Cermic or Stainless steel media

[xring]

Cy , to get rid of the water easier , maybe you could just dunk them in 91% Rubbing Alcohol which is cheap and available at Walmart , etc . The normal Rubbing Alcohol is something like 70% but would take longer to evaporate . I would just dunk them into the 91% , shuffle them around in a big towel , and lay them out in the Sun . Not sure about safety of heating the Brass .

[Reddirt204]

Personally, I'm sold on stainless steel.

I used to ultra sonic clean but to slow and rather hit and miss, I made my own tumbler from an old tread mill and a 10" PVC pipe joiner. I run 15 pounds of media and use a 5ltr ice cream tub for brass,once it's full I crank up the tumbler.
Drying in my area isn't normally a problem (110 plus for summer) but I hear a lot of people using old dehydrator's. I have used a metho rinse method to help things along, worked quite well.

The big advantage I see over ceramic media is the fact the S/S is magnetic, very easy to pick up ('cause they do escape..)

hope this helps

cheers

Reddirt204

[sdbirddogs]

Another thumbs up for SS. I use a media separator with distilled water to separate the pins. No spotting when the brass dries. I use a hair dryer and a colander to dry the brass.

[georgeld]

A neighbor rigged up a 5 gal plastic bucket, electric motor, belt, on some
old rubber wheels for his. I don't know whether it's run wet or dry though.
Haven't talked to him in over a yr.
Really need to walk down there and visit the guy as his health isn't much better than mine I hear.

Far as magnets and SS pins, they're not FULL stainless or the magnet wouldn't work on them. Guess there's just enough nickle in them to keep them from rusting.

I've had about 20# of ceramic for yrs but never used it yet. Once I get back to loading and cleaning cases maybe I'll give it a try.

Again, who sells the pins?

Thanks much.

[nvreloader]

I got my SS pins here:

http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.co...FWRyQgod6V8A1Q


This is some info I have observed and noted when using SS pins,

I have been using these SS pins for the past 6 -8 months now, they are better than sliced bread, I will never go back to walnut hulls, rice hulls etc again, no DUST,etc.

I am using a 70's vintage Thumblers Model B, hot water, Lemi shine, Dawn Dish soap, and run for about 2-4hrs, on real dirty brass, and about a hour on already cleaned brass and use an old food dryer to dry brass on over night, during the winter time.

I have a 3 gal bucket/pail that has 1/8" Hardware cloth/screen pop riveted to the cutout bottom which fits inside of a 5 gallon bucket, I dump the dirty water, SS pins, cleaned brass inside the 3gal pail, agitate while rinsing with water inside the 5 gal bucket.

All the SS pins are collected inside the 5 gal bucket during the rinse, I drain off 95% of the very dirty water and then place my HD magnet on top of the SS pins, and finish draining off the rest of the water.

I have a 4" HD speaker magnet, which is placed inside a cottage cheese plastic bucket to drop into the water after 95% of the water is drained off, this magnet will hold onto the pins, so you don't lose any while rinsing, while I finish draining off the rest of the water.

The SS pins are then dumped into the tumbler barrel, magnet will collect any remaining pins, transfer the HD magnet to thumber barrel and take magnet out of plastic tub and they will fall inside barrel, ready for the next cycle.

I noticed some brass and SS specks in the water while rinseing the brass, and I think I have traced it down to the spec's of brass coming from around the primer pocket flash holes and stuck to the inside of the cases.

I did a batch without doing anything to them (NEW BRASS, never fired/prepped) and had a lot "Brass colored" specs, put a batch of well used brass only cleaned with Walnut Hulls prior, and prepped my usual way (BR style) and the color was there, but only slightly.

Reran this same batch of (W Hulls) and the color was barely there. I kinda think that these SS pins do a though cleaning and it is knocking loose these burrs left around the inside of the case/flash hole area etc.

I have sectioned and measured everything (before/after) and can NOT find any difference inside or out side, some of this color was from the SS pins, I think, where they were chopped off, as a magnet would collect some of it.

If you want REAL aggressive action, reduce your water level to about half a barrel, I cleaned a bunch of the Russian STEEL cases this way, made them look like they were hand buffed matt finish, (curious to see the results), left them out over night to dry and they looked like Irish Setter Pups, just from the over nite moisture in the air.

I have used these SS pins to remove the varnish finish off my 5.7 OEM cases that are formed into 17 Kit Fox cases, does a real good job.

Had a bunch of rusty sockets, water leaked into bed tool box in the PU, use the SS pins to clean up real nice, then boiled them on the stove in Hot water, remove and let dry for a minute and used WD-40 coating, can't tell they were even rusty.

I forgot one other thing NOT TO DO, don't let the cleaned brass set overnite, as you WON'T like the out come.
Rinse/clean/dry as soon as you turn off the thumbler, the brass shines and looks better.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Well, the test is done!
I was curious to see if the SS pins could/would damage cases/brass.

So I gathered up a bunch of brass, in the following sizes, 38ACP, 38SPCL, 357Mag, 357Sig, 9mm, 380ACP, 40SW, 308, 30/06 calibers, this is all the sizes I had on hand, for this test. This was old brass,from the 60's, to present day 2013yr brass, factory once fired and reloaded lots of brass, all major makes/brands, range pick ups etc, punched the primers out, nothing more done to the brass, the total amount of this mixed brass was 300+ rds.

Filled the Model B/15# thumbler w/(1/2gallon) normally use 1 gal of Hot H2o, shot of Dawn and the required Lemi-Shine. Note: by using 1/2 gal of water,this is the an very aggressive cleaning action, as compared to a full 1 gallon load),which has a more cushioning effect of the water for the cases, etc.

Set up the thumbler and turned it ON, It ran for 7 days straight, 24hrs p/day,+ 12 extra hours, except for a belt break,that happened while I was checking the progress, which took less than a minute to replace. I dumped the VERY FILTHY water, normal amount of spec's in the water, no spec's of SS was collected via the magnet,still had very minor soap bubbles left, rinsed/dried the cases in the normal manner.

I set up 7 cases as a control batch, took 40SW and inserted a 9mm case (old and new brass) inside,and lightly crimped the 40 case, as to retain the 9mm case inside the 40SW case. This was used to see the difference when removed, should show any difference of before & after in the outside finish, and condition of the cases before they went into the tumbler.

Note:
This is the FIRST time I have EVER had the SS pins stick in any flash hole, in ANY of the brass I have cleaned, so far. I found 10-15 9mm cases & 1-38 SPCL case with two pins stuck in each flash hole, these were set aside for closer inspection, to possibly discover, WHY.

My thumbler turns at 20 rev's p/minute, so I'll let you figure out HOW many rev's were made by this brass, It's a bunch!!!!!!! RIGHT? There were pictures taken from before and after this test,of all the brass, and this includes close ups (to the best of my ability) of the test cases, to show the difference etc.

More followup information about the results, of extended thumbling with SS pins,

On the 9mm/38Spcl cases that had stuck SS pins in the flash holes, I found the following information.

All of these SS pins had an "L" shaped little hook on the ends from where they were chopped/sheared off during the making of these pins. It appears that while thumbling around, a pin would enter from one side of the flash hole and another pin would enter from the other side and they would wedge/stick inside the flash holes.

The average flash hole diameters measured were:
.072"=380 cases
.078"=9mm cases
.078"=38SPCL cases
.072"=357 Sig cases
.074"=38 Super cases
.076"=357 Mag cases
.074"=40SW cases
.074"=30/06 cases

To remove these pins, I had to push one pin back out of the hole and then the other would fall free, I could not both pins to push out of the hole at the same time, as they would stick/hang up on the little "L" shaped ends and would not come loose. (see picture).

On the 40SW/9mm case combos, that were made as test samples, after pulling apart these cases, in every sample of cases, there were SS pins inside the 40SW case, they varied in amount of 2-4 pins (base inserted first)to 6-10 pins (9mm case mouth inserted first), and one test sample that had a primered 9MM case head inserted inside, there were 3 SS pins inside, that had entered from the 40SW primer hole.

I had weighed all the 30/06 cases before running the test and then reweighed these same cases after the test, and NO DIFFERENCES in weights could be found using the electronic scales. I figured that being the heaviest brass (in weight) that these should show any differences as compared to the lighter cases, the 308 case was resized from an 30/06 case and then trimmed to standard length, and no weight difference could be measured.

I have come to this conclusion, IMHO, that these SS pins WILL NOT DAMAGE the case/brass, at least as found in this test, I would believe that after 180+ straight hours of thumbling, well over 201,600 rev's, some evidence would have shown up.

I have been retaking some of the pictures to better show the results, Hopefully, as picture taking is NOT in my bag of expertise, at least with the little Olympus FE-110 camera I use.

Note: All of this brass was nickle plated.

FYI, for those that have the SS pins already, be aware of this fact, depending on where you bought your pins from, there are at least 4 different sizes (diameters) that run from .033", .041", .062" and 0.125" in diameters and from .255" to .500" in length, that I have found.

I know from my tests, the .033"x255" pins I have will stick 2 pins in SOME case primer holes, 9mm/38 Splc calibers, that I know of.

Note: I have info that the pins from Buffalo arms.com are .041"x.265" will stick in the flash holes of 223 & 30/30 brass.

Tia,
Don

[stephen perry 1]

Not quite as civilized as you SS guys on cleaning brass. I use a simple Midway vibrating tumbler with crushed walnut. I don't clean large quanities of brass, 100 pieces would be allot to me usually 20 pieces.

My routine is deprime cases without sizing tumble 15-20 minutes wipe off dust. I mount the tumbler on my cast bullet table not much noise. Usually working on another set of brass during the 15-20 minutes. That's it.

Stephen Perry

[TinMan]

George, fully austenitic SS, like a 300 Series, is not attracted by a magnet. The 400 Series are ferritic or martensitic and are attracted by a magnet.

[GoatsngunsGmk]

I too love the SS media, I dry my brass with compressed air and an industrial heat gun, they get hot enough that you can't touch them, but they do the same when fired. I would guess that the temp would be around 250-300. They are dry with zero water spots in less that 2 minutes.

One note the, 30 carbine brass has the ability to collect up to eight pins bridged inside: six in the case and 2 in the flash hole. Most other calibers have pins stuck in he flash hole at the rate of 2-5 per 100. I have the 1500 RPM model and I run it from 2 to 8 hours depending on the brass. All in all a good investment.

Gary

[JLDakota]

SS in Thumblers Tumbler B shines all brass from hornet, 223 etc. either brass or nickel plated to any thing I've ever had opportunity to shoot since Nam and any pistol brass both nickel and brass better then any of us have a right to expect. I deprime all the brass and don't care how dirty the brass or how old, 99.99% of it all comes out super shiny inside and out in the tumbler w/SS media. I've tried 2,3 &4 hours. Settled on 3 hrs. I've been doing a little less then a gallon of hot water (but will put less the next load per the suggestion above) Lemishine and a little squirt of dish soap is magic. I use a 6" tea strainer in the sink drain and pour the tumbler into it and it catches all the little SS pins that slip by in the stream of water into the drain. Big magnet gets any strays. Pour all the cartridges and SS pins in a media separator and cover with hot water and turn separator for a minute or so with handles and that gets rid of the soap and 99% of media into bottom of tub holding separator. Empty that water into tea strainer sitting over drain and dump SS media back into tumbler. Cover brass in separator with hot water again for final rinse and spin til I'm satisfied that all media is out of brass. Take separator full of cleaned brass and pour out on a beach towel on carpet. Roll all the shiny brass around on the towel and 90% of the water is taken up by the towel nearly immediately. In as little as a couple hours brass is dry inside and out for the most part. I often leave the last batch of the evening dry overnight on the towel. Last step is to check each cartridge for SS in flash holes. Approx 3-5 pieces of brass have two SS pieces sticking out flashhole in two lbs of brass. I push them down towards the bottom of primer pocket with small metal scribe and poke them out to be caught with the magnet under the neck of the brass. If I am in a hurry to check the brass within an hour or so, I sometimes end up with a water bubble in the flashhole that hasn't dried. I blow it out from the base with my mouth and its good to go. I believe the Lemishine is a big part of how shiny the brass gets. I've never tried it with just plain soap and water so I'm just guessing on that. I've done about 9K pieces and will never use any other method in this lifetime nor next. Jim

[ramos]

Don, that is quite an interesting experiment you conducted! I have mentioned this before but, will mention it again. If you are looking for a potential bargain on a rotary tumbler, try craigslist and use "rock tumbler" to search. Mine ended up being an old Delorne unit with a 1/2HP external motor, 1.5 & 3.0 gallon can, both octagon. These old units are way more robust than the Thumler. Mine uses a "B" belt and the rollers are 1/2" running on pillow block bearings. Think the seller was asking for something like $75.00 and I ended up trading about $50.00 worth of my stuff for it. I have not switched to SS yet but, I will when my current batch of media is used up.