Case cleaning/polishing preference ?

[armalitesheepdog]

Wet tumble. Stainless steel pins dawn dish soap and a little lemon shine.

 

[Virch]

I've used both methods. Dry tumbling, overall, is less processing time as I just chuck the brass in and let it go for a couple of hours. With wet tumbling, I use a Lee decapping die to knock out all the spent primers, then wet tumble for two hours in a mixture of dish detergent and 1/4 tsp lemishine, then dry the brass off in a towel, then move the brass to a toaster oven. I find that wet tumbling gets me cleaner brass, with less dust, so I've come to like it, even with the additional work over dry tumbling. I've considered adding stainless steel media, but I feel that for the level of cleanliness I'm already getting, it's not really worth it.

 

[Virch]

I will also add that I mainly use a a single stage press for all my reloading, so in my head it's really easy to divvy things up into batch processing. Wet tumbling is just another step in the batch process.

 

[Chewie]

Wet tumble. Stainless steel pins dawn dish soap and a little lemon shine.

I use the same recipe and it works great for me (even cleans the primer pocket).

 

[DadSmith]

I use vibratory dry tumbler. I use a 50/50 mix of walnut and corn cob. I'll post some pictures later have a batch of 10MM in it right now.

 

[Bill2905]

I do both wet and dry tumbling. Higher volume stuff gets dry tumbled and small volume stuff gets wet. Both methods are effective. Dry tumbling is easier and faster. Wet tumbling eliminates the grimy dust that often comes with dry tumbling.

 

[tsilveus]

I recently purchased a Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler (Platinum)- optics planet had it for $159 plus 5% off. I wasn't satisfied with my Hornady sonic cleaner (plus after 8 years it's starting to act up - I was probably using it too hard). So far (cleaned 1250 5.56 cases), it's so much better. Cases are clean and shiny. I use Armor All car wash soap, SS media pins and citric acid. After an 60-90 minutes, looks like new. Thinking about getting a dehydrator to dry quicker.

 

[tomcat13]

Not sure I if this means I'm Lazy or Crazy. I De-prime with a hammer & some Homemade punches, because I don't like running "Dirty" brass thru my Dies. Then I use Iosso (liquid) Case Cleaner-Soaking the brass for 5-10 minutes, with an occasional sloshing. Then Rinse with tap water & let em air dry. Bleaches em out better than New. BTW-Thanks Chewie for the De-hydrater idea-I'll be looking into that! If I want em Shiny, I'll throw em in the Tumbler with some Corn Cob media & a couple of drops of Nu Finish.

 

[Hawkeye7br]

Not sure I if this means I'm Lazy or Crazy. I De-prime with a hammer & some Homemade punches, because I don't like running "Dirty" brass thru my Dies. Then I use Iosso (liquid) Case Cleaner-Soaking the brass for 5-10 minutes, with an occasional sloshing. Then Rinse with tap water & let em air dry. Bleaches em out better than New. BTW-Thanks Chewie for the De-hydrater idea-I'll be looking into that! If I want em Shiny, I'll throw em in the Tumbler with some Corn Cob media & a couple of drops of Nu Finish.

A universal decapping die is under $20. One of the most useful tools on my bench. Much less time consuming than a punch and hammer.

 

[Hoosierdaddy1]

I love my thumlers with stainless media, little dawn and Lemi-shine and they come out spotless.

 

[russc2542]

I'm at the cleanliness/laziness balance point of using a splash of car wash soap, pinch of lemi-shine and no SS media. Just drain it, rinse it, toss it on the dryer.

I plumb my dillon casefeeder into my Lee APP to deprime beforehand. That makes for very fast batch processing.

 

[Dog1]

If it's really cruddy like when I shoot my suppressors, I will use a little Dawn dish soap a spoonful of lemon shine and just pour it between two buckets for a few minutes. Then I rinse it and then I will tumble it for maybe 30 minutes.

If it's not real dirty I will just tumble it in my Dillon large tumbler for an hour

 

[tomcat13]

A universal decapping die is under $20. One of the most useful tools on my bench. Much less time consuming than a punch and hammer.

I load quite a bit of once-fired 7.62 Mil brass & had some issues braking Decapping pins. Idk if the Mil Primers are Crimped or not, but they don't "fight" that Punch! lol

 

[Elcardo]

Wet tumble with dawn and lemishine in a ice mountain water jug on my treadmill , have run a couple at a time but could probably rig it to run 4 -5 of them

 

[rb288]

I have been reloading for 6 years now.
I started doing dry tumbling with crushed walnut shells.
It worked fine, but my brass just wasn't as "sparkly" as I wanted so I tried wet tumbling and wouldn't go back.
Yes, there is a bit more expense involved, as I also got a case dryer, but my brass is sparkly clean.
I was never one who was to concerned about sparkly brass until I started getting it, now I'm hooked.

 

[sheepdog697]

I like my rotary Frankford Tumbler.

See Post in thread 'Changing Tumbling Media'
https://www.indianagunowners.com/threads/changing-tumbling-media.504349/post-8654915

I use this with some lemi shine, and dawn dish soap. Works pretty darn good, and the volume you can clean at one time is pretty outstanding. Big fan of not dust as well.

 

[derrickgoins]

Still dry tumbling after over 10 years of reloading. I use a 50/50 walnut / corn cob mixture with an ounce or 2 of mineral spirits every few batches. Frankford Arsenal Quick N EZ is still going strong.

I actually picked up the 50/50 mixture from a guy on eBay and it's worked out well.

 

[tsilveus]

Update on my cleaning process. I was having issues with the homemade lanolin lube - it was really lubed but after cleaning the brass, I was still needing more prep and the brass was a gray color - i had to wipe down with alcohol to clean off remaining residue. I think I fixed my problem. I diluted the alcohol and lanolin mixture with more alcohol and I used a spray or two less when coating the brass (rifle only). I think the citric acid and armor all soap also reacted negatively to the brass and lube. So, less lube and I now wash in hot water in the FART with Goop - has pumice and some citrus component. The results have been fantastic. Clean and shiny brass with no residue left. I do not use steel pins, as of now.

 

[t-squared]

How much Goop are you using in your FART ?

For a full load I use 5 splurps of Dawn and a light shake of Lemi…..

 

[tsilveus]

How much Goop are you using in your FART ?

For a full load I use 5 splurps of Dawn and a light shake of Lemi…..

For a full load of 1000 cases, I use 3 pumps (next time I will measure and see how much that really is). I rinse three times with cold water.