ordered my first wet tumbler, Couple questions

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Bigeclipse

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I ordered the Frankford arsenal lite, media pins, Frankford brass cleaner and Frankford media separator. I have never wet tumbled before so I have a couple questions. For rifle brass I will be sizing and depriming before tumbling. With cob/walnut tumbling....this could be problematic as the media would get stuck in the flash holes. Does this happen with the metal media? For pistol brass, I will be skipping the sizing a depriming step before cleaning as I use a progressive press and do not care about ultimate reliability or accuracy in my hand guns for plinking. Do I need to worry about water remaining in the primers/flashole since I wont be depriming them or will they dry out fine in warm temperatures (I will be drying in a food dehydrator). Any other considerations I should make? Thanks!
 
I use a universal decaping die and remove the primers and then wet tumble before sizing.

And the longer you wet tumble the more the case mouth will be hit by the other cases and peen the case mouth.

After I wet tumble rifle cases I trim and deburr to remove any peening.
 
bigedp51 nailed it. I'd also add that you don't need any fancy cleaning solution. Fill your tumbler with hot tap water, pick your favorite cheap dish soap and add a small amount of lemi-shine (less is more here - learned that lesson the hard way) and you'll be set. You will get some metal pins stuck in your brass the first few times you run it. Simply throw them away.
 
bigedp51 said:
I use a universal decaping die and remove the primers and then wet tumble before sizing.

And the longer you wet tumble the more the case mouth will be hit by the other cases and peen the case mouth.

After I wet tumble rifle cases I trim and deburr to remove any peening.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tip! ill get a universal decapping die. Any recommendations on one?
 
If the water is not sudsy after wet tumbling then add more dishwashing liquid the next time. The soap holds the dirt in suspension and if the water is not sudsy your not cleaning. The amount of soap depends on how hard your water is

Tumbling time, less is more, the more and harder the cases hit the case mouth the more peening you will have.

I have a Lyman turbo tumbler for dry media, a STM wet tumbler and last year I bought a sonic cleaner. And the sonic cleaner is used more than anything else. It does not have the "bling" of wet tumbling but the cases are just as clean with no peened case mouths.

Below is a .44 Special case that was wet tumbled for slightly less than one hour. This case had been trimmed and deburred and the case mouth shows the dings and peening from tumbling. And when the case was expanded I would have small fine brass flakes inside the case. Meaning the expander was breaking loose the rolled over peened brass edges on the case mouth. This was the biggest reason for going with a sonic cleaner and not having to trim and deburr the cases to remove the peening.

fiSsctS.jpg


Below are two .243 cases, the case on the left is my falt, and forgot and let them tumble over eight hours. And this case had been trimmed and deburred on its last firing and really took a pounding. The case on the right is right out of the Winchester bag and shows the effect of factory tumbling.

So remember the cases hit each other when tumbled and hit the case mouth. And even a rotary media separator will let the cases hit each other and ding the case mouth.

CIxnlIW.jpg
 
I've settled on a slightly different process then most others.

I use Stainless chips, instead of pins. Noticeably less damage to the case mouth. And I've never had a single piece of metal stuck in the case. Though I still check. I empty the cases by grabbing them and turning them upside down in the water, all pins pour out of the case mouth. Overall its comparable to the speed of a media separator.

Max out the water. This also helps decrease potential peening of the case mouth.

I run 3lbs of SST chips in an SMT tumbler and generally clean between 200 and 400 cases. I've never noticed the need to increase the amount of chips, and no issues if I'm only running 50 cases.

Hot water, a big squirt of Dawn dish soap and just a tiny pinch of Citric acid. Run that for 30-40 minutes and the cases will be 95% clean. Not stupid shiny, but not damaged either. It really takes an exponentially longer amount of time to get a noticeable brighter or cleaner.
 
tdot said:
I've settled on a slightly different process then most others.

I use Stainless chips, instead of pins. Noticeably less damage to the case mouth. And I've never had a single piece of metal stuck in the case. Though I still check. I empty the cases by grabbing them and turning them upside down in the water, all pins pour out of the case mouth. Overall its comparable to the speed of a media separator.

Max out the water. This also helps decrease potential peening of the case mouth.

I run 3lbs of SST chips in an SMT tumbler and generally clean between 200 and 400 cases. I've never noticed the need to increase the amount of chips, and no issues if I'm only running 50 cases.

Hot water, a big squirt of Dawn dish soap and just a tiny pinch of Citric acid. Run that for 30-40 minutes and the cases will be 95% clean. Not stupid shiny, but not damaged either. It really takes an exponentially longer amount of time to get a noticeable brighter or cleaner.
Click to expand...


This is pretty much my process as well. One thing I have started to differently, especially with pistol brass, is to replace the Dawn detergent with a wash & wax automotive soap. Particularly when loading on a progressive, the belling powder funnel die tends to stick in ultra clean brass, requiring extra effort to pull the die out of the brass. When I switched to wash & wax, I found that it greatly decreased the effort required and made the whole process run smoother. As an added bonus, the wax seems to keep the brass from tarnishing over time.
 
tdot said:
I've settled on a slightly different process then most others.

I use Stainless chips, instead of pins. Noticeably less damage to the case mouth. And I've never had a single piece of metal stuck in the case. Though I still check. I empty the cases by grabbing them and turning them upside down in the water, all pins pour out of the case mouth. Overall its comparable to the speed of a media separator.

Max out the water. This also helps decrease potential peening of the case mouth.

I run 3lbs of SST chips in an SMT tumbler and generally clean between 200 and 400 cases. I've never noticed the need to increase the amount of chips, and no issues if I'm only running 50 cases.

Hot water, a big squirt of Dawn dish soap and just a tiny pinch of Citric acid. Run that for 30-40 minutes and the cases will be 95% clean. Not stupid shiny, but not damaged either. It really takes an exponentially longer amount of time to get a noticeable brighter or cleaner.
Click to expand...
I second the chips. They wont get stuck at all. Something I've started doing is I use a bit of car wash solution and lemi shine versus dawn and lemi shine. I've found it leaves a bit of residue that helps with resizing.
 
Bigeclipse said:
I ordered the Frankford arsenal lite, media pins, Frankford brass cleaner and Frankford media separator. I have never wet tumbled before so I have a couple questions. For rifle brass I will be sizing and depriming before tumbling. With cob/walnut tumbling....this could be problematic as the media would get stuck in the flash holes. Does this happen with the metal media? For pistol brass, I will be skipping the sizing a depriming step before cleaning as I use a progressive press and do not care about ultimate reliability or accuracy in my hand guns for plinking. Do I need to worry about water remaining in the primers/flashole since I wont be depriming them or will they dry out fine in warm temperatures (I will be drying in a food dehydrator). Any other considerations I should make? Thanks!
Click to expand...
I have been using SS pins, a few drops of Dawn dish soap and 1/2 teaspoon of Lemi Shine dish washing additive. I prime and size first of course and those that have seen my clean shells and have been using corn husk are amazed at how clean and bright they are. I do this to all my brass, pistol and rifle!
 
Bigeclipse said:
I ordered the Frankford arsenal lite, media pins, Frankford brass cleaner and Frankford media separator. I have never wet tumbled before so I have a couple questions. For rifle brass I will be sizing and depriming before tumbling. With cob/walnut tumbling....this could be problematic as the media would get stuck in the flash holes. Does this happen with the metal media? For pistol brass, I will be skipping the sizing a depriming step before cleaning as I use a progressive press and do not care about ultimate reliability or accuracy in my hand guns for plinking. Do I need to worry about water remaining in the primers/flashole since I wont be depriming them or will they dry out fine in warm temperatures (I will be drying in a food dehydrator). Any other considerations I should make? Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
I really like the final results with the Franklin tumbler system. One thing I did find out with 6.5 Creedmoor brass was that occasionally one of the metal pins would get stuck crossways in the neck. It was not a very common thing, but you do need to double-check all your brass for that when unloading it to dry from the tumbler. The pins were usually right at the very top of the neck. So doing any other brass with a similar neck size as the 6.5 CM, just check it. Other than that I have had no major issues.
 
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