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SS Wet Tumbling: Chips vs Pins

FredHammer said:
Ok, just asked because the walnut version of same grit showed up on Amazon. Walnut has always been my jam! 🤣
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Walnut = dust. That's the big difference. Corn cob - no dust. Charge it with case polish of some sort (I've been using Dillon for years because it works well) and you'll get bright shiny clean cases with no dust.

Sticking in the flash holes is a function of the size of the media. The corn cob I'd been using for years from the local gun shop never stuck in a single flash hole. Then that source dried up and I tried the Lyman corn cob - it sucks balls. Sticks in the flash holes AND they didn't bother to clean the chaff out of it, so there's all these fine flecks that stick all over the brass. People who claim corn cob is bad probably got stuck with that crap; I'd hate it too.
 
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Yondering said:
Walnut = dust. That's the big difference. Corn cob - no dust. Charge it with case polish of some sort (I've been using Dillon for years because it works well) and you'll get bright shiny clean cases with no dust.

Sticking in the flash holes is a function of the size of the media. The corn cob I'd been using for years from the local gun shop never stuck in a single flash hole. Then that source dried up and I tried the Lyman corn cob - it sucks balls. Sticks in the flash holes AND they didn't bother to clean the chaff out of it, so there's all these fine flecks that stick all over the brass. People who claim corn cob is bad probably got stuck with that crap; I'd hate it too.
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Well, no shit. I must have been mitigating the dust with the Flitz. I'll get the corncob then and compare to my current walnut.
 
Well I just processed 2000-3000 of those SS tumbled brass that I sprayed with my Lenolin mix.. sized, trimmed, swagged, neck mandrel and M die.. ready to dry tumble the lube off and polish up...

Looks like the 40-60 grit Walnut is out for delivery so Ill try that first. I just dumped both my dry tumblers and cleaned everything out. We shall see
 
Every single tumbling method has trade offs. There isn't one perfect method.

I paid $40 for a 5 gallon bucket of corn cob media. When it gets a little dusty throw it away and use some fresh.
 
All that shit just to clean brass?

Primed brass, hot water, dish soap, no pins/chips/additives/whatever tumble for an hour, rinse, dry in old toaster oven, resize/deprime, neck ID size, prime, load, shoot....
 
All this talk about pins peening the mouths, does anyone have empirical proof that it affects your ammo? I still do it both ways depending on how lazy I am. But I dry my brass with a scroll fan. Way more volume of air, no heat and dries it within 15-20 minutes.
 
I used corn cob or walnut media in vibratory tumblers for years. During that time I tried about every additive available to get that new brass shine but there was always a residue of some sort and the brass never came out to my complete satisfaction.
Then a friend introduced me to rotary tumbling with SS pins, Dawn and Lemishine in water. The results were dramatic BUT I began to notice case mouths were belled out even after FL sizing. I sifted through every other possible cause and nothing helped until I chamfered the case mouth right after tumbling. Problem solved. So, yes, it does affect your loaded ammo.
I quit using pins thinking that would fix the problem. Nope, it's the rotary tumbling that peens no matter how much brass volume you have in the drum.
 
shoot4fun said:
I used corn cob or walnut media in vibratory tumblers for years. During that time I tried about every additive available to get that new brass shine but there was always a residue of some sort and the brass never came out to my complete satisfaction.
Then a friend introduced me to rotary tumbling with SS pins, Dawn and Lemishine in water. The results were dramatic BUT I began to notice case mouths were belled out even after FL sizing. I sifted through every other possible cause and nothing helped until I chamfered the case mouth right after tumbling. Problem solved. So, yes, it does affect your loaded ammo.
I quit using pins thinking that would fix the problem. Nope, it's the rotary tumbling that peens no matter how much brass volume you have in the drum.
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Man bell case mouths? Never had that happen to me. I wish I could get my stainless steel tumblers to do that then I could skip the M die on the tool head hahaha
 
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padom said:
Man bell case mouths? Never had that happen to me. I wish I could get my stainless steel tumblers to do that then I could skip the M die on the tool head hahaha
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I am not alone in this. Several of my local shooting buds had same issue. A couple of my rifles the bolt wouldn't fully close on the belled cases due to neck clearance.
 
If case are really dirty, like what one might find picking up brass at a range, I'll wet tumble. Otherwise, rice works very well for me:
Note. . . these fired brass are annealed then necks cleaned with steel wool and then sized before putting them in the this tumbler to take off the lube.
Cases before.jpeg
Rice tumbled.JPG


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lash said:
Would this be a bad time to remind some people that, for precision rifle, you should be ID/OD chamfering lightly every time after size and tumble but before primer, powder and bullet seating?
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A rotary tumbler will peen the mouth of the case and I sure don't want to load them peened even if the mouth didn't bell from the sizing die.
 
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Pro tip for the dry tumblers since we are already all over haha... Fine grit sand blasting walnut media... Cheaper per lb and never gets stuck in flasholes...
 
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Stephen Bachiler said:
If you load, shoot bolt action and never let the case hit the ground....do you even need to clean them?
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I do, just to get the soot off the necks before annealing. Then I tumble after anneal to get that anneal residue off before loading. That anneal residue can get grippy and play hell with seating depths.
 
Stephen Bachiler said:
If you load, shoot bolt action and never let the case hit the ground....do you even need to clean them?
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Other than cleaning off lube . . . no, not really.

However, if you anneal your brass, the annealing process does leave an abrasive oxidation film on the surface and I don't like what that abrasiveness can do to my sizing dies or how it effect seating consistency. Therefore, I'll use steel wool to clean up the necks (and that tends to do the shoulder as well) and it really doesn't take much effort or time. Then I'll clean with vibrater tumbler after using sizing to remove the lube. If I don't use lube, like when neck sizing with a Lee collet die, I only run a brush through the neck after the steel wool cleaning.

For sure, the brass does not need to look squeaky clean and will perform just fine without cleaning. Some of this really depends on the level of shooting one does. If you're a competing bench rest shooter, then . . .???
 
spife7980 said:
My corn cob has lots of dust
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Actually dust, or that chaff I referred to? If you're getting dust, it might not be corn cob. If it's chaff, that's because it's a crappy grade of corn cob, like the garbage that Lyman sells. Also, don't just use it dry; add some Dillon case polish. That pre-treated junk from Lyman seems pretty dry too and if there's dust it may be from the dried polish.

FWIW I've been working from the same bag of quality corn cob since the early 2000's - zero dust or chaff, ever. Now that it's running out and that shop is no longer in business, I'm looking for a new source of good cob. Most of the sources I've tried seem to have a lot of extra ground husk in with it that presents as chaff - light weight particles like little flakes and fibers that stick to everything. The old good quality stuff was purely just small ground cob granules.

Walnut on the other hand leaves dust no matter what, because the walnut shell itself breaks down into dust. Corn cob doesn't do that; if there's dust in it then it was introduced somehow.
 
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These cases are on their 4th or 5th firing/load cycle and have never been cleaned beyond being thrown in the dry tumbler with 20-40 grit corn cob blasting media after being annealed on an AMP, then sprayed with Lanolin/IPA mix and sized/decapped in one step with a FL die. They look way closer to new brass than anything resembling dirty/crusty.

This batch of media is just about saturated and on its last legs, I should probably change it. But it still pours right out of the cases without having to beat the shit out of them.

 
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lash said:
Thanks for the info Dom. I also dry tumble with walnut for precision and always had trouble with range pickup. Having used industrial sized tumblers for polishing and deburring for years in the automotive parts industry, I can see how the tetrahedron shape of the chips would work better than pins for this application.
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I think it’s the shape and the fact the every edge is sharp that makes the difference. These are chips from a machine shop that is running stainless, so the chips have very small jagged edges whereas the pins really have only two and the rest of the pin is just rubbing. It makes sense that they should clean faster.

I would think that regular steel would do the same but not last as long due to rust, etc.
 
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CK1.0 said:
These cases are on their 4th or 5th firing/load cycle and have never been cleaned beyond being thrown in the dry tumbler with 20-40 grit corn cob blasting media after being annealed on an AMP, then sprayed with Lanolin/IPA mix and sized/decapped in one step with a FL die. They look way closer to new brass than anything resembling dirty/crusty.

This batch of media is just about saturated and on its last legs, I should probably change it. But it still pours right out of the cases without having to beat the shit out of them.

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That's exactly the results I get as well. Clean corn cob like that, treated with a liquid case polish like Dillon's product, does not leave any dust and makes a bright clean surface. Easy as pie.

Do you recall where you got that particular batch of corn cob? There's a lot of low quality stuff out there so a good source would be nice to have.
 
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Yondering said:
That's exactly the results I get as well. Clean corn cob like that, treated with a liquid case polish like Dillon's product, does not leave any dust and makes a bright clean surface. Easy as pie.

Do you recall where you got that particular batch of corn cob? There's a lot of low quality stuff out there so a good source would be nice to have.
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This is the stuff I’m using (it wasn’t as pricey a couple years back):

Blast Media, Corn Cob, 20 to 40 Grit

I add a squirt of Brasso like every 3rd cycle or so, change it out maybe every 5-6 cycles or so (when it doesn’t flow as fast and starts to not pour out of the cases as easily as usual, it’s time).
 
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Thought I'd bring this one back to life and show you guys something I tried and see what yall had to say about it. I got some of these to wet tumble in. I was looking for something that would be easier and not fit into case mouths and found these. They definitely worked well but they leave a more Matt finish vs shiny. I tried a few different batches od Hornady brass vs trying my good brass.

I actually forgot about the first batch and let me go way longer than I'd ever planned to, which was about 1.5hrs. So obviously they got clean and all.

The next batch I ran for 15 min and they got clean as well. Actually look the same.

Any thoughts on this potentially damaging my brass or thinning it too much over time? I don't know that I could measure any difference without it being over many many cleanings. Here's what they look like
 

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Daggum homie! 15 min tumble and done?! Sign me up!
SWAG here, but I think primer pockets would fail before an appreciable amount of thinning could be made to render the brass unserviceable.
Wonder how those balls would work in a vibratory tumbler? To hell with the walnut media dust.
 
FredHammer said:
Daggum homie! 15 min tumble and done?! Sign me up!
SWAG here, but I think primer pockets would fail before an appreciable amount of thinning could be made to render the brass unserviceable.
Wonder how those balls would work in a vibratory tumbler? To hell with the walnut media dust.
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That's why I was looking. I don't mind wet tumbling that much and if I can do it that fast even less so. These things are pretty smooth but without the water it might be a little too much banging around and have the same issues as steel pins. I am not a fan of the dust that vibratory gives off and I'd rather dump out water than mess with the tiny media so....

They are ceramic beads and I doubt they'd ever really wear but wasn't sure about them possibly taking too much brass off over 10+ cleanings. They don't seem to have done any kind of damage at all. They don't clean the primer pockets of course due to their size but I don't care about that. So far so good with them and they are super fast. I feel sure they'd work in a vibratory, just don't know if that would increase wear an appreciable amount.
 
How do the primer pockets look? Thats why I love the chips, they clean those pockets in no time vs the pins... Cant see how the round balls would clean the pockets at the 90...
 
padom said:
How do the primer pockets look? Thats why I love the chips, they clean those pockets in no time vs the pins... Cant see how the round balls would clean the pockets at the 90...
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They don't really get clean. I put a little but of dawn, lemishine, and simple green, but very little of any, probably with more cleaner it would do a little bit more but the balls not being able to get into the case means they can't get in a primer pocket either. Not an issue for me. There's no real difference in the pockets on the ones that went for a long time vs those that went 15 min.

I'm about to leave but I will get a pic real quick. Can do more later this afternoon when I get back. There are some triangular ones that are like these balls that may get into the pockets but stay out of the case necks but not sure how long it would take to see results on that. Seems like it would take a long time tumbling to get the triangle corners to go into the pockets a good amount but never really know until we try it out.
 

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This is what the whole bunch looks like.
 

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padom said:
I don't wet tumble often but when I do, these chips are amazing. Super fast and clean the pockets like new..

I got some new media to test in my dry tumbler....I'm over the Walnut dust. Sheesh
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Which chips do you use? Got some info on em? I could add that to mine and be good to go and super fast
 
padom said:
The ones I started this thread about. Check out post #1 I posted photos and results. Tumbling time was so much shorter and stupid clean
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Oh ok. I thought there was some other ceramic chip thing. You are talking about the stainless ones. Ok Roger that. Sorry I'm slow
 
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BuildingConceptsllc said:
Oh ok. I thought there was some other ceramic chip thing. You are talking about the stainless ones. Ok Roger that. Sorry I'm slow
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Oh, just a geometric FYI, those ‘triangle’ ones are tetrahedrons. They are used in metal manufacture tumbling all of the time. Almost all of them do some sort of abrasive action to the metal part. Not necessarily a desirable option for tumbling brass.
 
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lash said:
Oh, just a geometric FYI, those ‘triangle’ ones are tetrahedrons. They are used in metal manufacture tumbling all of the time. Almost all of them do some sort of abrasive action to the metal part. Not necessarily a desirable option for tumbling brass.
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Yeah that's what's kept me away from using those. Seems like thier shape would cause too much abrasion for soft metals like brass
 
BuildingConceptsllc said:
Yeah that's what's kept me away from using those. Seems like thier shape would cause too much abrasion for soft metals like brass
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All of your ceramics also do abrading, which is why the strange finish. It’s not necessarily bad in and of itself, you just need to be aware of it.
 
lash said:
All of your ceramics also do abrading, which is why the strange finish. It’s not necessarily bad in and of itself, you just need to be aware of it.
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Yeah I know the ceramic will abrade some but I figure the balls in water won't be an issue in terms of actually removing too much metal as to effect it. Do you think it will cause me problems after 10+ times?
 
Padom, can you tell me what the COT is for? I didn't see it mentioned. Thanks!

ETA: Accelerated cleaning?
 
padom said:
I don't wet tumble often but when I do, these chips are amazing. Super fast and clean the pockets like new..

I got some new media to test in my dry tumbler....I'm over the Walnut dust. Sheesh
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I probably missed it somewhere in the thread, but what’s your process for removing chips prior to drying brass? And how often (if ever) do you have chips left inside brass?
 
Rio Precision Gunworks said:
I probably missed it somewhere in the thread, but what’s your process for removing chips prior to drying brass? And how often (if ever) do you have chips left inside brass?
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I have a bucket with a strainer that fits in top. I dump the entire Tumbler into the strainer that catches all the brass and 95% of the chips drop through strainer into bottom of bucket.

I have another bucket with a spinning media separator filled with clean water. Dump brass into that and close.. turn the separator handle 20 or so times in the clean water then dump brass into a towel. (This is the key step to get the chips out of the brass.. I have none left in my brass doing this)

For drying, in the summertime I just lay the towel outside in the sun for an hour or so and they are dry as a bone.

In the winter they go on an old cookie sheet and in the oven in lowest temp for 20min or so.
 
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