Wet tumblers: how do you deal with SS pins?

I use the FA magnet to get the bulk of the pins and pour over a screen to salvage the rest.

The FA magnet is nice because you can "turn it on" and "turn it off" as needed.

I use a $2 (plus tax) solution from the dollar store.

Pin separation works best under water.

Find a small garbage can and a strainer/collander that fits over/insude the garbage can nicely. Fill the garbage can with water. Pour the brass/pin mix into the collander and stir and agitate until all the pins have fallen to the bottom of the garbage can.

I use a media separator 1st:

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

1. Dump brass, pins, and liquid into media separator and rotate multiple times (about 99% of pins are removed)
2. Rinse brass 3 times
3. Place on brass repurposed food dehydrator
3. Rinse pins in separator bottom 1/2 and drain
4. Pour pins back into drum
5. Use FA magnet to police up remaining pins in separator bottom and dump back in drum

I have a Frankford media separator I got when I was dry tumbling.
It and a magnet let me deal with the pins.

1. Dump into trays that came with my Lyman cyclone. (one has openings for the pins pass thru and fits inside the other which has a screen. (rinse)
2. Into media separator
3. Chase down stray pins with the magnet. (they like to try to escape)
4. Onto an old towel to dry

I also start with the FA media separator like Chuck R. Then I use a $2 magnet I got from Harbor Freight. Put the magnet in a small plastic bag so the pins will slide off of it easily. Get the extra pins out of the tumbler that way too.


Dave

peels said:

I use a $2 (plus tax) solution from the dollar store.

Pin separation works best under water.

Find a small garbage can and a strainer/collander that fits over/insude the garbage can nicely. Fill the garbage can with water. Pour the brass/pin mix into the collander and stir and agitate until all the pins have fallen to the bottom of the garbage can.

Click to expand...

Instead of a strainer/colander, I use another Dollar Store item... a wire waste basket, yes it costs $1.

I just use my hands. Reach in pick up several pieces of brass shake the pins out, I de-cap before tumbling, repeat until the bowl is empty. Those few pins that wind up on the towel are retrieved with a small magnet. Note however I’m not wet tumbling bottle neck Rifle brass only hand gun brass.
I do the same with most of the dry media tumbling. Just a habit of 40 years of hand loading. I guess.

I have given up on the FA separator and now use a dollar store bucket with a paint strainer bag in it.

I set up a brass/pin separation line that is nothing more than 4 Dollar Store buckets and a wire waste basket, total cost $5.
The paint strainer bags are $4 for 2 at home depot.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-5-gal-Elastic-Top-Strainers-2-Pack-11573-36WF/202061360

On top of the paint strainer bag I put in a dollar store wire waste basket and dump the tumbler contents into it.
With agitation, the pins pass thru the wire basket and are captured in the strainer bag.
The brass remains in the wire basket and I transfer it to bucket #2, 1/2 full of water, with another strainer bag in it to catch any remaining pins.
Then the wire basket/brass goes into yet another bucket (#3) of clean water for an agitation rinse.
The last rinse bucket's (#4) water is spiked with Armorall wash and wax, that dries on the brass leaving behind lube for re-
sizing .

I now take the bags out of buckets 1 and 2 with the pins and agitate them is buckets 3 and 4 to clean and wax the pins
The pins can be spread out, still in the bags, to dry, or returned to the tumbler wet to run another batch.
It took longer to type this than it does to do it.
I never chase lost pins anymore...


Edit: some cases (223?) may pass thru the wire basket I have pictured, 9mm do not
Edit2: so $9 worth of stuff doing it my way, or $62 for a separator and magnet to do it the other way...your call.

I just quit dealing with the pins. Don't really need them. Just some cleaning agent (soap, lemishine) and water does a fine job.

I might add them if I was trying to clean some really corroded, nasty range brass that has been at the bottom of a barrel for 10 years.

.40

► First step is to drain off most of the water by simply holding a hand over the mouth of the container and tilting it over. Use of Wash & Wax and Lemishine requires 3 to 4 rinses with clean water. Multiple rinses are important to stop the acidic action of the Lemishine. After each rinse, the water gets poured off the same way.

► Then the pins are separated from the brass in an inexpensive "rotary separator" from Grafs. HERE It's important to spin for about 15 seconds, then reverse and spin for 15 more. Then repeat as long as pins are flying out. This can most easily be done with the top of the separator box removed. It all happens really fast and usually requires less than 1 minute. The remaining water ends up in the bottom box with 99.8% of the pins. Excess water can then be poured off directly from the separator bottom box.

► Then I pour the still wet pins back into the FART container in preparation for the next tumble. Leaving wet pins in the FART container doesn't seem to hurt them at all. I do leave the cap off the FART container and the water will slowly evaporate, but I don't take any additional action to aid or speed this natural process.

► Then the basket full of wet brass is poured into a 1/4" mesh sieve. HERE The sieve is sitting atop a 5-gal bucket with $3 thrift store hair dryer (1200 Watt). While the hair dryer runs, the sieve is shaken to reposition the brass every ~5 minutes... which also dislodges the last of the tumbler pins. The last of the pins end up in the bottom of the hair dryer bucket where they are recycled. This contraption looks like this....



► I do use a stick magnet, but only to pick up the 10-15 wayward pins that get onto the floor during pouring operations. Using a magnet on a long stick keeps me from having to bend over.

• I know tumbling pins have been lost by pouring water off the container, but it has not been that many. After a year of ownership I still have about 95% of my pins and tumbling effectiveness has not been hurt. In 3 or 4 more years I'll order more pins, but loss has not been a big issue at all.

Get the Lyman sifter that fits on a 5gal bucket and dump everything in the sifter. Rinse a few times and get a harbor fright magnet that releases and dip it into the water and get your pins then dump the water.

I don't use pins. I use chips. https://www.facebook.com/southernshinetumblers

I use a basic media separator to out. The chips are 10X better than pins IMHO.

I guess I'm the lazy one. I just remove 1 end and force a garden house in the top with full flow. Once the water is clean I dump it into my media saparater. Let the pins fall into the bucket. I then trasfer the brass to my drier. Once dry it's annealed if it rifle brass. All pins are returned into the FART if I'm doing another load. If not I drain the bucket of water and let dry. Then transfer them back into the FART for the next run. I found if you lay the FART on the side it dries out faster since water is not trapped by the lid.

I'm with forty_caliber. I wet tumble but have never ever used any pins. They may not come out sparkly new but they come out clean enough for me to reload.

I also am in the camp of separating pins with the use of a rotary media separator. Very simple to use - once the pins are separated, empty out the water from the separator and then dump the pins back into the tumbler for the next batch. Very efficient...

Bayou52

1st I use a strainer to get rid of the water and rinse the brass and pins then I use a salad spinner, works great.

I use the media separator that I have always used with my vibratory case cleaners.

The FA magnet is the way to go get it you won't regret it.

I use this Media separator filled with water to get the pins to release from the casings. Then just pour the water off of the base and pick them up with the quick release magnet, and back to the drum, pull the handle and they all drop back into the drum. Drum fits on a 5 gal bucket to make it a comfortable height to spin it. Then put the clean shells on an old food dehydrator to dry. Also use Armor all Wash n wax instead of dawn, keeps the cases from tarnishing and leaves a bit of wax behind for sizing.

I tried the chips vs pins and after cleaning all the oil off them with 3 rounds in the tumbler. They are too light and float to the top when trying to dump the water off of the lower half of the tumbler. Went back to pins and still have 8 lbs of them on the shelf. Got the larger pins that don't jam up in the primer pocket holes of 223 mostly.

https://www.cabelas.com/product/CABELAS-ROTARY-BRASS-MEDIA-SEPARATOR/2195139.uts?slotId=0
https://www.cabelas.com/product/BATTENFELD-MEDIA-RELEASE-MAGNET/1793989.uts?slotId=2

I'll first rinse most, but not all*, of the soap out of the brass while it's still in the tumbler drum.
Then it heads to the media separator.
Make sure the separator has enough water in it to partially submerge the brass. Spin as required to remove pins. Drain some water out of the separator and spin a bit more to remove the water.
I then pour most of the pins/water from the separator back into the drum. Grab the rest with a F/A magnet

(* Soap breaks the surface tension and allows the the pins come out of the cases easier.)

I use a Dillon media separator and fill the tub with water, final rinse and the pins fall to the bottom. I then dump the tub into a small screen device designed to wash pantyhose in a regular washer, that lets the water go through and catches the pins until I need them again.

When my wife asked me if I had seen it, I just gave her a dumb look....

I use the filter cap that comes with the FART, and screw that on when the wash cycle is done. I pour the wash water out in a 5 gallon bucket, shaking it a few times, turn it 90 degrees, shake a few times, turn 90, shake a few times and by then the water and a lot of the pins are in the wash water bucket. I then fill the FART with fresh water, shake it, and dump that in the wash water bucket again shaking and turning as I go. I’ll usually do that one more time just to clean out the dirty wash water.
Then I fill with fresh water, add some citric acid and put it on a 10 minute turn. While it’s turning, I’ll dump the wash water out, decanting it so the pins remain in the bucket, and rinse them as well. When the rinse cycle is complete I once again shake and turn into the pin bucket and most of the pins are then in the rinse water, which becomes the next wash water cycle.
The brass is then dumped in a plastic garden vegetable strainer that I can then finish shake and a few remaining pins will tumble out.
Lather, rinse, repeat.