• If you are being asked to change your password, and unsure how to do it, follow these instructions. Click here

Brass cleaning question

S

Snowfighter

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2012
Messages
54
Location
Northern California
Got a few questions about better brass cleaning procedures.

First. I've been using a ultra sonic case cleaner. Need some ideas for drying the brass besides just on a rack.

Second. Sometimes I like tumbling brass to get the insides of the cases done nicely. What medias are available that don't leave residue and dust inside the cases?

Thanks.
Joe
 
All well and good but you have to make a radical change in equipment because a conventional vibratory tumbler and stainless media wont work, especially with detergent added to the water (imagine a hot tub with dish soap added....foamy all over).

To run stainless media you have to use a rotary tumbler....and they ain't cheap.

I do it both ways depending on how dirty the brass is and what mood I'm in. Running stainless media is time consuming and involved because you have to load the tumbler, add water, add Lemishine and detergent, seal it up, tumble, dump the drum in a bucket so as not to loose the pins (in my case minature stainless steel balls) down the drain, scruffle the brass around to dislodge the stainless, get the brass out of the bucket, then rinse it and dry it whereas if you dry tumble, it's tumble, seperate the media (optionally rinse and dry) or jujst clean the flash holes of stray cob and reload. Like I said, depends on my mood.

I have taken normally tumbled (in cob) brass in the past and rinsed them in tap water to remove any dust inside and then dry them courtesy of my wife's dehydrator. I can get several hundred 308 cartridges in the dehydrator and it takes about a half hour to dry.

STM is nice but time consuming and patently messy. Good to have options.

Personally, I don't think that STM is the answer all to brass cleaning.
 
I have cob media vibratory tumblers, and also walnut hull.

I have a heated ultra sonic cleaner as well.

They are all not getting used these days since I bought the STM stainless media tumbler. To me it is the cats meow and I wish I would have had it all those years I used the old vibratory tumblers that never did a good job, and left all that darn cob and stuff stuck in the flash holes. I find the STM way easier, faster and does a much much better job in only 4 hours or less. Like new inside and out including primer pockets. I will never go back.



I pat mine dry on the outside by laying them on paper towels. Then a quick trip through the annealing machine and they are 100% dry. If not annealing I leaver sit over night neck down in a loading block.

Jeff
 
Thanks Jeff. Did some quick research as suggested. Very few nay sayers. Placed my order for the stainless media.
To me it seems less time consuming than corn cob or walnut tumbling. And more efficient than the sonic cleaner.
I guess I'll know for sure in a few days.

Joe
 
I didn't say that. What I said was if you have dry tumbling equipment in the first place, wet tumbling with STM is an entirely different matter and you know that as well as I do. Dry equipment don't work with wet media unless it was a drum tumbler in the first place.

So you get an ocassional piece of cob in a flash hole. No biggie. If STM was the Holy Grail of tumbling, thats all there would be. It isn't.

A piece of cob in a flash hole is better than watching your STM go down the drain because you got a bit overzealous washing the brass...

Wet or dry, I start the machine and let it go all night. It's in the shop, I'm in the house.

You can still send me your vibrating tumblers, I use them to polish parts.....

Nothing more and nothing less.

The OP asked for some advice. I gave mine and you gave yours. Just pointing out the positives and negatives of both methods.

Depending on what he reloads, he might be better off investing in an annealer and get the STM later on, but thats another subject.
 
Sidecarflip,
I'm reloading a few LR calibers. .280AI and a couple .338's.
I've got an annealing setup. Just trying to fine tune aspects of my loading setup. Trying to be consistent.
Joe.
 
I won't wade into the STM vs vibratory scrum - that seems to be a sensitive and highly emotional topic...

As far as drying brass, I towel it off and put it in the oven on "keep warm" which on my (wife's) oven is about 165F. 15 minutes and its bone dry.

I worry that even if I let it sit overnight to dry at room temp, a case or two may have one drop inside that migrated to a corner and didn't evaporate. I have NO empirical evidence of this, just pure paranoia.
 
SidecarFlip said:
All well and good but you have to make a radical change in equipment because a conventional vibratory tumbler and stainless media wont work, especially with detergent added to the water (imagine a hot tub with dish soap added....foamy all over).

To run stainless media you have to use a rotary tumbler....and they ain't cheap.

I do it both ways depending on how dirty the brass is and what mood I'm in. Running stainless media is time consuming and involved because you have to load the tumbler, add water, add Lemishine and detergent, seal it up, tumble, dump the drum in a bucket so as not to loose the pins (in my case minature stainless steel balls) down the drain, scruffle the brass around to dislodge the stainless, get the brass out of the bucket, then rinse it and dry it whereas if you dry tumble, it's tumble, seperate the media (optionally rinse and dry) or jujst clean the flash holes of stray cob and reload. Like I said, depends on my mood.

I have taken normally tumbled (in cob) brass in the past and rinsed them in tap water to remove any dust inside and then dry them courtesy of my wife's dehydrator. I can get several hundred 308 cartridges in the dehydrator and it takes about a half hour to dry.

STM is nice but time consuming and patently messy. Good to have options.

Personally, I don't think that STM is the answer all to brass cleaning.
Click to expand...

It sounded to me like he already had a rotary tumbler . They are not that expensive if you build your own . Just buy the RCBS tumbler barrels and build the rest .
 
After using stainless media I bring my wet brass over to my air compressor and blow them dry inside and out, then lay them in front of the fan that runs 24/7 in my garage. No problems at all, and the next day they are both sparkling clean and dry.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 11 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

Stewart2550
Brass cleaning question
Replies
9
Views
882
bert2368
bert2368
F
Cleaning question
Replies
1
Views
849
556
5
W
Cleaning brass
3 4 5
Replies
60
Views
4K
orkan
orkan
M
Brass cleaning
Replies
5
Views
1K
montana bob
M
W
Brass Cleaning
Replies
13
Views
3K
RTK
R

Recent Posts

Top