SS Pin tumbling

[Archer]

An inquiry for donhuff and others of our merry band who've stepped into the darkside of wet tumbling....
How's that working out?
Any reason to or not to use the system with nickel plated brass?
What tumbler are you using? What's it's load rating? (How much brass, media, water will it hold or is recommended?)

How much media works best?
What kind of cleaning compounds are you using and how much?
Any other tips or hints?

[rondog]

I wet tumble and am happy with it. But, I'm set up for large batches, not small, and it can be a pain. I use a small cement mixer, 25lbs of pins, and about a 2gal bucketful of brass. There's times I wish I had a smaller setup. I've heard good things about the Frankford Arsenal kit.

One thing I recommend, is blotting the water off the brass when you're ready to dry it. Use a couple of old cotton towels (they absorb the best) and try to get as much water off as you can. This helps prevent spotting and staining.

Punching the old primers out first helps a lot too. It not only gets the pockets clean, but waterflow/airflow through the cases helps water drain, helps flushing the pins out, and allows quicker drying. I've also read about guys using an Armor All wash/wax product instead of Dawn with great results, but I haven't tried it yet.

I plan to try the Armor All, because the regular Dawn/Lemishine recipe leaves the brass so clean and unprotected that it can tarnish easily. The AAWW supposedly leaves a protective waxed finish and discourages tarnishing.

[Ohio3Wheels]

I've been at it for about 6 months now and I'm sold on it as long as there's no rush. I have an old as in ancient Thumbler Model B. It's the slow speed version I understand the new ones turn faster. Five pounds of Franklin pins, a small squirt of Dawn, about half a teaspoon of Lemishine and a few hours of tumbling depending on case load. I did 100 40-65 cases and sampled every 2 hours to watch progress. I took about 6 hours to get them shinny and the pockets clean. These had been fired with black powder and had gone into vinegar and water at the range. I've done 150 45 Colt in about 3 hours and maybe 125 223 in about the same. After rinsing I've tried a pit of everything to speed drying including boiling water - speeds drying but also accelerates tarnishing. So far I've only done some nickel plated 45-70 and they came out okay. They've been through 2 cycles of load fire clean and so far the nickel remains intact. I want a set of Lyman screens to speed up case and pin separation and pin recovery. Not sure if the extra time is off set by not having to clean primer pockets in a separate operation but I sure do like the result of the pins.

Make smoke,

[donhuff]

Hey Archer,

I bet y'all thought I had died and gone to Heaven eh?

I've been in Huntsville Alabama helping one of my sons build a brewery. I have been back home a couple of times, but only for a day or two before I would head back to help.
Anyone interested can look at our progress here https://www.facebook.com/GreenBusBrewing/
I am NOT a carpenter, but I had to do a lot of that type work while there, along with electrical, plumbing, HVAC, then finally something I was familiar with, Welding. We made the hand rails and light post. He measured and cut, then I welded. (I don't think I ever want to do that again!) We did every thing in the build that we possible could, cause that was the way he wanted to do it. I left there Monday but have to go back to help pour the epoxy top on the bar. But they finally got all the required permits, and started selling beer last night



Bout the SS pins. I love them! I bought the Frankford tumbler, and I like it a lot. It does the job very well. I did get another 5 lbs of pins and added to it, but that's not necessary at all. It will do ok with what they send with it. But the extra does seem to make it work a little faster.

I use a healthy squirt of dawn, and then dump in some lemishine. No I don't measure, I just dump some in. It's not a precise type of thing at all. This does leave the brass in a kinda "raw" condition though as others have noted. And some times, but strangely not all the time, it WILL tarnish rather quickly. No idea why, and don't care. So lately, I have been adding another step after drying (I use a heat gun BTW). I put then in my vibrator with walnut hull and some NuCoat polish for maybe an hour or three. Not that they need any more polishing, but to get a little wax on them to hold back the tarnish.
But after reading what was said bout the armor all, and doing a little research, I got a bottle tonight, and will be trying it out pretty soon. I have no doubt that this will eliminate the extra walnut hull step.

I put plated brass in with the yellow all the time and have seen no ill effects. It does seem to wear the plating a little quicker than other methods, but it wont take it off for a long time.

I always size and deprime as my first step, so I get sparkling kleen primer pockets. That is worth the whole sha-bang for me as I hate scraping them out and never really getting them as clean as I would like. You wont see it on 357s so much, but put some 44s or 45s in there and run it long enough, and the inside of the cases will look brand damn new!!!

Loading specs? 5lbs -10 lbs. of pins, a shot of soap and lemishine, as many cases as you have on hand OF THE SAME CALIBER!!! so they don't get stuck inside each other! Then fill it to the top with water. I really have no idea how many, but I have shot 3 to 600 rounds of 38s and 357s in a day. And I put them all in there and it did fine. If you were to get it so full that the cases had no room to "fall" from the flights as it turns. Then it would take a long time to get them clean.

To empty, I pour off most of the water which sometimes looks like metalic paint. Then put one of the sifting end caps on. And pour/shake into a big bowl, bigger the better to catch more pins. This gets about 90% of the pins out and the shaking gets most of them out of the cases. Then put a sifter bowl from Walmart https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... lander.jpg , that has slots, instead of holes, into the big bowl and dump the cases into it. Then you can shake and toss the cases till they are clear of pins. I rarely look into them to see if they are clear as they always are. On bottle neck cases, you may have to pick each one up and dump them out. But you have to do that with the other methods too. Then I pile them up and blow dry the majority of the water out. Get a real heat gun and this is a quick step. They get a lot hotter than a hair drier.

A hint I have is if you get one. Fill it with pins and water and run it like this for 3 to 6 hours. The pins are cut from wire, and have a real sharp edge to them. This will cut the first few batches of brass and they will look awful! Running it like this will smooth the ends up and you will be able to see that they are much more blunt. This will make that first batch of brass turn out a lot more shinny and bright, but will not diminish their cleaning ability.
Also, go ahead and get the bucket and spinning thingy to separate the pins and brass. I think it would save some time getting the two apart, and would save a lot of pins from getting loose too.
If you want more pins, look on ebay. You can find them there a lot cheaper and in the quantity that you want.

[rondog]

I also will dry polish afterwards with real fine 20/40 ground corncob with NuFinish car polish in it. Makes 'em shine and gives a protective coat to deter tarnishing, I also think it helps with resizing.

It was mentioned to tumble all one kind of brass - but I've found I can run multiple calibers together, just have to make sure they won't nest inside each other. I run .45acp, .45 Colt, .44 magnum, .44 Special, .45-70, etc. all together. Same with 9mm Luger/9mm Makarov/.380acp/.38 Special/.357 Magnum. And I'll run all rifle brass together, from .30 Carbine on up. They don't stick together, but you do have to sort them after they're dry.

Can't mix the smaller stuff with the larger basically. But .40 S&W & 10mm are odbballs, those have to be ran seperate from everything else, except with each other.

Rule of thumb - if one caliber case will fit inside another, don't mix them in your tumbler. Otherwise mixing is fine, as long as you don't mind sorting them out.

[Archer]

I've been separating mostly to avoid nesting for ages with the vibratory tumbler so that's nothing new.
Midway put the Lyman wet tumbler on clearance the past couple weeks and Friday night it got so low at $119 I had to bite on it.
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/708528 ... r-110-volt
One of my buds bit almost a couple weeks ago so his was already delivered.

The only complaints I've seen is that the Lyman drum (like the Frankford) has some internal grooves on each end that it rides on which can perhaps snag some short (9mm, 40 or maybe .45 ACP) pistol brass and more or less prevent a few cases from getting mixed as much as needed. Otherwise the unit seems pretty nice. Spins pretty fast. 30lb capacity. No flow through drum but it comes with the sifter set.

[GasGuzzler]

Wow....good price.

Must resist....

[Archer]

Don,
Sounds like you've been a bit busy.
Does the place have a name yet?
I've got at least a couple buds in that area.

[Hylander]

Been wet tumbling for a couple of years.
I use the Thumler's Tumbler.
Love it, so easy and much quicker, 40 minutes and the are like new.
Right now I am running it without the Pins. they don't get quite like new but pretty closer.
1 Tbs of dish soap and 1/4 tsp of lemishine.
I lay them on a paper towel to dry overnight or you van put them in the oven for 20 minutes on 180

[rondog]

I use the cement mixer so I can do lots at one time!



This isn't one load, this is several loads of .45 auto. I try to do it on a hot day so I can spread 'em out in the sun on that old cotton moving blanket to dry. Use a COTTON blanket because it's absorbent! Don't use some synthetic crap that doesn't absorb, that just leaves puddles and causes water stains.