Wet Tumbling

[Grim]

Been reading about the benefits of wet bumbling with the stainless steel pins vs. the corn cob media tumbling I've been doing for years now. I really like the health / cleanliness benefits (less lead dust, etc., around the house) as well as how much cleaner the primer pockets get.

Looking to give it a try and the local Gouger Mountain has the Frankford Arsenal Platinum Rotary Tumbler on sale, anyone have any experience - good or especially bad - with the Frankford brand of tumbler?

Thanks for the assistance,

Steve

[adammiddagh]

Love it. Just ran it less than 10 min ago. For filthy brass, I may let it run for 1-1/2 to 2 hrs. For brass I just shot, only 1/2 to 1 hr.

I use a little lemishine and dawn in the water to clean and brighten the brass.

I have done it with primers in and out. The brass drains better and cleans pockets better with primers out.

I then take it to the shower tub. Place the frankford arsenal seperator pan inside a appropriatly sized plastic pan. Shake it. Shuffle it. Rinse it. Repeat untill I get no more pins out. I found that if half the seperator pan, or more, is submerged in water and tipped at 45degrees; you can swirl the brass with your hand to get most of the pins out.

Bottle neck cases can get pins stuck in the necks, especially 22-250 and 223. Expect the smaller the worse they stick. Large straight wall cases eat smaller brass and can get stuck. I would recommend doing straight walled cases in sorted batches. 460sw cases eat 223, 9mm, 357,38, and 300 blk.

To dry. I shake the brass in a towel and drop into a 1/4" mesh pan I made. I then cook it in a convection oven at 250f for 20 min if no primers. 30+ min if with primers. I believe that 250f is well bellow to the point of anealing brass. Then let air cool. Usually it will be cleaner than factory. Old range scrap will still look like clean range scrap, but if your brass is in good condition, it will look great.

Water quality may be an issue with the last rinse. High tds water / hard water will leave spots or discoloration. I recommend perfectly soft water for rinse, possibly even ro or drinking water for last rinse.

[adammiddagh]

You will want a releasable magnet to pick up stray pins. A size or two bigger would work better than smaller. As long as the head of the magnet fits in the neck of the drum with ~1/2" to spare. The pins will be on the edge of the magnet also.

[Mozella]

I recently bought a Frankford Arsenal Platinum Rotary Tumbler to replace my Harbor Freight unit. I should have done it long ago. The Frankford gets the brass cleaner with a lot less damage to the case neck mouth.

When the process is finished, I dump the drum contents into a Frankford media separator, a $9 plastic colander which has deep sides to fit into a standard 5 gal bucket. Swirling and rinsing the brass/pin mass with my utility sink squirt wand makes most of the pins fall into the large bucket. Then I dump the brass into a smaller bucket where I rinse and swirl them. Any remaining pins sink to the bottom where I pick them up with a magnet. The pins in the large bucket are strained through a sieve and returned to storage.

Then I shake the brass to remove most of the water. I dump the cases into a towel held in a hammock shape where I slide them back and forth for 30 seconds after which they go into a metal baking pan which I put on the tennis shoe drying rack in my wife's clothes dryer. Thirty minutes on "high cotton" produces dry brass ready for the next reloading step. I've cleaned many thousands of rounds of .223 and 6mm brass and only once did I have a pin hang up in the neck, but it was easy to correct. Generally speaking, stuck pins is not a problem at all.

[Grim]

Thanks guys for the info. I'm on my way now to pick up a Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler now.

[Grim]

Wow, talk about a deal of the century. Went to the local Gander Mountain to pick up a Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler yesterday and they had it listed on the shelf for $119, which was a better price than Cabela's at $164. At check out the price rang up at $199 though and after an associate checked the shelf they honored the $119 sticker price and with my Military (Retired) discount I paid $108 out the door.

Now I just need to find a good deal on a dryer and I'm in business.

[foxx]

Can you get me one?

[earl39]

Dryer is easy just need a large cookie pan and oven on 250 lower.

[Scott Evans]

Cons-

Gets brass too clean, neck tension/bullet release inconsistent for the first couple firings.

Beats the bejeesus out of the neck chamfers. Trim AFTER tumbling, not before.

[Grim]

Thanks for the heads up Scott. I was planning to first decap, tumble, then do required sizing, trimming, chamfer, then tumble again quickly before reloading. Sound about right?

[Scott Evans]

My preference is to use a universal decap die, no sizing, tumble, dry, then go on to inspections, culling, sizing, then trimming and weight checks. To me its useless to weigh cases until they've had all trim/primer pocket operations done.

I wouldn't do a final tumble in ss you'll beat up the chamfers. The ss pins are great for really nasty once fired or range brass, or after 8-10 firings and before an anneal session or when you need to trim again. I don't overclean and shine cases, a little tarnish doesn't bother me.
Besides regardless of media its **** near impossible to guarantee 100% of it is out.

New brass just a visual inspection and chamfer.

And everybody who reloads needs one of these, no more guessing if its loose or not -

http://www.sinclairintl.com/reloading-equipment/measuring-tools/case-gauges-headspace-tools/swage-gage-primer-pocket-gauge-prod71030.aspx

[m12lrs]

my procedure:

Decap
throw into the ultrasonic
throw in my homemade dryer
Size
throw in tumbler with corn cob media to remove lube
pick the corn cob media out of the flasholes and inspect case
check overall length and trim only if necessary (trim a whole group of cases together where they will remain pretty much the same length till the next trim)
chamfer and debur
Prime
Charge
Seat bullets

go shooting. I have found the fresher the ammo is the better it groups.

[Texas10]

Interesting observation regarding "fresher" ammo, M12lrs.

I recap my 223 brass, wet tumble, and store until ready to load. Then neck size only what I'm going to load and shoot within a couple of days.

Seems to work better to produce small groups. If I shoot the loaded ammo several weeks later, it doesn't seem to produce as good of groups.

I've read that worked brass tends to age harden fairly quickly, and while my experience is in no way a scientific approach, my confidence is higher that it will shoot to point of aim more consistently.

BTW: I am shooting a bolt gun, not a semi-auto, so no full length sizing is necessary.

Quick question: What is your "homemade dryer"? Mine is a cardboard box with a hair dryer stuffed into the side. Been using it for 30 some years and works great. Can get up to 170 degrees, with plenty of air flow, so dries the brass quickly. 5 minutes is about average.

[Mozella]

......... snip.................... I've read that worked brass tends to age harden fairly quickly, .......... snip..................

What you read is wrong. Cartridge brass does not age harden at room temperature to any measurable degree. I wonder if what you read was written by reloaders or other people who do not have an educational background which included the study of metallurgy.

I don't doubt what you say, but if the precision of your loads deteriorates with age, it is for some other reason than the cases age hardening. I have a 600 yd bench rest gun I shoot only once a month or less. It's not uncommon for me to load a big batch of competition ammo for the upcoming 6 months. The old stuff shoots just as well as the new stuff, so my experience is different from yours.

[m12lrs]

Interesting observation regarding "fresher" ammo, M12lrs.

I recap my 223 brass, wet tumble, and store until ready to load. Then neck size only what I'm going to load and shoot within a couple of days.

Seems to work better to produce small groups. If I shoot the loaded ammo several weeks later, it doesn't seem to produce as good of groups.

I've read that worked brass tends to age harden fairly quickly, and while my experience is in no way a scientific approach, my confidence is higher that it will shoot to point of aim more consistently.

BTW: I am shooting a bolt gun, not a semi-auto, so no full length sizing is necessary.

Quick question: What is your "homemade dryer"? Mine is a cardboard box with a hair dryer stuffed into the side. Been using it for 30 some years and works great. Can get up to 170 degrees, with plenty of air flow, so dries the brass quickly. 5 minutes is about average.

similar

I took a large Tupperware container and put a jacked up colander inside of it for the brass and cut a hole in the side the snout of the hair dryer would fit tightly in. Drilled some holes in the lid. $20 in the whole rig. like you said. Fast! don't need to set that dryer on high.

[m12lrs]

What you read is wrong. Cartridge brass does not age harden at room temperature to any measurable degree. I wonder if what you read was written by reloaders or other people who do not have an educational background which included the study of metallurgy.

I don't doubt what you say, but if the precision of your loads deteriorates with age, it is for some other reason than the cases age hardening. I have a 600 yd bench rest gun I shoot only once a month or less. It's not uncommon for me to load a big batch of competition ammo for the upcoming 6 months. The old stuff shoots just as well as the new stuff, so my experience is different from yours.

opinions vary

don't know what happens from a metallurgy standpoint but neck tension changes.

I do know my 6mm likes ammo loaded the night before and misbehaves with 3 month old ammo

In 100/200 yard Benchrest you will find most competitors load their ammo throughout the day. In 1000-yard BR you rarely see this. Believe it or not your gun will tell you whether it likes ammo loaded right before it is shot, or several days in advance. I load at least 48 hours before a match. One time I tried loading at the range right before a shoot-off. No dice. I went from an 8″ group to an ugly group with 12″ of vertical. Just by not loading ahead of time, I went from more than respectable to out of the running. I’m really not sure what the problem was, but now I always get my ammo ready well in advance.

[SidecarFlip]

Back on subject (hopefully), I've been running STS for a long time. Started with a Thumlers tumbler years ago and stainless jewelers mix and graduated to pins and jewelers mix a couple years ago. My Thumlers drum developed an age crack so I sold it on CL and got a Frankfort unit (it holds more cases).

My regimen because we have well water thats loaded with calcium...

Bottled water from the supernarket (2.5 gallon jugs( three)
2 5 gallon plastic pails (for first rinse and second rinse)
Cabelas cheapo rotary media seperator
Frankfort retrevial magnet
Liquid dish soap (1 teaspoon per load AND NO MORE)

Lemishine poiwder (a dash per load)
My wife's vegetable / jerky dehydrator
STS pins (a pound) Jewelers stainless mix (an ounce)

Toss the cases in the drum (I fill mine 3/4 full, toss in the pins and mix, season to taste with dishwash soap and Lemisgine
Crank the timer all the way and go do something constructive (like play on your computer)
When done, seperate the cases and pins in the rotary media seperator
First rinse and then second rinse..
Put in dehydrator on the shelves and turn on, go do something constructive again for an hour or so
Come back and empty the dehydrator and load the cases

Note, I've never has issue one with them being too clean, new cases are clean inside, or maybe I'm blind....

Never an issue with case mouth chamfers either.

I'll keep on keeping on. Works fine for me.

[J.Baker]

Few things I've noticed with the Frankfort Arsenal setup:

1. Small rifle cases (223, 222, etc) can squeeze through the slots in the Frankfort media separator.
2. I'll occasionally get a steel pin wedged inside a 222/223 size case that partially blocks the firing pin hole, so de-prime and swedge the primer pockets before tumbling.
3. Be careful when tumbling different cases together as some can/will fit over or into one another

Otherwise I've been extremely happy with mine. My process is pretty much the same as the one Mozella outlined above in his middle paragraph. For drying I just place the cases upside down (primer pocket up) in reloading trays, blow the primer pockets dry with an air nozzle, then let them finish air drying overnight in front of a box fan.

For a good sieve for the pins look at prospector websites as theirs are typically made to fit right on a 5-gallon bucket. The pins measure 0.039" diameter so I went with a #30 sieve. I got mine here: http://www.blackcatmining.com/mining-equipment/pioneer-sieves.cfm

[SidecarFlip]

Few things I've noticed with the Frankfort Arsenal setup:

1. Small rifle cases (223, 222, etc) can squeeze through the slots in the Frankfort media separator.

Forget both slotted end caps. Just put on one and dump most of the dirty water...most... Dump the contents into a cheapo Cabelas rotary media separator and spin the crank. The pins go to the bottom with any dirty water and the cases stay in the basket...

2. I'll occasionally get a steel pin wedged inside a 222/223 size case that partially blocks the firing pin hole, so de-prime and swedge the primer pockets before tumbling.

I get the same with 308 cases but in the neck ocasionally. The rotary media separator shakes most out, the rest come out with a small screwdriver....

3. Be careful when tumbling different cases together as some can/will fit over or into one another

You get the same scenario with dry media too.....

Otherwise I've been extremely happy with mine. My process is pretty much the same as the one Mozella outlined above in his middle paragraph. For drying I just place the cases upside down (primer pocket up) in reloading trays, blow the primer pockets dry with an air nozzle, then let them finish air drying overnight in front of a box fan.

Commandeer your wife's dehydrator. Works like a charm. I advise against using an oven unless you can set the temperature low (175 degrees maximum and if you can, leave the door cracked to let out the moisture....

For a good sieve for the pins look at prospector websites as theirs are typically made to fit right on a 5-gallon bucket. The pins measure 0.039" diameter so I went with a #30 sieve. I got mine here: http://www.blackcatmining.com/mining-equipment/pioneer-sieves.cfm


You can get pins in various diameters from industrial sites that specialize in tumbling media.

[adammiddagh]

I preffer to get my brass over the boiling point to ensure that all the moisture is gone. Not saying 175 won't dry the brass, but that 250f is nowhere near annealing your brass. That said, I strongly preffer a convection oven moving air/dehydrator, over a traditional oven. Something with moving air is going to have a smaller chance of hot spots.

Searched for brass annealing temps. Found this:
The higher the annealing temperature, the shorter the time required to anneal. The grain structure of the brass begins to change - indicating the start of annealing - at just under 500 degrees Fahrenheit. At 600 degrees F, brass will anneal in one hour. At 800 degrees F, brass will take only a few seconds to anneal.