Step 2 of my process wet tumbling your brass

[TheDomFather]

Folks,
2 quick videos for those of you who are interested in wet tumbling.
I am using the Frankford arsenal wet tumbler which is reasonably priced and works great for me:



After tumbling the brass you need to dry it, I am using the Hornady dryer but there are many available and many people use a food dehydrator for this part as well. I would suggest at least 30 mins for a small batch of brass 45 mins or more for a large batch.



Comments and feedback always welcome
Dom

 

[Demi-human]

I have an annealer I use every cycle. Perfect softness and all dry, ready to be sized.
I may use the convection oven at times too. I have been looking into a dryer to keep everything centrally located in the closet, but I am doing ok for now.

 

[Captaingyro]

I'm not sure we should be telling folks we "need" to dry brass after wet tumbling. It's certainly an option for those who only have a limited amount of brass and need to start reloading immediately, but many of us just toss it onto an old towel, gather up the four corners, and give it a tumble for a minute. At that point the outsides are dry and any standing water has been removed from the insides. All that remains is to let it sit on the towel for a few hours for the insides to completely dry out. This works especially well if you've deprimed prior to tumbling, and only takes a little longer if you haven't.

 

[Demi-human]

One may not need to hurry the process, but I would encourage the verification of the dryness of the cases.
I know warm brass collects no condensation.
And that wet powder does not burn.

 

[ponchh]

I go the same way as captaingyro except I shake em in a towel to get the last few pins out then dump into gal bag and spray with Lee lube cut with water then into a cardboard box to dry, sometimes a day or maybe a week or two.

 

[ray15]

I'm not sure we should be telling folks we "need" to dry brass after wet tumbling. It's certainly an option for those who only have a limited amount of brass and need to start reloading immediately, but many of us just toss it onto an old towel, gather up the four corners, and give it a tumble for a minute. At that point the outsides are dry and any standing water has been removed from the insides. All that remains is to let it sit on the towel for a few hours for the insides to completely dry out. This works especially well if you've deprimed prior to tumbling, and only takes a little longer if you haven't.

I do not find this to be true, unless you mean by a few hours 24+. With my 9mm brass you can go through after towling them thoroughly and find in some cases the flash hole has a drop of water in it that can take well over a day to dry by itself. I've tried loading it after a 'few' hours and ended up with 2 out of 5 rounds being so weak they didn't cycle the slide, in addition to emitting a weak pop.

After having wasted a 300 round production run in this fashion I either dry them in the oven for 2 hours at 200F or let them sit for several days to ensure each case is truly dry.

 

[TheDomFather]

Some people leave them out in the sun to dry, others put them in the oven (if that doesn't affect your marriage retention requirements go for it) or just get a case dryer. Leaving them wet to dry on their own is taking an unnecessary risk and injecting one more problematic element.

 

[GBExpat]

Comments and feedback always welcome

I think that you need a bigger wrist watch.

Thanks for sharing the videos.

 

[TheDomFather]

I think that you need a bigger wrist watch.

Thanks for sharing the videos.

My two vices Guns and Watches much better than strippers and booze!

 

[USSR]

For several years I was processing thousands of brass for a guy with a Type 6 FFL, so if I may give you some advice. First, add another 3 or 4 pounds of steel pins to your tumbler. Even if you completely fill up the tumbler with brass, you will never reach the weight limit of the tumbler using just 5 pounds of pins, and the additional pins will improve cleaning. Second, buy yourself a 5 gallon plastic bucket. Put mesh end cap on one end of the tumbler and dump the liquid into to bucket. Fill the bucket back up with fresh water, swish the brass around a bit, then dump it into the bucket. Repeat at least one more time. You have now separated the pins from the brass and rinsed the brass. Dump the brass onto a towel and swirl them around, then dump the brass into one of those cheap aluminum turkey pans and place in the oven at it's lowest setting for 20 minutes or so. Returning to the pins and soapy water in the bucket, dump the water out, add fresh water then dump it a couple of times, then using your magnet, return the pins to the tumbler. Much easier than dumping your brass and pins together on a towel.

Don