 and lasts forever. Doesn't stick in even small primer Lapua flash holes.

I toss my brass in the tumbler until it's done, then put it in the rotary sifter and spin, then move onto the rest of reloading steps. You're not going to get faster or more trouble free than that.

I don't consider the duration of tumbling to be a factor in how fast the reloading process is. Whether you're tumbling for 3 hours or 12 hours it's irrelevant with corn cob. Throw it in and walk away, get back to it whenever. I'd argue that stainless might actually be more time consuming because you've got to ensure you are there to pull it out of the tumbler at the right time.

Do you add any polish to your corn cod blasting media?
 
Switch to finer grain media. Something like 20-40 grit corn cob blast media comes in a 40lb bag for around $40 and lasts forever. Doesn't stick in even small primer Lapua flash holes.

Even if a few pieces get in the flash holes... that's why I have a decapping die in station #1 of the tool head I have setup for charging/seating cases - to knock out any stray bits of media immediately before priming.
 
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I don't consider the duration of tumbling to be a factor in how fast the reloading process is. Whether you're tumbling for 3 hours or 12 hours it's irrelevant with corn cob. Throw it in and walk away, get back to it whenever. I'd argue that stainless might actually be more time consuming because you've got to ensure you are there to pull it out of the tumbler at the right time.

Ehh, most of them are on timers anymore. They shut off when they’re done. I’d say it’s more time consuming because you have to dry your cases with SS/wet tumbling, but you don’t otherwise have to watch it like a hawk...
 
Dawn and Lemishine are PH antagonists. Dawn is alkaline, and Lemishine is Acidic. Clean with one, then rinse with the other to neutralize.

Instead of Lemishine, I use unsweetened Walmart Great Value generic lemonade, pretty much the same stuff.

Or, dampen the Walnut with dilute lemon juice (lemonade?), allow it to run without the brass for about 5 minutes so the walnut does its swelling before it gets inside the cases, and polish away, the lemon gets the brass cleaner, faster.

Greg
 
It's been stated that certain sized cases can suffer neck peening from SS tumbling. Generally just use corncob with a splash of Flitz in a vibratory tumbler. I have an ultrasonic cleaner if they get really nasty (occasionally if I'm short on time and they flew in mud at a match, the oxidize a bit), and it pulls double duty getting carbon off after shooting AR's suppressed all day.
 
Switch to finer grain media. Something like 20-40 grit corn cob blast media comes in a 40lb bag for around $40 and lasts forever. Doesn't stick in even small primer Lapua flash holes.

I toss my brass in the tumbler until it's done, then put it in the rotary sifter and spin, then move onto the rest of reloading steps. You're not going to get faster or more trouble free than that.

I don't consider the duration of tumbling to be a factor in how fast the reloading process is. Whether you're tumbling for 3 hours or 12 hours it's irrelevant with corn cob. Throw it in and walk away, get back to it whenever. I'd argue that stainless might actually be more time consuming because you've got to ensure you are there to pull it out of the tumbler at the right time.

Do you tumble once or twice in the whole process?
 
I wet tumble WITHOUT any stainless steel anything. Just hot water, dish soap, and Lemishine. I dry in a small toaster oven.

I don't care about cleaning the inside of the case. I can't even begin to comprehend the uselessness of a procedure that I have never needed to produce accurate reloads.

I don't care about the primer pockets because I mechanically uniform them every 3 - 4 reloads and that cleans them too. I don't care about shining the exterior of the cases to look like a new penny.

I just want the outside of the cases spotlessly clean so that my dies are not affected and my fingetips aren't black after reloading a batch. Wet tumbling without media achieves just that.

I used corn cob media for years, and unless you toss it every 2 - 3 uses, it leaves a sooty residue all over the brass that you can't see until you look at your fingers after reloading a hundred or two.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that my method is the best. I like it and that's all that matters to me. Just putting it out there for those who are making a decision to consider.
 
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I considered wet tumble but didn't want to deal with the drying process.
I decap on a universal, ream crimp if necessary / clean primer pocket.
Vibrate with walnut and a mix of newfinish and mineral oil till clean enough to size.
Resize and toss back in vibrator, wax and all till brite as you wish.
Trim etc and yes back for a short tumble to remove shavings.

The trick to getting media out of flash holes has been after separating it
We toss the brass in the tumbler empty for about 1 minute, pretty much knocks out
Anything left, it's loud.

Sounds anal but brass is nice and steps on next batch fit into gaps.
 
That sounds horrible for my time efficiency desires but very thorough. :)
+1 to Yerman's method. I increase efficiency by using a big wet tumbler. I got one from Big Dawg Tumblers several years ago - not sure if he is still making them but really wouldn't be hard to make one yourself. Small SS pins that don't get stuck in case mouths are key. With this method, the cases are squeaky clean when sized, therefore eliminating the possibility of any dry media residue effectively acting as fine sandpaper in your sizer die.