willtim
Well-Known Member
I need to get a tumbler. I have 7mm-08 to 338 WM brass. What is the latest/greatest? Thanks
Cleaning brass
- Thread starter willtim
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I went to Harbor Freight and got one. I then got some steel pin media.
snox801
Well-Known Member
I use the Franklin vibrating one. Also have a cheap harbor freight ultrasonic. I give quick tumble wipe down and size. Then brass prep and toss into ultrasonic. Then to dry them and make em shiny they go back into the walnut.
Avoid pins. Avoid any wet process.
Use the vibratory bowl tumbler of your choice, and rice. Specifically this rice I'll link below, as many types of rice are very bad and produce many negative elements.
We will also be listing milled rice for sub-caliber brass very soon on our online store. We've been selling a bit of it to folks via phone as early adopters. So far the feedback has been great.
Do not try to get the brass to sparkle. This is a massive mistake for precision rifle ammo. Instead, get it clean. Leaving some of the powder residue in the correct way is a very significant part of making rifles shoot 1/4 moa. Overly polished brass works against this in the most unpleasant ways.
If you're not going to try the rice, then you'll want to stick to traditional walnut.
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snox801
Well-Known Member
Quick question. Why rice over walnut? Why not anything wet? And what negative can be from clean brass?
I'm not by any means an expert so I'm looking to learn everyday. Is the clean brass hard to get the right tension on bullets?
I don't go over board but I'm sure I over clean. Good news is I can't shoot well enough to ever notice.
Thanks
I'm not by any means an expert so I'm looking to learn everyday. Is the clean brass hard to get the right tension on bullets?
I don't go over board but I'm sure I over clean. Good news is I can't shoot well enough to ever notice.
Thanks
crashlanding
Well-Known Member
Cheap and easy, grey or purple scotch brite with a Lee case holder/trim pilot. Gets the carbon off the neck, brass looks spectacular
I use the Franklin tumbler with only soap and lemi shine. This is for dirty brass with carbon on neck. Cleans brass perfectly.....actually too good. Takes too much carbon off inside of necks, so I run mine in dirty Lizard bedding walnut media in Lyman vibratory for at least an hour. My neck tension is all over the place if I dont. The lyman if case necks are clean and plain old lizard nuts.
Don't bother cleaning Brass. Look at all the time it takes away from reloading. Just buy new Brass and send us your once fired brass (preferably Lapua) and we will recycle them. We are eccoo Friendly. I will PM you our address where you can send.
Thanks
Len & Jill
snox801
Well-Known Member
You laugh but I used to do that with my .257 weatherby. I had more money than time. But I'm glad I kept it. Now I load for mine and a buddy's and that brass doesn't hold up well.
So far, with every person under my mentorship... this is at least part of the reason you can't shoot well enough to notice.
This is a quite complex topic that I'm long overdue to produce a video for. If you'd like to call next week to get the run down, I'd be happy to. Though the short version is that the bullet seating force and subsequent force variation generated by sparkling clean neck ID's drastically affect down range performance.
I've seen this one singular factor change a persons bullet seating force from roughly 200 lbs. with nearly 70 lbs. of variation, to 50lbs, with less than 6lbs of variation across the batch of 100 cases. I've repeated this demonstration in many of my videos, where I demonstrate that new brass which is sparkly clean, produces a massive amount of seating force... where as that same brass that has been through my prescribed process, produces around 40lbs. The results on target are astonishing. (provided the shooter and the shooters rifle can carry their responsibilities)
You can see some of what I reference in this video below. I was speaking in the video specifically about annealing, however, the brand new brass and its squeaky clean neck even more to blame. It's often hard to pick things up like this during my videos, because I'm often trying to guide the viewer into better performance and it's important that they stay on track.
Generally speaking, the average handloader has so much white noise in their processes and equipment, that no singular change will reveal much of anything. This doesn't seem to stop anyone from giving advice however.
Keep in mind here, I'm not suggesting that a shooter looking for 1/2-3/4 MOA is likely to benefit at all or notice anything I'm saying. Yet a shooter looking for consistent .3's, .2's, or better... with no flyers... would do well to listen to what I have to say and follow the methods outlined on my youtube channel.
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Barrelnut
Well-Known Member
I don't clean brass. IMO, it's a huge waste of time. Neither does Erik Cortina and he's hard to argue with. I wipe the outside off with a papertowel and 91% iso alcohol, run a neck brush through the neck, clean the primer pocket with a good primer pocket tool, anneal it, size it, trim, and load. Bullets seat very predictably.
snox801
Well-Known Member
Thanks that's what I'm looking for and you are not the only person to tell me that. In fact I know some great ones that only polish outside with steel wool.
Makes total sense to me. Just seems I have to clean mine more than I'd like cause they get so bad when shooting a can.
I'll adjust this part of my prep and see how it goes. Thanks
Makes total sense to me. Just seems I have to clean mine more than I'd like cause they get so bad when shooting a can.
I'll adjust this part of my prep and see how it goes. Thanks
snox801
Well-Known Member
That's in fact who I was referring to. If memory serves I think Bobby hart mentioned it also.
