My experience with my ultrasonic cleaner vs tumbler

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My drying racks.
I made some with 1/4 inchfwood dowels for 30 caliber & bigger brass, but like the galvinized 19.penny finnish nail better.
They will hold 22 caliber & up.

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Hit up the dollar store for a kitchen colander and any grocery store in the cake making area for a 3-5 gallon bucket. The icing and pickles come in the buckets and they throw them out when empty. I have gotten plenty of buckets that way for free. :)

I dump the tumbler into the colander sitting over the bucket and shake the pins out. The water level needs to be high enough that the brass is submerged and the pins will come out easily. When I’m done put a pillowcase over the top of the bucket and dump it out and the pins get caught in the case. Tadaaa.
 
WeekendReloader said:
Wow! That's dedication!

I just shake off the water and dump them on a paper towel in a shallow tray to air dry.
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A friend sold some wet tumbled range brass that he dried with the towel method.
I guy loaded them up and they were not completely dry. He had a lot of duds.
When he took the misfired cartridges apart they had wet powder.

I want my wet tumbled brass to be 100% dry.
Just like in plumbing
SCHIT RUNS DOWN HILL
PAY DAY IS FRIDAY
AND NEVER CHEW YOUR FINGER NAILS.

When a case is held upside down water drains out 100% of the time.
If I bought brass that was suposed to be dry and it was damp and I loaded it up I'd be pi$$ed.

It takes extra time, but I am 100% sure people are getting 100% dry cases.
 
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I have both types and for non-precision calibers I use a tumbler and the brass does come out looking nicer. For my bench rest brass though I don't want them beating up against each other, so it is my commercial ultrasonic cleaner or them in small batches.

Bob
 
I've tried several methods of drying my cases. Generally I seem to always have several small batches sorted by size. I tend to come home from my range trips and go straight to clean up mode. If I do any actual reloading work other than case prep that same day I always have plenty of fresh clean cases ready to go.

My brass comes out of the tumbler/cleaner, thoroughly rinsed, shaken around in a clean towel, rolled around on another clean towel and then left out in the garage to air dry for a minimum of two days if not until the next weekend. I've never seen the garage go under 40*F in the coldest part of the year. Summer times its consistently 80-110*.

It would be nice to dry it fast so I could put away faster and be 100% sure it's dry.
I am taking tomorrow off from work, I plan to hit the brass cleaning full on so I can start with all cleaned and polished cases.
 
I can not believe the difference it made on my cases. They look new or actually better than new than some of my factory junk. I feel like for the last two years I have been wasting my time with the ultrasonic cleaner.
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If you load your ammo “for looking at”, it’s hard to beat wet with pins.

That said, my smallest, single hole groups, have been shot with cases that have just been wiped off and brushed by hand. No where near as clean or pretty but how pretty the case looked wasn’t the goal.
 
My goal was not initially set out to have the best looking brass. I honestly never cared how it looked until after multiple reloads and it was getting harder and harder to find on the ground. After one day of shooting my 30-30 with brand new factory loaded ammo in bright and shiny Hornady brass I noticed how much more easily the cases were to see making the retrieval much easier.

#1 priority is loading quality ammo. Accurate and reliable.

#2 priority is retrieval of spent cases. Especially semi auto pistol cases that can be loaded several times over. I actually have been avoiding my semi auto pistols and rifles because of the time and frustration of staring at the ground. My outlook on this is I might enjoy shooting more if it's less work. I know there are other ways to achieve this as well but I tend to pack enough stuff as it is for a single range trip.

#3 priority is a sense of pride. When I set out to do something I strive to achieve the best results possible with in reason. Including maintenance and cleaning of all of my equipment.
 
#2 is understandable, don’t ever forget about your tumbler going though. I left some in there going overnight once. Came out OD green anywhere the pins could touch. Still fired and functioned fine though. 30 min, will do it in the ones I have though.

C29FB39D-E2BE-4613-BB49-60F24103FFC2.jpeg

I use lots of different methods, to this day, not really a right or wrong one. For a handful I like 180 seconds in my ultrasonic. My wet/stainless one will hold thousands at a time and knock them out without too much effort, my dry media tumblers give the longest lasting finish but that’s just the polish on them.

I often post load tumble rounds for 15 min or so to knock the lube off and gain the finish protection.
 
I managed to bang out all of extra cases tonight. Actually just finishing up as I type this. Now all of my cases have been wet tumbled except a small amount in my last range pick up container. Probably less than 20 cases total. Now I guess the only option left is to go make dirty brass. The last two runs were on dirty cleaning solution but they still look good enough and much better than before.

The last two runs were 38 special cases that have been loaded probably 6 times. Some of them were my dad's and I'm thinking he stopped reloading before I was born. They look much better even though revolver cases are not an issue to pick up from ground I ran them anyway.

I'm hoping for some decent weather sunday morning so I can go enjoy some much needed range time.
 
jmorris said:
#2 is understandable, don’t ever forget about your tumbler going though. I left some in there going overnight once. Came out OD green anywhere the pins could touch. Still fired and functioned fine though. 30 min, will do it in the ones I have though.

View attachment 984209

I use lots of different methods, to this day, not really a right or wrong one. For a handful I like 180 seconds in my ultrasonic. My wet/stainless one will hold thousands at a time and knock them out without too much effort, my dry media tumblers give the longest lasting finish but that’s just the polish on them.

I often post load tumble rounds for 15 min or so to knock the lube off and gain the finish protection.
Click to expand...
Those OD green cases are pretty cool! I'd probably lose them all in the grass, though!
 
Those OD green cases are pretty cool! I'd probably lose them all in the grass, though!
Click to expand...

Kind of reminds me of that tula steel case ammo.

I decided yesterday to use the basket in my ultrasonic cleaner as a media separator for my tumbler. Low and behold there were 6 38 special cases and 5 9mm cases that I forgot about probably 2 weeks ago. Oops.

One nice thing this week of going through all of my brass I have been counting it as it gets put away. Tomorrow afternoon everything should be dry enough to finish. I also got the wifes permission to start building my man cave slash detached from the house reloading room. It won't happen overnight but it will be nice to have a dedicated reloading room that doesn't eat up my garage space.
 
I take wet brass, kneed them around in a towel, then throw them on an old mesh baking pan, put them in the oven at 250F, or put them on or next to the wood stove, in the mesh baking pan, depending on the fire inside.

jmorris said:
#2 is understandable, don’t ever forget about your tumbler going though. I left some in there going overnight once. Came out OD green anywhere the pins could touch. Still fired and functioned fine though. 30 min, will do it in the ones I have though.

View attachment 984209

I use lots of different methods, to this day, not really a right or wrong one. For a handful I like 180 seconds in my ultrasonic. My wet/stainless one will hold thousands at a time and knock them out without too much effort, my dry media tumblers give the longest lasting finish but that’s just the polish on them.

I often post load tumble rounds for 15 min or so to knock the lube off and gain the finish protection.
Click to expand...

That looks pretty cool, how exactly did you do that?
The only accidental cool effect I have came up with is the copper wash look.
 
If my wife ever even though I put brass in the oven she would lose it on me. Now I've actually thought about the gas grill but I have an issue with putting anything that contains lead that cooks food my family eats. Not saying it's a good or bad idea but for the sake of keeping wife happy and my son safe I would just assume let the brass air dry. My shooting hobby is not so important I can't wait a day or two for dry brass.

I hit couple of neighborhood yard sales today and and yesterday in search of an old food dehydrator. I came up empty handed. I'm not in a hurry to do anything that goes for reloading, shooting and drying my brass. I can spend an hour shooting 50 rounds or picking up 50 cases. Keeping the home life happy as it could possibly be isn't worth being caught in a drying brass in the oven, bbq, or clothes dryer type situation in my opinion.
 
I've thought about the toaster oven as well as the dehydrator. I figured the toaster oven might possibly be good for powder coating lead boolits if I ever decide to go down that road. In my early days of reloading I thought about casting but I'm not set up for nor do I have the time at this point. I'm sure I could make time if I really wanted to. I would probably only cast lead projectiles for my .357 if I were to go through with it. Since the shortage my local supply of lead cast semi was cutters has completely dried up. I really liked how they performed in my situation of plinking.

I'm not sure how car battery lead stands up for casting as I have zero experience but I do have several old car batteries that I never returned for the core charge thinking maybe one day they might come in handy for casting if I really wanted to try it.
 
Waterboy3313 said:
I'm not sure how car battery lead stands up for casting as I have zero experience but I do have several old car batteries that I never returned for the core charge thinking maybe one day they might come in handy for casting if I really wanted to try it.
Click to expand...
Big Flags on this...the plates aren't pure lead...take the core charges instead. Lot of CB advice against this very thing. Even seen the words of wisdom against it here as well.
 
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