Stainless tumbling

[PSD Ryan]

I spend a lot of time prepping my brass, even for my training rounds. My 556 brass I've been decapping, tumbling, lubing, resizing, reaming the crimps, deburring the flash holes, trimming, chambering/deburring the mouth, and tossing any cases with a head thinner than 0.080. All that work, I deserve super clean brass. Plus I hated all the dust the corncob kicks into my little 10x10 room. Got a baby on the way and can't have toxic dust in the air.

So with that justification (sounded good in my head, and my wife loved the no toxic dust lol) I bought a thumler tumbler model b and 5lbs of stainless pins.

Ran 2 sessions of about 6 hours with just the pins. The first batch the water came out black, second it was light grey. The stainless is really shiny. That should take care of any oils and burrs left on the pins.

Threw in my first load of probably around 300 556 cases with an hour and a half left. Can't wait to see the results.

The only harder part with wet tumbling is drying. Since I brass prep when I'm bored, then throw it all in an ammo can after to be reloaded, I'm not really worried about leaving brass out to dry. I'm not in a rush.

The rotary tumbler is significantly quieter than my vibratory.

[Boomerang]

Sounds much better than dust!

[M16]

The rotary wet tumbler is hard to beat. I still use the vibratory ones on occasion as well. To speed up the drying process i use my air compressor to blow the remaining water out of the cases. It cuts down the drying time considerably. Add a dab of lemishine and a couple of squirts of dawn dishwashing liquid if you haven't.

[PSD Ryan]

Yeah I'm using 5lbs media, 3qts water, 2tbs dish soap, and a 45 case of lemi shine.

I'm not throwing out the vibratory just yet, but I'm pretty sure it's going to sit in the back of the shelf. Killing me not being able to peek at the progress. At 3 hours now.

[M16]

Yeah I'm using 5lbs media, 3qts water, 2tbs dish soap, and a 45 case of lemi shine.

I'm not throwing out the vibratory just yet, but I'm pretty sure it's going to sit in the back of the shelf. Killing me not being able to peek at the progress. At 3 hours now.

I still use the vibratory on handgun practice ammo. I believe it really helps to have the brass shiney clean when you are going to store it for a good length of time. You will be pleasantly surprised at how well it actually works. I usually run mine for four hours.

[Texas Grown]

Good info should I go with a vibe later.

[Walker]

Try walnut bird bedding. Get it . At a feed store. No dust

[WyoBull]

I use the Frankford Arsenal Stainless Steel Media wet tumbler and love it over the dry vibratory tumblers.
There are a lot of ways to dry your brass when done. You can put them on a baking pan in the oven on 200 degrees for about an hour, you can pick up a used food dehydrator at a garage sale etc., you can just lay them out on a dry town and use a hair dryer, or in my climate which is dry, just lay them out let them air dry.
Wet tumbling with stainless steel media takes a little more work but I believe the brass, especially internally, comes out much, much cleaner and shinier than using dry media.

[SOLID EAGLE]

Stainless tumbling is great on pistol brass and plinking 223 stuff. But on precision rifle reloading it can really give you problems. It took me a while to figure this out. When you stainless tumble rifle brass it cleans everything down to the brass. The inside of the case necks are then completely stripped of carbon from the previous shot. This carbon acts as a lubricant when seating your bullets. You also get very fine serrations cut inside the case necks. This also makes the inside of the neck extra grabby as you try to seat your bullet. This all adds up to very inconsistent neck tension.

I tried to open the neck size another 1/1000's and use dry neck lube to regain consistent neck tension but I could never get it as consistent as when I just left the inside neck carbon alone. YMMV

[PSD Ryan]

Well it certainly looks nice, and handled approximately 450 casings with no issue.

I set the tumbler in the sink and let water overflow to get the suds off. Dumped and rinsed. Then put it through the separator in water. Put the stainless back in the tumbler, spun the separator really fast, flinging almost all the water off, then put them on a towel. I'll use a bigger towel or less brass next time. Converted with a second towel and rolled it around some. Then hair dryer.

[M16]

When you stainless tumble rifle brass it cleans everything down to the brass. The inside of the case necks are then completely stripped of carbon from the previous shot.

Do you add carbon to the necks of new unfired brass?

[PSE guy]

WOW..those look much nice than mine. I use a vibe

[SOLID EAGLE]

Do you add carbon to the necks of new unfired brass?

No, but I don't ss tumble new brass either. Maybe I've been doing something wrong. If so, I'm not sure what it would be. All I know is that when I ss tumbled my fired rifle cases, my neck tension was hard to get consistent. After I stopped and either vib tumbled or hand cleaned the neck with a brush, everything settled down to a very repeatable level.

I'm pretty sure you know way more than I do about reloading. I tried the SS tumbling method and saw problems.

[Texas Grown]

Good info should I go with a tumbler later.

FIFM. Must have had brain gas.

[texas bound]

I love ss tumbling. Cleans the brass very well. I only run mine about an hour to 1.5 hours.