Thread: Wet Tumbling

Can you use steel pin into a vibrating umber or does it have to be in a rotary tumbler?

Originally Posted by eamars

I no longer wet tumblr my 6.5 creed brass as they will peening the case mouse even for 40 minutes.

Ditto. The process also works away at the rims but that is probably not a real issue but the peening of my nicely chamfered necks saw me toss the process away.
And guess what, my groups never deteriorated.

Sure, I can understand pistol shooters for example gathering up their spent brass off the range floor and giving it a SS clean when getting home but for me, (mainly F Class these days) it's just an unecessary process.

Over the years I have continued to streamline my reloading processes, without detriment to accuracy. Intense cleaning is one process that went west.
Got carried along with the fads at the time of course, ultrasonic and SS.

However, keeping to topic, when I did clean with SS pins I used, sparingly the Frankford Arsenal snake oil that came with my tumbler. It was very effective. I dried using the Sunbeam dehydrator previously mention in the thread. The pins were dried in the oven, with permission of course. I dried them in the dehydrator a couple of time but then switched to the oven.

No, I have never put cases in an oven.

Have seen a few videos of people wet tumbling without the pins and achieving very good results, anyone else tried it? Solved the peening issue?

Originally Posted by distant stalker

Have seen a few videos of people wet tumbling without the pins and achieving very good results, anyone else tried it? Solved the peening issue?

Like many others I no longer use the pins. I tumble using a half teaspoon of citric acid and good squirt morning fresh lemon dishwasher (I’ve tried all the Brands and this works best) Also you must use HOT water. I tumble in a Frankfort Arsenal tumbler for between 15-30 min & then rinse clean and dry by putting in a towel sock before putting on trays in the sun.
Works a great

@omark
what are your primer pockets like after that method?

And back to an ultrasonic you come

Originally Posted by zimmer

Ditto. The process also works away at the rims but that is probably not a real issue but the peening of my nicely chamfered necks saw me toss the process away.
And guess what, my groups never deteriorated.

Sure, I can understand pistol shooters for example gathering up their spent brass off the range floor and giving it a SS clean when getting home but for me, (mainly F Class these days) it's just an unecessary process.

Over the years I have continued to streamline my reloading processes, without detriment to accuracy. Intense cleaning is one process that went west.
Got carried along with the fads at the time of course, ultrasonic and SS.

However, keeping to topic, when I did clean with SS pins I used, sparingly the Frankford Arsenal snake oil that came with my tumbler. It was very effective. I dried using the Sunbeam dehydrator previously mention in the thread. The pins were dried in the oven, with permission of course. I dried them in the dehydrator a couple of time but then switched to the oven.

No, I have never put cases in an oven.

Strangely all my 9mm brasses went very well with wet tumbling and SS media. After 3 hours of tumbling there is no sign of peening at all.

Been nudging away at processing some 9mm... few up my sleeve

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Originally Posted by distant stalker

Have seen a few videos of people wet tumbling without the pins and achieving very good results, anyone else tried it? Solved the peening issue?

I do it often and yeah it works but usually the primer pockets are not as clean.

My recipe is some Hornady case cleaning solution, some Lemishine(citric acid) and distilled water. Works great.

Originally Posted by longrange308

And back to an ultrasonic you come

Each method has it's flip side and ultrasonic doesn't agitate like a tumbler, so the ultrasonic seems to break the dirt loose but then you have to wipe it all down. I'd say after an ultrasonic bath you'd almost be served by doing a wet tumble with some water to rinse.

Also for me I mostly bulk load by the thousands so unless I want to invest in one of those big ultrasonics, I guess it's tumbling for me.

Originally Posted by eamars

Strangely all my 9mm brasses went very well with wet tumbling and SS media. After 3 hours of tumbling there is no sign of peening at all.

I've never seen that issue myself and I usually tumble for two hours. I could see though for something like 6.5 Creed where people have nicely prepped their brass where that might happen.

Originally Posted by Lost In The Hill

@omark
what are your primer pockets like after that method?

Yes no issues at all. Seems to clean them ok. The secret with the citric acid and morning fresh is to use hot water from the tap

Cleaning brass - wet or dry, mechanically or chemically - is always a fine line between getting the dirt off and leave as much brass behind as possible at the same time. From that perspective it doesn't really matter what your cleaning regime is, as long as you find that fine medium. This can be the amount of citric acid per ltr of water or weight SS steel pins to weight brass, etc.