Need advice on brass cleaning machines

[1066]

Over the last 40 odd years I've tried all ways but for the last 5-6 years I've been wet tumbling with SS media, I can't see that I'll change now. If you're not sure how the wet system works, here's how I do my brass with an old rock tumbler.

 

[Skgreen]

Not sure of the budget.
Given the OP's limited need for capacity, a 'medium to large' device of any kind probably isn't the answer.
An ultrasonic can do more than just clean brass,,,
(I wet tumble. Started with HF dual drum and now using a FART due to it's larger capacity. Have wondered myself if I should add an ultrasonic for gun parts cleaning, but I would have no need for it as a brass cleaner. The OP may be able to use one for 'double-duty', or perhaps more)

 

[Toprudder]

I have a Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaner and was not impressed with it. I would like to try one of the more powerful units, though, before I pass judgement on ultrasonic.

 

[Skgreen]

I have a Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaner and was not impressed with it. I would like to try one of the more powerful units, though, before I pass judgement on ultrasonic.

What did you not like about it? Didn't clean well? Didn't last?
I don't have an ultrasonic of any kind, but again,,, 'never say never',,,,

 

[Toprudder]

What did you not like about it? Didn't clean well? Didn't last?
I don't have an ultrasonic of any kind, but again,,, 'never say never',,,,

Did not clean well.

 

[doubleh]

I haven't used water and stainless pins but I'm guessing it would be a lot faster than the old corn cob/walnut/shell tumblers. Probably quieter too. If you add drying time to the stainless method it not be that much faster.

First off I don't do large batches of brass anymore and it's not terribly dirty. My method has become putting them in a covered plastic container with a little real lemon juice and a little soap, shaking them good and letting them sit for a few hours. After a through hot water rinse I let them air dry. Not really fast but almost effortless to do.

 

[ATLDave]

I use a vibratory tumbler (Frankfort arsenal, I think) with corncob media and a squirt of flitz media additive put in when I change the media (about 1-2 times per year). Cost me maybe $50 to get set up? I clean at least one batch of brass almost every week. I usually set it up in my garage on a Friday night and let it run overnight. When I get back from the gym on Saturday morning, I have brass that is very shiny on the outside. The inside stays pretty dark, which has no apparent impact on performance. I like the fact that the brass doesn't get 100% clean, because the small amount of residue remaining acts as a lubricant during sizing (sizes easier than new brass). I like that I don't have lead-contaminated water to dispose of. I do the tumbling and the media separation outside with a bucket and a couple of collander-type strainers, so the lead dust contamination doesn't get into the house. I have no plans to change any of this.

Take that for whatever it is worth.

 

[hk940]

I have used dry tumblers for years, I was never happy with the results. I switched to wet tumbling with the ss pins I would never go back to dry tumbling.
I cleaned 1917 45 apc brass I shot 45 years ago, they came out as new.\
I know it is a big start up cost (I lost mine in a break in of my storage unit).
But you will get like new brass.

 

[cfullgraf]

I use dry tumbling the most using a vibrating tumbler, actually two. I keep the tumbler covered and dust is a non-issue. As the media ages,. I sometimes add a little polish and it binds up the dust. The media gets tossed when it does not clean any more. I have Berry Mfg and Dillon tumbles.

Sometimes, I wet tumble with stainless pins. It is usually when I am getting ready to make a large run of general shooting ammunition such as 38 Special wadcutters, 45 ACP 230 FMJ's or 9x19. While wet tumbling takes less time to complete, it requires more attention on my part. With an hour or so actual tumbling time, there is not much time to go off an do something else while the tumble is running. Then I fine separating the cases from the pins takes longer than it takes me to separate cases from dry media. I have a Thumler Tumbler and a Frankfort Arsenal tumbler.

Wet tumbling sure cleans and polishes the cases nicely.

When I first got into reloading, I used an ultrasonic cleaner to clean cases. I already had the ultrasonic cleaner in inventory. Back then, the magic case cleaning elixirs for use in ultrasonic cleaners were not available and I used soaps and detergents. Cases got clean but not shiny.

Drying cases after wet cleaning is a bit of another time consuming activity. Originally, I'd spread the cases on a towel and stir them periodically over several days. Now, I have a case dryer similar to the Hornady case dryer (https://www.midwayusa.com/product/100809/hornady-case-and-parts-dryer). It still takes a while to dry the cases but at least I do not have to constantly attend to the cases until they are dry.

Various folks have various methods to accelerate the drying process.

 

[Hondo 60]

Which is faster?

The vibratory tumblers are probably the quickest. Walnut shell is probably the fastest
Corncob gets 'em shinier

Which is quieter?

I don't think I'd do any tumbling in the house.
So I never really stopped to think about that.
Vibratory & Tumbling can both be a bit noisy.

Which is more mechanically durable?

I've had a Lyman vibratory tumbler for 10 years, no problems
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/158440/lyman-turbo-1200-pro-sifter-case-tumbler-110-volt

I've had a Harbor Freight Dual Drum Rotary Tumbler for 3 years - again no problems.
https://www.harborfreight.com/dual-drum-rotary-rock-tumbler-67632.html

Which does a better job?

If you deprime first, the wet tumbling does a MUCH better job.
I usually leave mine run overnite & it comes out looking almost brand new.

 

[Dudedog]

I have a Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaner and was not impressed with it. I would like to try one of the more powerful units, though, before I pass judgement on ultrasonic

I had the small Frankford one. Not impressed either.Took lots of cycles to get clean brass and the manual said something like 12 minutes on 6 off or something like that. A larger more powerful unit would probably work better
but then you are up to the cost of wet tumbling with pins which works really well.

100+ where I'm at most of summer, drying wet cases in the sun is easy, cases are almost to hot to touch after a couple hours in the sun.
I think the wash and wax helps them dry quicker, water doesn't "stick" as well, less surface tension maybe.

 

[Toprudder]

100+ where I'm at most of summer, drying wet cases in the sun is easy, cases are almost to hot to touch after a couple hours in the sun.
I think the wash and wax helps them dry quicker, water doesn't "stick" as well, less surface tension maybe.

I made a screen rack that I use to dry brass. If you want to talk about rapid drying, I propped up the rack on top of the outside AC condenser, and with the summer heat it really dries it fast.

 

[cw308]

I dry tumbled for 25+ years , after seeing how wet tumbling with stainless steel pins cleaned the cases inside and out and the primer pockets . I have a universal depriming die , wet tumbling you pop the primers before cleaning . I bought the Tumblers Tumbler model B ( the red drum ) all the cases came out looking brand new . Gave the dry vibrating unit , media corn an walnut to a friend . Never liked the buildup of carbon inside the cases .

The water in the unit after cleaning will be black , l dump most of the water out without dumping the pins and flush the unit with clean water , remove the cases an let air dry in those holders that come with store bought ammo . If you check out those videos on line you will see how clean the cases come out . Hope I Helped .

Chris

 

[hk940]

12 minutes? I would run my tumbler for four hours.(that's what was the general rule on the web, It must be right I saw it in the internet). After that amount of time even brass that looked pretty clean going in came out like new, the water was almost black.
I made my own separator. Two 8" 3/4 plywood disks with 3/4" dowel thru the middle wrapped with 1/4" hardware cloth wrapped around. It had a cabinet catch door to load and unload.
It sat over a storage tote a half dozen spins and every thing was separated.
I would dump the dirty water and pins into a riddle then rinse, picking up any stray pins with a magnet (release type)

 

[Dudedog]

On the Ultrasonic I had you could set a MAX of 6 min run time and then there was a duty cycle.
So it was two runs of 6 minutes then wait, two more runs wait....major pain.
Wet tumble I think I can set it for like 3 or 4 hours (never set more than 1.5, timer goes longer than it needs to run. I usually do a 1/2 hour pass on the empty primed brass, then once it is deprimed a 1 hour pass.
My dry vibe type just has an on off switch. On for however long it takes.

 

[jmorris]

I haven't used water and stainless pins but I'm guessing it would be a lot faster than the old corn cob/walnut/shell tumblers. Probably quieter too. If you add drying time to the stainless method it not be that much faster.

Depends on how you do it and how much you are doing per batch.

Something like a Dillon tumbler can do 1000 pistol cases at a time and I generally set it on a 4 hour timer, same as my smaller vibratory tumblers.

I didn’t like the cost of the tumblers when wet came around or the tiny batches they did so I threw my own together. I just used a direct drive gear motor off eBay and two 12.7 gallon (100 lb chlorine) buckets. One driven by the motor and the other that just slides in and out of the driven bucket.



It can tumble several thousand cases per batch. I tumble for 1.5 hours then rinse in the large Dillon tub full of water. This time of year, set out in the Sun, they are not only dry in 2.5 beers, they are also to hot to hold in a bare hand for long.

So in 2 hours I can do wet what would take me 8 hours dry but dry is easier and it’s not like I have to sit there for 8 hours.



A few years ago I built a half dozen tumblers for a business that they used to tumble 30 gallons of brass at a time (15 gallons per drum). Also an over head crane to load and unload them.



They still used a bank of dry tumblers for post load tumbling.



I built them a media separator that rolls down the isle that the mixers dump directly into. This is it without the bottom shelf that holds the tub.




That said for the OP this would do it.

https://azstore.us/products/frankfo...olishing-for-reloading?variant=14439022493811

 

[jmorris]

You can “over do” stainless/wet. Early on there was speculation as to damage that might make the brass unsafe to shoot rubbing against the pins.

I tumbled one batch for a full 24 hours. It did forever alter the cases by turning them OD green everywhere the pins could contact the brass but they shot fine.

 

[1066]

That's one way of marking your cases JM. I often dump my small machined parts in the SS tumbler for an hour or two, gives a pleasing even matt finish to aluminium bits.

 

[Whiterook808]

You guys must have some really dirty brass! 1 1/2 to two hours in my little Frankford Arsenal with a corncob and Nu Finish and the brass is clean and shiny. Maybe not brand new shiny, but good enough for me. If I decap the brass first, large primer pockets are pretty clean and small not so much be better than before. Maybe my batches are smaller, but then, so is the tumbler.

 

[ray15]

You can “over do” stainless/wet. Early on there was speculation as to damage that might make the brass unsafe to shoot rubbing against the pins.

That's not the largest concern to me. Most people that are wet tumbling are using fairly substantial amounts of citric acid in their cleaning solution. Given more than a couple of hours, this will leach the zinc out of the brass, substantially degrading its mechanical properties.

The more brass I tumble the clearer it has become that citric acid is the real active ingredient. If you have enough acid in your solution, you can tumble with pins, without pins, soak and slosh around in a bucket, or even use an affordable ultrasonic cleaner and get good, if not excellent, results.

 

[Dudedog]

they are also to hot to hold in a bare hand for long

Yes sir, same where I'm at.

To much acid is not good. Go easy on the acid.
Interesting thing the other day, had one brass plated steel, that snuck through sorting, came out of the tumbler pink! oh it's not all brass.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

I like my Thumler's model B tumbler. You can wet or dry tumble with it and it'll take 300 45acp cases at a time with no problem.

It sure isn't quiet though.

 

[irishlad]

I use a Thumbler's Tumbler (vibratory) . Using a mix of crushed walnut and corn cob with a capful of Nu-finish liquid car polish. Very quiet, takes about an hour or two to clean and make the cases shiny. Add an hour or two extra and they look like new.

+1 mine is very quiet. I use 20/40 blast media.

 

[gojones]

I recently bought the new RCBS wet tumbler. So far I really like it. It is a lot like the FA wet tumbler in size but only has one lid opening instead of the double ended on the FA and the jug also has a built in handle. Anybody else using this? If so, what are your thoughts?
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1018264391/rcbs-rotary-case-tumbler-110-volt

 

[gojones]

Opps! Didn't mean to post this. Can't figure out how to delete this post.