I use walnut or corn cob media and have looked at the ceramic media, thanks for the info. To cut down on the dust, add a few used dryer sheets when you tumble..it pulls a lot of the dust and dirt out
I switched to stainless steel pin wet cleaning and wow it will clean and shine the inside/outside of the pistol brass very well plus primer pocket if you deprive ahead of cleaning.. Which is another alternative to vibratory cleaning (used it for 40 years and did work). A bit more steps to the wet cleaning and company’s have further added products to help separating the pins. My wet stainless tumbler is from Frankfort Arsenal, which came with grills to help pour the water and pins from the brass. Lyman then came out with a mesh rectanglar basket (2 Piece) which helped. Later Frankfort Arsenal came out with a circular mesh replace the grills in the top of the cap’s and allows you to rinse.both pins and brass of the ‘dirty water’. Because of surface tension of the wet stainless steel pins to ‘everything’, I take my rotary brass separator, place some water in bottom to cover the rotating sifter and the pins will fall to the bottom as you turn the rotating handle. Now that surface tension is sticky and not all pins will come loose but get 95+% of them. I then bought a food dehydrator. Place them on the trays turn it on and in most case 1-1.5 hours they are dry and any remaining pins will fall to the bottom. I do recommend the pin magnetic from Frankfort Arsenal in which it has a handle with lever to move the magnetic from the metal part on bottom holding the pins, when picking any loose pins (small and difficult to pick up by hand, thus the magnetic pick up tool). Well that is my thought and 2 cents, lots of different methods out there to consider for cleaning fired brass for reloading. Good luck everyone!
I switched to a courser 18-40 grit walnut shell from amazon with some Midway USA brass polish and cut up dryer sheets to cut the dust way down. I may try the 12-20 grit next time for larger cases.
Thank you for debunking all the people flocking to rotary/stainless steel pins. btw...there are some ways to minimize the dust so that you don't have to resort to liquids as part of your tumbling process. 1) Drop two or three used dryer sheets into your tumbler with your brass each time. 2) Always leave the lid on while your tumbler is running. 3) Wait a minute before taking the lid off of the tumbler once the tumble process stops. 4) Use a brass separator that has a lid, as my RCBS separator has, close it while spinning out the media, then wait two or three minutes before opening the lid and taking out the brass. I have no problems with excessive dust at all with these very simple steps. I just don't see the value of introducing the complications and time constraints of liquids in the process.
I get my walnut media at the pet store. Last time I needed some I got three twenty pound bags of lizard litter in a buy one get 2 free sale. I filled three 6 gallon buckets and 2 midway tumblers and a lyman 2400. I run at least 2 of them every week. The more brass in a tumbler the better, without overloading the springs. The brass push each other against the media cleaning them faster. Just a few pieces of brass in a tumbler takes forever to clean.
I used to take apart computers for the gold and along he way I saved all p[arts and nuts and bolts from them. I ended up with these little hex style bolts by the thousands and had no use for them later on. I kept them anyway and I got myself a tumbler and started watching rock tumbling videos with those nasty little pins you speak of. I thought why not use those little hex bolts about 3/8" long? I tossed them in with a bit of walnut shell to absorb the grease on my tools I was cleaning. The rest was those little hex bolts and dang did they clean my tools and sockets beautifully! A dampened the walnut shell just slightly with water and that was all. I had new sockets, bolts, washers, you name it they were clean! Now I need to get one of those tumbler things you have there to separate the walnut from my parts into that tub. That's nice. I was using a stainless steel strainer over a bucket wearing a mask and still sucked!
I wouldn't use ceramic for bottle neck brass because it would be almost impossible to get it all out of the cases. I think it is great for straight walled brass.
Didn’t mean to come off so brash. When I clean my brass I use fine crushed walnut, from harbor freight and tool then add brasso and let it distribute through the media. Keeps the dust down and does a good job of cleaning. I use range brass so I’m not worried about a high shine.
Jun Gleno, granted, brasso will make brass brittle if used extensively, especially on rifle cartridges. I have used brasso as a case cleaner for over 30 years. It has never been an issue as I don’t reload anything but 9mm range brass, which has anything from military stamps to assorted commercial stamps. There is no way to determine how many times it has been reloaded. I have never had any issues using brasso with these cases and it does the job of cleaning the brass to my satisfaction. If I do find a cracked case it’s usually from someone who was shooting major.
I use corn cob, about 1/4 inch, from pet supply dept. of Walmart or Petco. I use about one ounce of mineral spirits and a about one ounce of Dillon or Turtle Wax or other liquid car wax with abrasives, even Midway Citrus Brass Cleaner. I also stick in two dryer sheets, cut in 2" squares, appx.... The sheets absorb all of the powder fouling, and the bottom of the bowl is virtually dust-free. Mineral Spirits wet the dryer sheets, so they can absorb the dust. I don't like "Wet Tumbling" too much effort. The primer pockets can be brushed out with a power drill in 5 seconds each and there's no drying, or pins getting stuck in the cases...
You don't use that much water, you are just moistening the media and the brass. So no, I didn't have to seal anything, there really isn't any water to leak.
I purchased it on Amazon. you probably could but always remember that it has to big enough so two pieces can't jam next to each other in in case. So their diameter would need to bigger than the radius of the case.
Two to three hours is more than sufficient. Not the nu finish wax. Use a 50/50 mix of Nu Finish Car POLISH / mineral spirits. The POLISH contains NO ammonia.
I run walnut shell (PetSmart Lizard Litter), one cap full of NuFinish polish, and a dryer sheet cut into fourths. Tried corn cop media but it really turns into dust and gets stuck in the rim recess of 45 colt.
Too labor-intensive and drying time is a deal-breaker. Not to mention that you are dumping toxic chemicals down the drain. Dry tumbling is sufficient. We are not making jewelry here.
That is not efficient. That is overkill. Too many steps required with wet cleaning. Vibratory cleaning with Walnut media is more efficient... ... Unless you are attracted to shiny objects.
The stainless steel pins don't polish! They Scrape layers off your cases. It also Chews up the case mouth and primer pockets. And miss one and shoot it down the barrel of your high dollar rifle and you will go back to Walnut! 👌👍
It depends, if you are doing high volume like 5K frequently, it is a lot faster, cheaper and your stay away from the contaminated dust. If you do 1K or less every once and a while, you are right. It is a high volume process.
@@jungleno. Incorrect. No different than when you wash dishes in your kitchen sink or turn on your automatic dishwasher. Dawn. Lemi-Shine ( citric acid) water. The powder residue is almost pure carbon. Dawn touts itself as safe to use to de-grease living animals like after oil spills, I'm sure you've seen their commercials with the duck/pelican/otter etc. . Lemi-shine is a natural extract of oranges and lemons. Please do your research first before you flail around your false enviro-claims.
Not really an even comparison because you don't use citric acid with walnut. If you just soak your brass in a bucket with the acid it will do the same without the ceramic.
