Pros and Cons of stainless media cleaning

[30 Hammer]

Hi I currently de cap, clean in a sonic cleaner and then tumble in corn. Negative is time and that the primer pockets are still left fairly dirty. I clean my primer pockets with a uniformer every loading.
It looks like a stainless rotary cleaner would clean the primer pockets much better and maybe I'd end up with cleaner cases in less time going to stainless.

I am super anal about clean (pretty) brass. I'd like to know everyone's pros and cons of stainless media.

Thanks!

 

[Barrelnut]

I think the best method just depends on how many cases you tend to process and you work flow or lack thereof. I can have 50 cases run thru a sonic cleaner; cleaned, dried, and primer pockets touched up, and ready to run through a die in about 1.5 hrs. I think a lot of stainless tumblers run the cases about 3 hrs., then have to separate from the pins, and then dry before they are ready to run thru a die.

 

[Garycrow]

The pros are that it makes the cases look like new including cleaning the primer pocket.

The cons are that you have to get all the pins out and let the cases dry, plus it removes all carbon from inside the neck which can be a bad thing depending upon your point of view.

IMHO it's mostly done for looks, functionally it really doesn't do anything that cleaning in walnut or corn cob media won't do. I don't think the primer pocket makes any difference and I view the slight carbon residue in the neck as a plus for consistency. I don't really care how pretty my brass is, and I don't want to wait for it to dry so I'll stick with media tumbling.

 

[DartonJager]

The pros are that it makes the cases look like new including cleaning the primer pocket.

The cons are that you have to get all the pins out and let the cases dry, plus it removes all carbon from inside the neck which can be a bad thing depending upon your point of view.

IMHO it's mostly done for looks, functionally it really doesn't do anything that cleaning in walnut or corn cob media won't do. I don't think the primer pocket makes any difference and I view the slight carbon residue in the neck as a plus for consistency. I don't really care how pretty my brass is, and I don't want to wait for it to dry so I'll stick with media tumbling.

Question Garycrow,
Do you rice off your brass to remove the media dust form your brass once done cleaning or not and simply reload as is dust and all?

 

[cdherman]

I started tumbling in 1983 with a Thumbler's using walnut and rouge. Pretty on outside, but took a long time. Did nothing to the interior and primer pockets. Later upgraded to a Lyman Vibrator. Then when the stainless rage set in, I realized I already owned the Thumbler base and barrel and I was amazed that my 30 year old tumbler was still supported with parts. So on to stainless...

I like the beauty of a stainless tumbled case, but I admit that I am not sure all that pretty means much. It is far faster than vibrator cleaning. I have no experience with the ultrasonic cleaners.

You can make stainless tumbling faster with some tricks. Like a handful of magnets in your sink drain, a utility sink next to your reloading bench (or a forgiving wife in her kitchen), a gallon of ethyl alcohol, and an air compressor.

My process is to tumble with some dishwashing detergent and Lemishine (have never tried w/o the lemishine, so perhaps its not even needed). Take maybe 120 min.

With water running in the sink, pouring into the top of the open barrel, and the magnets in the drain to catch stray pins, I pull the cases out and tap out remaining pins. The water is running into the barrel and flushing the pins clean. This I think is the most tedious part. I am tossing the cases on a clean towel next to the sink.

Once cases are all out, then into a small container, and cover with ethyl etoh. This is a strong surface tension destroyer. It disperses remaining water. Agitate a little, not like a mixed drink, but just a gentle jiggle, and then pour off the etoh. Save the alcohol. It works for many batches, until the water content get too high. Don't pour back into your gallon can -- keep separate and don't contaminate the main gallon source.

And then a quick stroll to the garage where each case gets a blast of compressed air from the primer end, and dropped into a reloading block.

This all is pretty quick, and I then use a bright light to look down all the cases for pins and water. Which I have never found, but it seems like a good quality assurance step. Since the interiors of the cases are all bright and shiny, I can see the entire inside of the case, as well as the flash hole.....

I have always done this and then left the cases to dry for a day. Just in case. But I suspect between the alcohol and compressed air, there is no water left. Just being careful....

Sometimes, the cases are so clean and "raw" that the time in the air between pin removal and etoh will result in some slight discoloration. I don't know if there is a fix for that. I think that brass comes out of stainless media extremely clean, but this surface is very open to oxygen and even tiny amounts of acid in the water. Just my theory. The discoloration is minor when it happens.

The cons to stainless are really only present if you don't have good handy access to a sink. I would think that would just make stainless media not worth the effort.....

 

[Garycrow]

Question Garycrow,
Do you rice off your brass to remove the media dust form your brass once done cleaning or not and simply reload as is dust and all?

I use a bit of lyman media polish so it doesn't leave much if any dust. If it was dusty I'd just load it as is.

 

[codyadams]

I use a frankford arsenal tumbler, and there are functional benifits.

If you load range brass, or dirty military brass, or brass that has stains, it will clean it better than a corn cob tumbler will, and much faster. If you don't clean this brass, you will scratch your die, which will leave scratches on all your brass, and also make it more likely to get a stuck case.

In my frankford arsenal tumbler, I can clean around 200 rds of really dirty .308 brass effectively, and even brass covered it dirt, heavy fouling, stains and light corrosion came out looking brand new, inside and out, in 3 hours.

This is my procedure. I put the brass in my tumbler with about a tablespoon of dawn dish soap if I'm only cleaning a small amount, 2 tablespoons or a touch more if it's full. I run it for 3 hours, pull it out and go to the kitchen. I pour all the contents of the tumbler into a cloth shopping bag, rinse the dirty water out, then fill half the sink with water. If the shells are submerged, the stainless steel media does not cling to the shells, and falls right out. No need for air compressor or anything. So I pull the shells out from under water, the media falls out, and I then set them on a cookie sheet. I bake them in the oven at around 180-190 degrees for 45 min to an hour, and they are good.

I do this when my brass starts to get pretty dirty, or if I'm picking up some used brass. I'm not picky about cosmetics, but ill clean it every 4 or so firings. The time I'm actually doing something with it isn't much, set up is maybe 10 minutes, and getting it from the tub to the oven takes maybe 20 minutes or so. Not much time invested.

 

[Jester896]

I use Thumbler's SS media tumblers. There are two different size pins available. One will clean primer pockets better than the other but both do it very well. The smaller pins sometime get stuck in flash holes but it isn't a problem really, they push right out. Sometimes in .25-.26 cal they will get crossed up in the neck and the pins stay inside the case after the media separation process. I use the STM media separator. I have issues cleaning different size pistol cases, but don't generally have issues with different rifle cases. I have taken some brass a friend had in a 5 gal bucket outside for several years just to test how effective it could be. It cleaned it pretty much like new. It is not a fast process and then I have never found myself in a situation that I needed to load brass in an hour or so either. You can do about 100-110 .308 size cases at a time. 60-75 .300 Win Mag size cases at a time. 150-180 .223 size cases at a time.

If you are as super anal as you say, the few cons will fade with the results you get

 

[Prieto9000]

I've been using ss media for 2 years now with nothing but great results. A little dawn dish soap andlemishine in the water and you'll get beautiful like new cases in 3 hours.
After tumbling the cases I rinse the cases and media in the barrel for about 3-5 minutes under running water and then use the case catch provided with the frankford tumbler to hold the cases and pour the water and pins in a bucket.
Then you just use the frankford media separator magnet to pick up the pins from the bucket and voila!!
I also use the cookie method to dry the cases. I like to roll them on a dry towel before throwing them in the oven to remove any water drops from the outside because they leave marks when they dry out.

 

[Dosh]

I've tried media, brushes, sonic and everything else. Stainless media has freed me of cleaning primer pockets and worry of accidentally removing excessive material from them. The interior of cases is like new brass meaning no build up of fouling and exact same case capacity every reload. I have the Frankfort Arsenal which comes with 5# of pins. Some do not and 5# was $40 last I checked. Lyman now has a wet tumbler which looks very similar to the Frankfort. The wet processing is admittedly more time, but I have the time and appreciate the result. Don't believe I'd change unless a proven better process is developed. Lemi-Shine & Dawn till a better mousetrap comes along.

 

[desertbull]

I like the SS media because I HATE cleaning primer pockets.

1.5 hrs in the tumbler,

20 minutes in an old food dehydrator.

Clean, shiny brass with clean pockets.

 

[eshorebwhntr]

I hope to be able to test one day to see if the accuracy is better, worse, or no difference between the 2 methods but I haven't as of yet.

I bought the Lyman kit on Amazon about 3 weeks ago for I think around $160-170. The only things I added to the kit were a hand deprimer (Frankford Arsenal) and a magnet for cleaning up the pins. The main reason I went with the Lyman kit was because it came with the sifting trays. One tray catches your brass, the second tray catches your pins. Makes it pretty easy to take care of things at the sink. I then pulled the black plastic liner out of the ammo box and put all the cases in it neck down. I shake each one. A few case will still have some pins in them. Once I've gone through all the brass I put the tray over top of a heating vent in my utility room and leave it. This time of year the heat cycles somewhat frequently and the cases are dried out in no time.

When I was dry tumbling I was tumbling twice in my process. Once for usually 6-8 hours after shooting then again for about 2 hours after resizing to clean the lube off. The one thing I HATED about dry was having to go through with an allen wrench and pluck the media out of the flash hole that would inevitabley get stuck in about 80% of the cases. I also hate having to run the brass through the prep center to clean the primer pockets. Again, you may never see it at the target but I always did it.

I will say my brass is clean but I haven't yet acheived some of the "new" looking results that some guys have posted getting....mainly on the inside of the cases. Outside of the case looks great. I'm still pretty new to it so I'm going to give it some time and try some different things.

Wet Stainless Pro's
-cleaner brass faster
-no need for the prep center primer pocket cleaning
-no picking the media out of the flash holes
-cleans extremely dirty or tarnished brass better and faster (not important to me 99% of the time)

Wet Stainless Con's
-more expensive
-more steps
-drying time (minor issue, but included because it is needed in some form or fashion)

Dry Media Pro's
-cheap
-higher "polish" rather than a "clean" (if that makes any sense)
-relevant to outside of the cases only
-no drying needed

Dry Media Con's
-mainly only cleans and polishes the outside of the case
-inside case and primer pocket almost as dirty as before tumbling (whether it matters, who knows)
-media gets plugged in the flash hole and has to be plucked out manually each time
-extra manual step to clean primer pockets with a case prep tool if you desire them to be clean

 

[parshal]

I have an ultrasonic cleaner and a steel media tumbler. I usually run the tumbler for about an hour. The primer pockets may not be 100% clean at an hour but a quick twist with a pocket uniformer and they are clean. I use the ultrasonic cleaner to remove sizing lube before priming.

I wish I had a sink to separate everything. I have an RCBS media separator simply pour in clear water from an outside faucet and turn the handle. I use a magnet to pick up any that have gotten away from me on the driveway. I toss the brass on a towel and wipe them dry in bulk then use an air compressor to blow out air while checking for media in the case. I still let them air dry a bit or dry them in the oven at 150 or so. I like the idea of a dehydrator. I should pull mine out of storage and use that.

 

[BountyHunter]

They come out very clean. As stated before too clean!

IF you do not use some type of lube on the necks your neck seating tension will be all over the map if you measure it. I use the dry mica powder in small shot and my seating tension is back to normal.

I use an arbor seater with a guage so I know exactly what my seating pressure/tension is with no guesses.