Anyone wet tumbling think dry is better?

I don't, I wet tumble for 15 minutes and my brass shines like new.

I think they both have a place. I have been wet tumbling, and actually just bought a vibratory tumbler. Why on earth would I do that? Because when I am running my progressive press, if I do single pass or didn't clean the case lube off, the powder measure can have a tiny bit of spillage that sticks to the sides of the cases, and it can cause issues getting them fully inserted in the case gauge. Rather than try to go through every round and check by hand, it is just as easy for me to take all the ammo afterwards, toss it in the vibratory tumbler for 10 or so minutes, and let that get any spilled powder and case lube off.

For quick touch up work, a vibratory tumbler can be an excellent tool. For a more thorough cleaning or higher general capacity, a wet tumbler is an excellent tool.

I use a number of methods.

Dry with corncob.

Dry with walnut.

Wet with water and soap tumbling.

Wet with a solution of stuff and stainless steel media.

Wet with a solution of stuff in an ultrasonic cleaner.

A rag to wipe down the outside of the case and brushes for the rest of it, one at a time by hand.

All work great for the intended use. I have won the most matches with mass corncob tumbled brass but my smallest groups have been fired with brass that hasn’t been tumbled since they were manufactured and they were “prepped” after that.

If you think any method is going to save your life or enough money to send your kids to college, you are going to be disappointed.

Just might be the single most over thought aspect of reloading. Maybe why I continue to use them all..,

I mostly dry tumble except when I want the cases to really shine, then I wet tumble.

I find wet tumbling with pins to be more labor intensive than I care to do much of the time.

Never wet tumbled...seems like a lot of trouble for the return. The only thing wet has over dry is pin cleaned primer pockets.

I am not a competator, I only stalk paper, usually at 100, sometimes 200, with aperture sights, and lesser range with handguns, but shiney brass is good.

I solved the dust problem years ago with used dryer sheets, cap full of Nu-finish and Tsp of mineral spirits/turpentine. Run for 1-2 hours. I use an 80 yr old Pacific "C" single stage press with auto prime feature, never saw a need to burn thru $100 bills in a weekend. Reloading is fun and relaxing, but there IS a point of diminishing returns. When I deprime, a small screwdriver twisted on the primer pocket cleans out the residue; reprime on the press.

After case prep for my lots, then I drop powder from my previously calibrated Lyman 55 (recheck every 10-15 drops). The primed case with powder in it never leaves my hand until I seat the bullet. Primer always seats properly (40 yrs, 2 upside down, one sideways- my fault not equip).

cfullgraf said:

I mostly dry tumble except when I want the cases to really shine, then I wet tumble.

I find wet tumbling with pins to be more labor intensive than I care to do much of the time.

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+1

No

I'm cheap.
I have some junk I want to turn into a wet tumbler but I just haven't done it yet. Walnut shells and lead dust, yummy.

I built a home-made wet tumbler for free using a scrounged motor, gears/belts/shafts from discarded laser printers, and apple-sauce jars for the tumbler.

But you can't wet tumbled finished cartridges (well, I mean, I guess you *could*... but....) Anyway, I've been thinking lately maybe I should keep an eye out for a 2nd hand dry tumbler to just toss all the finished rounds into to clean off the one-shot spray lube, stray powder flakes, etc. Wiping them all by hand is a chore. So even if you DO switch to wet tumbling, I suspect you'll still find uses for your dry tumbler.

cfullgraf said:

I mostly dry tumble except when I want the cases to really shine, then I wet tumble.

I find wet tumbling with pins to be more labor intensive than I care to do much of the time.

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Lol

Hi...
I find wet tumbling to be much too time consuming and troublesome to bother with.
I run three or four dry tumblers just about every week. My brass comes out quite clean and shiny using walnut media. I clean rifle brass primer pockets on my RCBS case mate center. I do the same on handgun brass but only when I feel like it because in my limited (nearly 40 years now) experience it doesn't make much if any difference in handgun reloading.

I wet tumble. Less dust. Cleaner. I like clean.

I don't think there's any doubt that wet tumbling does a better and more efficient job of cleaning brass.
But the steel pins, water, soap and drying process is not something I care to do.
I use corn cob media and it gets the brass pretty clean, and I'm happy enough with it.

Nope!

I think the wet tumbling/time consuming argument comes from the tiny volumes some can do.

The first one I built was using a 100lb (12.7gallon) chlorine bucket, it could clean around 3000, really grungy (wouldn’t have put them in my corncob tumbler) 45 acp cases at once and after laid out in the sun would be dry in 2.5 beers. Efficient, even if more labor by me to do it.



Some years later, I built some really big wet tumblers for a remanufacturer.



The cleaned 15 gallons of brass, per barrel at one time! I built 6 of them a gantry crane so they could load and unload them.

After they loaded the rounds, they post load tumbled them with a bank of dry tumblers.



I built this media separator to roll down the isle.

This was before a tray was added to the bottom.

The closest I've come to wet tumbling is a five gallon bucket with lemishine water and a good shake every few minutes. I do this for really dirty brass or black powder cartridges. Dry them in the sun.

My vibratory tumblers work fine for me. The pre-rinse makes my media last longer, I think. And, the old bucket method can produce some pretty shiny brass on its own.

If my bigger dry tumbler ever breaks, I may consider giving an actual wet tumbler a try. Ive seen the results. Brass looks new again.

and after laid out in the sun would be dry in 2.5 beers

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You are either nursing those beers or it's hot where you are like where I am.
110 outside an hour in the sun and the brass is to hot to touch!

In contrast to vibratory cleaning, water and pins are more demanding of equipment. Loading and rinsing is easy. But having a deep/spacious tub/bucket and appropriate means to efficiently separate brass from ss is key to a streamlined procedure. Pins/water method is undeniably more labor than vibe. But the results speak and 'good enough' is in the eye of the beholder.

How many handgun pieces per batch and number of batches before one has to replace corn cob or walnut media at what cost?

I wet tumble fired brass and dry in a re-purposed food dehydrator.

The only time I use my big blue tumbler now is removing lube from sized rifle brass.

Herman B said:

How many handgun pieces per batch and number of batches before one has to replace corn cob or walnut media at what cost?

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I can do more than a 1000 9mm cases in my Dillon tumbler at a time, keep an old lamp timer on the cord set for 4 hours. When I was competing a lot, I averaged around 27,000 rounds of 9mm a year and would clean over 100,000 cases with a bag of media, would go through 4 bottles of polish though, to keep the dust eliminated.

I am not sure how many cases I have done in my walnut tumbler but the media in it is around 15 years old.

I wet tumble pistol brass, primarily because most of my brass is range pick up and it’s very dirty

I believe dry (corn cob) is better for rifle brass for a couple of reasons:

1. wet tumbling will peen the case mouth
2. cleaning all the carbon out of the case neck affects bullet seating and neck tension.

These add unwanted variation in my precision ammo. If it was just making range fodder then I wouldn’t care.

I've done both, but the only thing I use my dry tumbler for now is to clean One Shot or the like off already primed brass. Not going to do that a lot, I'm persnickety about corncob stuck in the primer holes. May not matter, but I just have to tap, tap, tap to get it out.

So for me, it's the opposite of what a lot of folks are saying: dry tumbling is more high maintenance than wet. It helps that I don't bake or dehydrate brass, just let it air dry.

My equipment, in case anyone's interested: the original, big Franklin Arsenal wet tumbler, a 3 gallon bucket, a 1/4-inch gold-panning seive, a 5 gallon paint straining bag, salad spinner, disposable aluminum lasagna pans for drying, Armor All Wash N Wax, citric acid, pins, FA magnet. You can probably tell how I do it just from that, so I won't go any further.

The Wash N Wax does a good job of deterring tarnish on stored brass, better than just corncob alone, as you would figure. Not enough data to compare to NuFinish or similar in corncob.

I hated all the dust when using the dry method. How I clean brass and my formulas is inconsequential. We has it’s own issues with drying and the leftover water. But it doesn’t have dust.

azrocks said:

Anyone wet tumbling think dry is better?

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For cleaning large QTYs of fired cases into glittering like-new jewels I have found no better process ... but ... I did not rush out and sell my two VCCs (VibratoryCaseCleaner) because I am not only always cleaning large QTYs of fired cases.

My VCCs come in very handy for cleaning dirty/grimy milsurp ammo and, occasionally, dirty/grimy commercial ammo ... and, o'course, small QTYs of fired cases prior to reloading as they do not need to look perfect to function properly.

I built my own wet tumbler out of a 2' piece of PVC drain pipe & an old washing machine motor.
I dry it with a tumbler type basket with a heat gun blowing through it. It only takes about 10 to 15 min to dry a load of brass.
I do still use corn cob to polish & shine up my brass when needed. It comes out of the tumbler good enough to just reload but if I need something extra for someone I'll throw it in the corn cob for a hour or so.