Dust on brass after tumbling

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Matt 357

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After tumbling, my brass looks super shiny and like new. But there is film of dust on them. After tumbling, I usually use a couple white cotton gloves as I inspect the brass and give them a quick wipe with the gloves. The gloves are pretty dirty after a couple hundred rounds. That crap could gum up my resizing die.

Do you folks bother to wipe off or remove the dust?

I assume the dust is a combo of soot and media dust.

BTW, I am reloading 38/357.
 
You could throw out the old cleaning media and use fresh stuff after X amount of loads. That's what I do. I don't notice an excess of dust either.
 
I resize before I tumble. As far as the dust, I put some small pieces of new dryer sheets(1/2"x1/2") in with the brass as its tumbling. Takes the really fine particles out of the equation. But, I run a q-tip inside my sizer die every once in a while. Just gets some dirt out. Just my 2 cents.
 
As far as the dust, I put some small pieces of new dryer sheets(1/2"x1/2") in with the brass as its tumbling. Takes the really fine particles out of the equation.
Click to expand...

I do this as well and I take the tumbled brass and put it in a box with another dryer sheet and shake it a bit.

Helps quite a bit.

Good Luck,

RMD
 
Thats why your hands get dirty when you are inspecting brass after tumbling.
By the time you inspect it, debur it, clean primer pockets, etc, all the dust will be wiped off on your hands.

Don't worry about it.

rc
 
I do the dryer sheet trick too. Use a used one, not a fresh one packed with fabric softener.
I don't know how much it helps, but it certainly comes out full of dust. Chuck it and use another one on the next load. When I'm loading on the single stage press, I wash my brass in acetone before charging and seating, but that is just something I choose to do. Sort of overkill, but the end result is what I'm going for.
 
I take a used dryer sheet, and tie a loose single overhand knot (so it looks like a bowtie) that way it rolls around with the media. I found that cut up or whole sheets w/out the knot, always ended up bound to the bowl somehow. I've even used 2 sheets. Typically, i see the dust with new media more than media thats been used for 2 or 3 (2-3hr) cycles.
 
I reshape mine before i tumble. Then after I seperate them I clean the primer pockets and debur the cases and but the time Ive handled them that much the dust is mostly gone.
 
I agree with rcmodel. Don't worry about it. By the time you load them and put them in a storage box the dust will be gone.

What's with the gloves?
 
I remove alot of dust from the media between tumblings by pouring back and forth from two 5 gallon plastic buckets. They develop a bit of static electricity and the inside is quickly coated with dust. Easy to wipe out with a damp cloth. I do this outside of course so I don't get the dust everywhere. I assume it contains some lead residue. Plus I wipe out the tumbler after each use.

I started using the gloves after I noticed the dust. I figured I might as well give them a quick wipe while inspecting and the gloves are easier than using a cloth.

Curious to see what effect the dust has on resizing effort. I'll do some clean and some dusty. BTW, I am using a Lee hand press.
 
After I dump the cases in my strainer & all the media is gone
I run my hands thru the cases with a piece of towel on each hand---
no more dust.................................:)
 
Put a capful of mineral spirits in the media before you put the brass in. That will keep dust down to a bare minimum and dryer sheets will pick up nearly all of that.
 
I use paper towels to dry my hands with at work, so when my hands are dry, the paper towels go in my pocket. I spread out 6 towels in the Lyman turbo 1200, then add the walnut media for the initial cleaning. I have already pretreated the walnut with NuFinish car polish. I only do the NuFinish about every 20 runs or so. On Each run I add 1 tablespoon (I really just pour some in each cycle) of mineral spirits to the run. The towels absorb lots of dirt, and this probably helps the media last longer and stay cleaner. I plug the tumbler into an electronic timer and let them tumble for 4 hours. With the timer I can set it before work and when I get home they are ready for the next step. The tumbler gets dumped into an RCBS Media Separator, and let me tell you this is a labor saver. After the walnut ends up in the bottom, I open it up and the dirty paper towels are discarded. The brass has lots of dust on it at this point. I then have a Folgers can full of fluffy paper towels (Also reclaimed from handwashing) and these are added to RCBS Media Separator and these do my dusting of the cases in about 15 turns of the Media Separator. These towels are put back into the Folgers can and replaced as needed. Works for me and is much easier than getting the dust off by hand.

MultiCalinMO
 
When cases start to get dusty, the media has too many fine particles from either breaking down or the from the stuff you cleaned out of previous cases. The media is still good but just needs to be cleaned itself. I set my tumbler in the door of the garage with a fan blowing directly at it. Let it run for a few minutes and then add some polish. After that runs for about 10 minutes, add some brass and let it run for an hour or so with the fan blowing all the dust out the door. That will leave just the big useful pieces of media with no fine dust. The brass will be clean with no need to wipe each one.
 
I do the dryer sheet thing as well, and it does help.

There is another way you can "manually" remove a lot of the dust. You'll need two buckets, a back yard, and a weee bit of a breeze.

Put all the media from the tumbler in one bucket, put the other on the ground. Standing upright, pour the media into the bucket on the ground. Repeat until you stop seeing dust blow away in the breeze.
 
The media I'm using is treated with red polishing compound and it is very dusty. I've never bothered to wipe it off of anything, except me and the presses occasionally. I've not had a single dust-related issue in many thousands, or tens of thousands of rounds.

Cleaning off dust, like cleaning primer pockets or sorting headstamps, is a very good idea if you're looking for some creative ways to spend more time on your reloading.
 
Dryer sheets will take that fine dust out, but you have to use new sheets. Otherwise your brass won't have that springtime fresh smell.:neener:
 
Sam1911 brings up a good point. I think the dust I am seeing could actually be polishing compound. The media I use was green and came with the Lyman tumbler.

Meh, I guess it's no biggy. First ~200 rounds I reloaded I didn't bother cleaning the dust off and they shot just fine.

I use the white gloves because I already had them and it keeps my hands clean while sorting brass after tumbling. My sorting is probably a waste of time. I have shot various brands of 38 & 357. I keep each brand together through reloading process. The assumption (probably wrong) is that the case length will be more consistant within a manufacturer. So in reloading the bullet seating will be more consistant. Plus the OCD in me likes each box of reloads to have the same brass.

I have been doing the pouring of media in the wind that mgkdrgn suggested. It remove alot of the dust, but probably the green polishing compound too.

Thanks for all the feedback. This thread is probably done.
 
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