Broke down-wet tumbling.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Axis II

Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2015
Messages
7,175
Well seeing how walnut media at harbor freight is about 25$ I spent another $25 and got a duel drum rock tumbler. I read a lot of reviews on shooting sites about using them and all seems well so I figured why not. I recently ordered 9mm brass that was wet tumbled and it's very clean and helps look for defects.

I was also worried about health issues touching and breathing corn and walnut media so this should be cleaner. I put 200 range pickups in my vibratory tumbler and the brand new corn cob is black so wet should illinates that hassle.
 
My HF tumbler is working great. The batches have to be small since it doesn't hold very much. But that tradeoff was worth it to me given how much more needed to be spent to get one with more capacity.

I agree clean brass helps bring out defects/problems. I think it also helps when ensuring a case is empty prior to charging as well as actually seeing the powder in the case prior to bullet seating. To me these are practical safety improvements. Many focus only on the cosmetic improvements that result from wet tumbling. But I'm more confident in the finished product as a result of using this cleaning method.
 
You post now makes me wonder what the pollution foot print difference between wet and dry tumbling is.

I don't know how many tens of thousands of cases I tumble with a single bag of corncob but I know every 2000 or so cases in my wet tumbler is another 3 gallons of water that contains everything I knocked off the cases.
 
You post now makes me wonder what the pollution foot print difference between wet and dry tumbling is.

I don't know how many tens of thousands of cases I tumble with a single bag of corncob but I know every 2000 or so cases in my wet tumbler is another 3 gallons of water that contains everything I knocked off the cases.
What do you do with the water? I was just going to sling it in the yard instead of in the drain and into septic tank. still not sure wet was the right choice or not. i talk to guys who have been doing this 20,30,50yrs and they either don't tumble or use corn and walnut. I'm not really in it for shiney cases I figured all the carbon,powder,etc build up in the cases isn't very healthy to handle before and after tumbling. also all the range pickups I get seem to be very nasty and I figured a nice shiney case could help me decipher pitch it or keep it and also get the dirt and whatnot out of them.
 
I have the F. Arsenal wet/pin tumbler, I give them 1 hour with no pins just to get clean. Dry, Then deprime, then 3 hours with pins, dry again.

That way, I handle relatively clean cases.

Russellc
 
I have the F. Arsenal wet/pin tumbler, I give them 1 hour with no pins just to get clean. Dry, Then deprime, then 3 hours with pins, dry again.

That way, I handle relatively clean cases.

Russellc
When you deprime are you using universal decamp die or size die? I was going to get gloves and decap and wet tumble and then size and finish.
 
Lee universal decapping die. The universal die isnt prone to clogging, but I dont want the filth. Plus, a couple of times I managed to break the pin and had to use sizing die, which I definitely did not want the filth in. Always have a few extra pins on hand.

Russellc
 
ohiunder2014 wrote:
...health issues touching and breathing corn and walnut media...

What health issues, specifically?

What do you do with the water?

Unless your municipality has an ordinance against it, pour it down the drain.

If you pour it out on the surface, the water will evaporate leaving the wind to pick up anything in the waste water that was harmful. If any material amount of lead is present in the wastewater, aerosolized lead is far more of a problem than lead concentrated in a septic tank or filtered out of a municipal wastewater stream.
 
What health issues, specifically?



Unless your municipality has an ordinance against it, pour it down the drain.

If you pour it out on the surface, the water will evaporate leaving the wind to pick up anything in the waste water that was harmful. If any material amount of lead is present in the wastewater, aerosolized lead is far more of a problem than lead concentrated in a septic tank or filtered out of a municipal wastewater stream.
Just touching the cases with residue on them after I sifter the corn cob out I still have like a film on the cases. I would imagine it's not good to touch. I could possibly wash them off when done dry tumbling.
 
[QUOTE="ohihunter2014, post: 10579177, member: 232207" I could possibly wash them off when done dry tumbling.[/QUOTE]

How would this be easier than wet tumbling?
I wet tumble for the clean pockets as well. Doing this has made seating primers MUCH easier. After two or three cycles there was enough 'schmutz' left behind to allow me to crush Winchester Large Pistol primers, before they are below flush to the casehead.

I constructed my own and have tuned it down to fourty-five minutes. Including dry time at one hundred seventy degrees in the convection oven.
I gave away the Cabelas vibration tumbler I had. Twelve hours worth of run time, literally brand new. I often feel bad for doing that to such a good friend. But he is not 'into' the scientific aspect of the cleanliness of cases.
 
What health issues, specifically?
I’m not concerned about the media. I am concerned with primer lead residue. I had my dry tumbler on my bench and changed to a wet tumbler with pins after a lead test detected an increase.

Was it the tumbler or the inside range (that uses an exhaust fan out the target end)? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I changed my habits to be safer.

The water from the tumbler goes into a bucket and into the woods.
 
What do you do with the water? I was just going to sling it in the yard instead of in the drain and into septic tank.

I dump it on the ground. It doesn't kill grass like used engine oil.

That said I have put more lead into the ground in an afternoon of clay shooting than I could in a lifetime of tumbling.

That said I add polish to media so it isn't dusty and I wash my hands after casting, reloading and shooting.

I have my lead levels tested every year along with everything else my Doc tests. The only time I have ever had elevated levels was when I shot weekly competitions indoors, so I quit that and went back to normal.
 
Off thread, but I had lead issues that I pretty much traced to the indoor range.
I would urge anyone who shoots indoors to have their levels checked, some indoor ranges are fine but it seems like a lot are not.
 
What health issues, specifically?



Unless your municipality has an ordinance against it, pour it down the drain.

If you pour it out on the surface, the water will evaporate leaving the wind to pick up anything in the waste water that was harmful. If any material amount of lead is present in the wastewater, aerosolized lead is far more of a problem than lead concentrated in a septic tank or filtered out of a municipal wastewater stream.

A friend of mine is a chemist and I was contemplating moving to a house with a septic field instead of sewer. I asked him if he'd analyze the stuff left over after wet tumbling. Here's what he said was in there:

That water sample is as I expected: loaded (over 50 ppm) in Fe, Zn, Cu, Sb (antimony), and Pb. The "solids" are primarily carbon soots with minor other species not identiifed.

My advice is not to drink the stuff.

I switched to wet tumbling primarily because I didn't like the dust that came from corncob/walnut tumbling. The quality of the result is amazing.
 
I know I'm going to catch hell for saying this but.....Seriously guys..... If you are that worried about handling fired cases and whatever is on them, you should give up reloading and maybe even shooting all together. Go find yourselves a safe space and a coloring book.
 
I know I'm going to catch hell for saying this but.....Seriously guys..... If you are that worried about handling fired cases and whatever is on them, you should give up reloading and maybe even shooting all together. Go find yourselves a safe space and a coloring book.
as long as you color with us!

when i touch my cases after corn cob tumbling my fingers get black and there is dust on the cases after tumbling therefore i don't want to touch thousands of cases a night and have the particles floating around my house. I'm just making sure my safe space is clean so i can color in my book! why not take the precautions if you can? I guess your a bigger man then all of us!
 
If you are that worried about handling fired cases and whatever is on them, you should give up reloading and maybe even shooting all together.

There is a lot of other places where you can be exposed to things that is a fact.

Firing a firearm alone would be one of them, picking up the empty cases to reload them. Heck what are the chemicals you clean your guns with. I'll bet a dollar to a donut at least one of them causes cancer if you live in California.

In any case, no need to resort to coloring in a safe place, you could always buy factory ammunition and setup a video camera so you can watch someone shoot it for you.
 
Last edited:
I think the easiest and most inexpensive route would be the Frankford machine. Though it may be on the small side for the volume of brass you produce.
I looked into that and funds are kind of limited now so i picked up a harbor freight one on sale for $50 but then i priced the magnet, pins and separator and was over $100 so ill try the wash and soak method and see how that works. I could care less about shine and what not i tumble them more so because they are mostly range bucket brass from my private hunt club and sometimes i get 10pc and sometimes 500pc. My buddies brother purchased an AR the other night and brought about 500rds of the federal M LC ammo and gave the brass to me for free. Usually its only 100rds I'm processing at a time the rest just sits in bags.
 
No, no, of course not. I applaud you for the foresight and concern with the contamination of your abode and family members.

I have abated lead lined rooms for many years. I have seen first hand what the ravages of acute lead poisoning can do to an otherwise healthy, and unfortunately quite young, individual. Lead toxicity is not a laughing matter. A caviler attitude about it WILL bite you.

The above comment was about the auto-cencorship. I feel that I am allowed to that artistic freedom with my spelling of California. ( I was unable to locate a backwards K). Evidently some melting snowflake techie feels otherwise. Common, upstanding people understand that we have a God given right to write and speak as we see fit. But some techno liberal, with nothing else better to do, feels the need to opress the common man, a carpenter in my case, with censorship I can do nothing about.
While I abhor 'text type' and the like, I do not subject them to my endless teachings of spelling, grammar and it's use. Mean while, they feel vindicated in 'starring out' my humorous misspelling of the blue state. But I digress from the subject at hand.
Please take no offense ohihunter2014, from me or any earlier remarks. Lead IS toxic, some forms moreso than others.


Don't get me started on Asbestos abatement...... 8)
we are all good. i was like what the hells he calling me a snowflake for. LOL.
 
I have changed out my dry media and will see if the dust goes away before i "waste my time" on wet tumbling.

New media is the only time mine is dusty, once I get enough polish on it, it's no longer dusty.

The part that seemed a waste of time when I started looking into wet tumbling was the tiny batches in fairly expensive tumblers.

So I made my own using 12.7 gallon 100lb chlorine buckets.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/homemade-wet-tumbler-for-stainless-steel-media.628974/

Then fast forward a number of years and I made some really big ones for an ammunition manufacturer. Also a gantry crane to load and unload them, they get pretty heavy with 15 gallons of brass in each drum.

 
we are all good. i was like what the hells he calling me a snowflake for. LOL.

I try to be very respectful, as this will be digitally recorded for posterity. Perhaps some day my children may read this, I wish to portray a more civilized person than I may actually be, at the moment. I have let my frustration get the better of me. I really shouldn't use terms as those, even if they are deserved.
I have stopped reading some forums for the quite 'heated debates'. But the uniquely positive discourse found on The High Road keeps me coming back. It would pain me to sully this reputation.
I am looking forward to more of your posting.

Demi-human
 
To stay on topic, I got the frankford arsenal rotary tumbler last christmas. So much better all the way around than dry tumbling. It enables me to easily see minor defects and I also like shiny. No dust, spotless brass and primer pockets and much quicker.

After living for a very long time of the Peoples Republic of (K) alifornia
I moved to the mostly free state of Kolorado <{----<<< :rofl: where we can still spell any way we want to.
 
as long as you color with us!

when i touch my cases after corn cob tumbling my fingers get black and there is dust on the cases after tumbling therefore i don't want to touch thousands of cases a night and have the particles floating around my house. I'm just making sure my safe space is clean so i can color in my book! why not take the precautions if you can? I guess your a bigger man then all of us!
A lot of us put used dryer sheets torn into strips in with the brass and walnut/corn cob media. The majority of the dirt and grime attach to the fibers of the dryer sheets and the result is media (and fingers) and brass that are a lot less dusty when they come out of the tumbler. Paper towel strips work too, but not as well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top