Question for those that wet tumble

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  • guzma393

    Active Member
    Jan 15, 2020
    736
    Severn, MD
    Other than the dust, I've never seen a reason to wet tumble - it just doesn't get things functionally any cleaner than dry. Maybe if I was a competition bench rest shooter, I'd want to take the case back down to its basest basic format - as clean as a whistle inside and out - but for what I do, the vibratory tumbler is where it's at for me. I don't have to worry about pins, I don't have to worry about drying, and I don't have to worry about red rot - that's something else that can happen with wet tumbling.



    Red rot is basically the de-zincification of brass where the zinc gets leached out due to a chemical reaction, leaving just the copper behind. What's left behind is very weak and brittle. Red rot, if it gets bad, is the kiss of death for brass musical instruments. I've seen situations on reloading groups where someone wound up with a whole bunch of ruined brass because of that - I've never seen that with dry tumbling.
    It's mainly the dust for me. I frequently tumble really grimy, bottom of the bucket brass that would probably get dry media all dirty and gunked up in a few cycles. Soap, water, and citric acid sounds cheaper and more expendable.

    Red rot can totally be avoided while wet tumbling. This occurs because of adding too much citric acid. If you really want to get "scientific" with it, you can grab those litmus paper test kits to see how acidic/basic the solution is.

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    trickg

    Guns 'n Drums
    MDS Supporter
    Jul 22, 2008
    14,598
    Glen Burnie
    It's mainly the dust for me. I frequently tumble really grimy, bottom of the bucket brass that would probably get dry media all dirty and gunked up in a few cycles. Soap, water, and citric acid sounds cheaper and more expendable.

    Red rot can totally be avoided while wet tumbling. This occurs because of adding too much citric acid. If you really want to get "scientific" with it, you can grab those litmus paper test kits to see how acidic/basic the solution is.

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    If I had a source for a bunch of grimy range brass (which I would LOVE) I'd probably have a setup for both - I'd wet tumble the range brass to get it clean, and dry tumble from then on out. I mean, it really wouldn't be too much skin off my back to get into wet tumbling - the smaller FA setup is only $80 - I've paid that much for a set of dies.
     

    Pinecone

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 4, 2013
    28,175
    I have dry tumbled some pretty bad looking range brass.

    Most of it cleaned up with several hours.

    But even it did not, it was fine, just looked dark.
     

    shocker998md

    Ultimate Member
    May 29, 2009
    1,357
    Snow Hill MD
    So far the only pain has been getting the pins out of 556. Ive had some old nasty range pickup that cleaned up well.

    I'm thinking I'll be able to cut the time down for normal use brass, and my big reason to swap was the dust and mess I was making with crushed walnut.

    Thanks for all the info guys
     

    trickg

    Guns 'n Drums
    MDS Supporter
    Jul 22, 2008
    14,598
    Glen Burnie
    I've been working my way through a bucket of fairly cruddy once-fired 9mm brass. I had been using a mix of walnut and corn cob, but it was really really really dirty so I swapped it out with some walnut lizard litter I had. I'm running the tumbler about 6 hours per load, and it's getting it pretty clean, but it's far from being polished. The cases are smooth though, so it will reload up ok, but I wonder if I couldn't get them a lot cleaner and maybe even polished if I was wet tumbling.
     

    guzma393

    Active Member
    Jan 15, 2020
    736
    Severn, MD
    I've been working my way through a bucket of fairly cruddy once-fired 9mm brass. I had been using a mix of walnut and corn cob, but it was really really really dirty so I swapped it out with some walnut lizard litter I had. I'm running the tumbler about 6 hours per load, and it's getting it pretty clean, but it's far from being polished. The cases are smooth though, so it will reload up ok, but I wonder if I couldn't get them a lot cleaner and maybe even polished if I was wet tumbling.

    6 hours sounds like forever to me. I wet tumbled some ~500 really sandy and growdy looking 223 last weekend, some even looked like steel cased ammo. I tumbled it for 30 minutes and they came out "smokey" colored and frosted looking; typical signs that the cleaning solution was way too contaminated with junk and grit. I used a media separator with water poured in the tub to sift out all the sand out of the cases (i don't use steel pins) and re-tumbled it again with new cleaning solution for 30 minutes. Cases came out so bright that staring at it at a sunny day almost gave me a migraine. I then towel dried them, purged out unfavorables, and sticked them in an oven at 170C for an hour to dry.
     

    axshon

    Ultimate Member
    May 23, 2010
    1,938
    Howard County
    I'm also a convert to wet tumbling. I hated the dust from the dry tumbler and it went everywhere. I use SS pins with a Frankford rotary separator. Always amazed at how well that works. I dump the pins on a towel to dry off so they are dry when stored. Dehydrator to dry the brass. Usually, the day before I want to reload I'll tumble all the brass for a couple of hours with dawn and lemishine then throw it in the dehydrator for a few hours overnight. Good as new in the morning. One thing I have found is that really clean brass lets you see damage much more easily than dry tumbled. I've found a few split cases on 223 and 9mm. That's just me and my old eyes though. In addition, it also makes it really easy to see which rifle brass has been annealed. Drips everywhere while you're emptying things but working at the shop sink it's no big deal. For the tumbler it makes a hell of a racket so I put a storage bin over it and a couple of UHaul shipping blankets over that. Quiets it right down.
     

    trickg

    Guns 'n Drums
    MDS Supporter
    Jul 22, 2008
    14,598
    Glen Burnie
    6 hours sounds like forever to me. I wet tumbled some ~500 really sandy and growdy looking 223 last weekend, some even looked like steel cased ammo. I tumbled it for 30 minutes and they came out "smoky" colored and frosted looking; typical signs that the cleaning solution was way too contaminated with junk and grit. I used a media separator with water poured in the tub to sift out all the sand out of the cases (i don't use steel pins) and re-tumbled it again with new cleaning solution for 30 minutes. Cases came out so bright that staring at it at a sunny day almost gave me a migraine. I then towel dried them, purged out unfavorables, and stuck them in an oven at 170C for an hour to dry.
    See, it's posts like this that make me start itching to give it a try. It wouldn't even be that hard - the smaller FA isn't that expensive, and more and more I'm reading that you don't even need pins - just solution, your brass, and the tumbling action does the rest.

    It's definitely piquing my interesting.
     

    guzma393

    Active Member
    Jan 15, 2020
    736
    Severn, MD
    See, it's posts like this that make me start itching to give it a try. It wouldn't even be that hard - the smaller FA isn't that expensive, and more and more I'm reading that you don't even need pins - just solution, your brass, and the tumbling action does the rest.

    It's definitely piquing my interesting.
    The pins really help clean the cases inside and out, as well as polish it to an exceptional shine. The pic below was the cleanest I've ever gotten brass tumbled with ss pins.

    I've since set the bar to get brass clean enough to only identify defects easier. Brass still tarnishes and picks up oil from being handled overtime. I try not to overthink it and just go for efficiency.
    cbf9f7ce53fa776b02410a9f6a6bf8d1.jpg


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    shocker998md

    Ultimate Member
    May 29, 2009
    1,357
    Snow Hill MD
    See, it's posts like this that make me start itching to give it a try. It wouldn't even be that hard - the smaller FA isn't that expensive, and more and more I'm reading that you don't even need pins - just solution, your brass, and the tumbling action does the rest.

    It's definitely piquing my interesting.

    So I worked through a 40mm can of 556 brass that was old and nasty. Range pickups from two years ago, had dirt and water sealed up in it. Some of the brass was completely brown.

    2 hrs in the wet tumbler with ss pins, water, and frankford arsonol cleaner and most of it cleaned up decent to good. But this stuff started out rough! I'm going to swap over to soap and lemi shine for cost purposes once I use up what I have.

    If your cleaning normal dirty brass you can get away with 30 min to an hour and then roll right into drying.
     

    85MikeTPI

    Ultimate Member
    Jul 19, 2014
    2,699
    Ceciltucky
    See, it's posts like this that make me start itching to give it a try. It wouldn't even be that hard - the smaller FA isn't that expensive, and more and more I'm reading that you don't even need pins - just solution, your brass, and the tumbling action does the rest.

    It's definitely piquing my interesting.

    I grabbed a Thumbler a few years ago, but found that wet tumbling was a PITA for cleanup/drying compared to dry so it got shuffled to the corner. Reading some of the posts here about NOT using SS pins was enough to get me to try it and it actually makes the process feasible for me again. I've been given some nasty brass thats been poorly stored for years and the walnut just never recovered it. An hour in the wet (dawn and a dash of citric acid) made them almost new again..
     
    Last edited:

    85MikeTPI

    Ultimate Member
    Jul 19, 2014
    2,699
    Ceciltucky
    Stepped up the game a bit with my HF mini mixer that I was using with 25lb of walnut and ~2gal of brass for 4-6hr runs. Going wet I was able to process an entire 5gal bucket of brass at one time, and for only 1hr runtime. Few squirts of Dawn and dash of lemishine and the process worked great (No SS pins). I'm holding off doing more until I can get full 75deg sunshine days for drying.



    IMG_0497.jpg
    This just begs for a caption:
    She: You'll pull out in time, right?
    Me: ...

    IMG_0499.jpg
     

    U.S.SFC_RET

    Ultimate Member
    Dec 8, 2005
    6,699
    In my case I find wet tumbling extremely useful. Biggest purpose is to get the dirt off the cases. I don't see a reason to use the pins as they still remain in the bag serving as a door stop.

    2.5 hours wet tumbling. a healthy squirt of dish detergent, a teaspoon of Millards citric acid and hot water.

    .5 hours rinse with fresh detergent.

    Cleaned
     

    Scrounger

    Active Member
    Jul 16, 2018
    357
    Southern Maryland
    When it comes to the topic of cleaning brass with dry media or wet tumbling there are several questions that need to be asked. Simply put, how much brass needs to be cleaned and how shiny do you want it.

    However, there is one thing to get out of the way. There is cleaning and polishing, and sometimes they get mixed up. At a minimum, the brass needs to be cleaned enough so that it will not damage the dies during the reloading process. After that it becomes polishing. How shiny one wants their brass to be is an individual choice.

    Each process has its advantages and disadvantages, and it isn’t necessary to repeat them since that is a topic that has been discussed enough.

    If one wants clean and shiny brass most variants of the wet method will produce the desired result. The problem for me is that one is limited to doing relatively small quantities of brass when wet tumbling.

    Most of the commercial reloaders use a combination method. They wash the brass with soap and water, then after rinsing, clean the brass again with a solution of soap and the “secret” stuff. After rinsing, the damp brass is loaded into a dry media tumbler for the final cleaning. This method has several advantages. By cleaning the brass in soap and water to start, most of the dirt will be removed. The result is the dry media lasts longer because there is less dirt going into it. Then since the brass is still damp when it goes into the dry mixer the dust is reduced. And finally, by the time the damp brass has finished tumbling it is dry.

    I’m hoping that Harbor Freight will have a sale on mixers so I can get one just for washing brass. Given the supply chain problems I’m not optimistic and may just have to bite the bullet and pay regular price.
     

    85MikeTPI

    Ultimate Member
    Jul 19, 2014
    2,699
    Ceciltucky
    When it comes to the topic of cleaning brass with dry media or wet tumbling there are several questions that need to be asked. Simply put, how much brass needs to be cleaned and how shiny do you want it.

    However, there is one thing to get out of the way. There is cleaning and polishing, and sometimes they get mixed up. At a minimum, the brass needs to be cleaned enough so that it will not damage the dies during the reloading process. After that it becomes polishing. How shiny one wants their brass to be is an individual choice.

    Each process has its advantages and disadvantages, and it isn’t necessary to repeat them since that is a topic that has been discussed enough.

    If one wants clean and shiny brass most variants of the wet method will produce the desired result. The problem for me is that one is limited to doing relatively small quantities of brass when wet tumbling.

    Most of the commercial reloaders use a combination method. They wash the brass with soap and water, then after rinsing, clean the brass again with a solution of soap and the “secret” stuff. After rinsing, the damp brass is loaded into a dry media tumbler for the final cleaning. This method has several advantages. By cleaning the brass in soap and water to start, most of the dirt will be removed. The result is the dry media lasts longer because there is less dirt going into it. Then since the brass is still damp when it goes into the dry mixer the dust is reduced. And finally, by the time the damp brass has finished tumbling it is dry.

    I’m hoping that Harbor Freight will have a sale on mixers so I can get one just for washing brass. Given the supply chain problems I’m not optimistic and may just have to bite the bullet and pay regular price.

    Great perspective. My main goal right now is to clean the 55gal drum of mixed headstamp 223/556, enough so that I can read the headstamps for sorting. Once sorted, most of the cleaning will be small batch and mostly dry media as I'll be cleaning my own fired brass, not nasty bulk range brass.
     

    shocker998md

    Ultimate Member
    May 29, 2009
    1,357
    Snow Hill MD
    I just did a batch of 9mm so that makes it my 3rd run of brass. I like it. I'm using the pins, my 556 was NASTY, hot water and the frankford solution. Once I run out I'm going to dawn and lemi shine. I have some decently clean 308 that I'll try next leaving the pins out of.
    So far I'm sold.
     
    Last edited:

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