Advantages of steel pin case cleaning, if any?

Wet tumbling your brass in a mixture of hot water, Dawn dish washing liquid, and Lemishine for about 2-3 hours will make your brass look like it was new inside and out. You don't need pins to get perfectly clean brass. However, the advantage of the steel pins is that they will also clean out the primary pockets during the process (provided you de-cap your brass prior to tumbling).

Using SS pins when you wet tumble add a little extra work because you need to use a media separator to get them out of your brass. It's very helpful to have a Franklin Media Transfer Magnet to pick the pins up. However, if you want squeaky clean primer pockets as well, the pins will do the trick.

It’s more work as noted but if shiny is your game it’s the way to go. I use a cheap Harbor Freight rock tumbler, twin drum, and just pick the wet cases out with my fingers after a hot water rinse. Straight wall pistol I roll between two thick towels and allow to dry. Small bottle neck I place in a 200 degree oven for 1/2 hour or so.

The biggest advantage is real clean primer pockets clean internal brass and exterer brass.
I had some dry tumbled and then put it in my Frankfort wet tumbler. After being wet tumbled the water came out black from all of the internal carbon, powder residue and what ever else is inside of the cases.


For wet tumbling I use about half a teaspoon og Lemi Shine Boost and a cap full of ArmorAll car Wash & Wax.
For more shinny brass i will dry tumble after wet tumble.
I deprime all of my brass before tumbling wet or dry. As you stated the dry media gets stuck in the primer pocket flash hole. I clean the flash hole with a small pick that come in a four piece pick set from Harbor Freight for $1.99

This is how clean the brass comes out.
This is the advantage between the two tumblers.

Wet washing eliminates any lead dust, which is a big plus. I only wet tumble my brass with the stainless steel median initially for all types of brass. For rifle brass after the initial cleaning and then after lubricating and sizing, I just re-wash with dawn and lemi shine only (no median). I use the following to strain my brass and collect the median. I would recommend the magnet too. Then I dry with the lyman dryer linked below. All brass comes out extremely clean and the process isn't difficult once you get your system down. It seems a little frustrating at first, but I personally prefer this method over the vibrating tumblers.

Strainers:
1.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BP2I77U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
2.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008B0T5Z2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Case Dryer:
1.https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1019623049
Magnet:
1. https://ads.midwayusa.com/product/1012716058?pid=375973

I am spoiled now. The brass comes out looking like factory new inside and out. The only drawback is the need to wait for the brass to dry before reloading. I have enough extra brass so waiting a couple days to dry is no big deal but if one is in a hurry the above posts show you how. I will never willingly go back to a buzz box to clean my brass. YMMV

Good points above, but this is a big one for me.

SSTL media deburrs the case mouths post trimming on rifle cases. Cutting that out of my bulk reloading saves a ton of time in prep work.

Kaldor said:

Good points above, but this is a big one for me.

SSTL media deburrs the case mouths post trimming on rifle cases. Cutting that out of my bulk reloading saves a ton of time in prep work.

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Good point. I still like new looking brass so I now de-prime and tumble, resize, trim, and then de-burr. I get clean brass without burrs.

It doesn't seem to be an issue if the brass isn't freshly trimmed.

All true, but for tired eyes little out there is more welcome to this reloader than......BLING!
Just....ah....brightens my day.....Pictures is what this thread needs more of....no better plug for wet tumbling...


Bling, bling, bling....


Rifle Bling!....last three pictures...this is military mg 7.62 LC brass from wideners....Bling! Those are deprimed...tumbled...swaged, and sized in the last picture.

Will add with the inside of the brass clean it's a lot easier to see where your powder level is.

If you don't use a wash & wax of some kind the brass is harder to size. The wax is a dry film lubricant. But with the W&W it retards the tarnishing process. I have some brass that was cleaned 3 yrs ago still has a shine on it.

For me and its been mentioned once before is the health aspect. The dust that is generated during dry tumbling i can't imagine is healthy. Why take additional risk if its not giving you a better product. Wet tumbling provides the cleanest brass, even when you pick that case of of the dirt that has been there for months. I do not tumble my brass to death, and end up with pinned case rims. My process is to tumble the brass for the minimum amount of time to get them clean and no more. My primer pockets are not perfectly clean but spotless pockets has never been proven to increase accuracy and will be covered up by a primer when done. I never add any wax or other material to my cleaning solution. If you want the most beautiful brass wet tumbling can give it to you.

I also wet tumble with the Extreme Rebel Tumbler



Sometimes I remove the primers other times I do not.

And I also recently discovered the very best way to separate all the stuff at the end of the cleaning cycle:

https://www.amazon.com/Frankford-Arsenal-Separator-Perforated-Reloading/dp/B01B6S8JUC

Video of it in action:



Also I use a dehydrator to dry them and that take a little under an hour



I don't even have a vibratory tumbler anymore.

bling

Ruger 15151 said:

Good point. I still like new looking brass so I now de-prime and tumble, resize, trim, and then de-burr. I get clean brass without burrs.

It doesn't seem to be an issue if the brass isn't freshly trimmed.

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I have a couple of different work flows depending on what kind of case it it is and what it will be used for

Pistol:

• I just decap and tumble. Ive tested with and without pins. Im leaning more and more without pins because I dont care as much if my pistol brass is spotless inside and out

Bulk rifle loading:

• Range brass gets decapped, crimps cut, then a quick tumble without pins for 1 hour before sizing to avoid scratching up a die then moves to being ready for size, trim, tumble
• Brass from my guns gets decapped, sized, trimmed with WFT2, and then tumbled with pins. Ill be moving to a Dillon RT1500 when T do my next run of bulk brass.

Accuracy rifle loading:

• Decapped, annealed and sized without the expander ball. Then tumbled with pins
• Before loading I mandrel size the necks, and trim on the Giraud.

Erief0g said:

View attachment 889720 bling

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That looks like my dinning room table, but it can't be because it is covered in gunsmithing and gun cleaning paraphernalia and has been for a few months.

As for brass, I had a problem with my pistol brass galling on both resizing and expanding dies. The consensus seemed to be that this happens with new brass and fired brass that is too clean. I backed off my wet tumble time to 30 minutes. I use the dawn/lemi-shine/armor-all W&W. I dry by tumbling in a towel, then into the oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes on foil lined cookie sheets. Finally, I put a batch of brass in a 1 gallon ziploc and hit it with Hornady One Shot case lube. This last is probably overkill, but it works for me. I re-use the bag and it will take many thousands of rounds to go through a can of lube.

]https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA572333

Stainless Tumbling Media-
Advantage-

Cleaning brass in stainless tumbling media is important to consistency. For example, we have noticed an increase in case capacity averaging close to 1 grain of water after cleaning previously fired .300 Win Mag cases.3

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Advantage for 600 & 1000 yards? Accuracy?

A Pin had been left in a case , loaded and fired. Pin stayed in barrel. Next shot smashed pin into rifling. Seen on another forum.

This might be a dumb question, But. Could you wet tumble to remove the sizing lube on rifle brass?

WB

Advantages?

1. A bit quieter than a vibratory tumbler
2. Cleans inside and out
3. Media never needs to be changed
4. Does a better job of getting cases squeaky clean and shiny.

Wildbillz said:

This might be a dumb question, But. Could you wet tumble to remove the sizing lube on rifle brass?

WB

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Absolutely.

I would try without the pins first. If that is clean enough for you then you are set. I think that is what you were asking. They get pretty clean without.

When I dry tumble I use 20/40 corn cob.
Its smaller & doesn't get stuck in the flash hole.

I also have the dbl Harbor Freight rock tumbler
It holds about 50 cases in each.
So you can do about 100 at a tiime.

I built a pretty large one, allows for bigger batches than my large Dillon vibratory tumbler. The media lasts forever, gets them squeaky clean, you can really tell if you don’t lube your cases (the extra force required).

243winxb said:

]https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA572333
Stainless Tumbling Media-
Advantage-
Advantage for 600 & 1000 yards? Accuracy?.....

Click to expand...

Accuracy? It's been said before. I feel better with new-looking reloads....when I feel better I shoot better. As for some other quantifier, I'm more interested in the fact that it's never been shown to hurt accuracy. (Excepting the extremely unlikely result of getting a pin to stick in the rifling as quoted below.) Leaving crud in a case of any kind can't possibly help accuracy.

243winxb said:

]https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA572333
.....A Pin had been left in a case , loaded and fired. Pin stayed in barrel. Next shot smashed pin into rifling. Seen on another forum.

Click to expand...

We can't save anyone from themselves, but we can educate ourselves and others the best we can.
Murphy's Law, "If it's possible for something to go wrong it will".....so do your best to make it impossible. I do that by having rules for tumbling using pins:

1. Use plenty of detergent and water
2. Don't leave pins mixed up with brass for any length of time after tumbling. Don't even think about leaving them to dry together.
3. Immediately following a tumble, rinse well with lots of clean water.
4. Immediately following the rinse, separate pins and brass by dumping the submerged brass/pin mixture into a rotary separator while the brass is still wet, and separate.
5. Rinse the separated brass once more....submerged in clean water. Stir with your fingers.
6. Pour brass once more into the separator and turn a few times. Then lay it out one deep on a towel to dry. ( I use a beach towel folded once for a deeper pile.)
7. During the dry, roll the brass with your hands a few times during the drying period. That helps to prevent anything from sticking inside if there is any pins.....I've never found one at that point.
8. When completely dry store primer side up....and as a last measure, jostle the whole bunch with sideways motions of the trays to make sure nothing is inside.

The advantages are cleaner brass and no lead-contaminated dust.

The disadvantage is peening of the case mouths which tend to get rolled inward.

IME, separating steel pins is no harder than separating cases from dry media. Use hot water and the pins fall right out. There can be an issue with 6.5mm case mouths because the most popular pins happen to be just the right length to stick in there, but that's not worse than corncob sticking in the flash hole.

I suppose ultrasonic would not peen the cases, but my limited experience with ultrasonic in general is that the little machines yield poor results. I suspect it's the big kilo-dollar machines that kick ass.