Dry tumbling and media care

My go to process to clean brass has been to dry tumbling w/ a course walnut w/ no polish. Resize/deprime. Trim. Lyman case prep tool, then finalize with a corn cob with NuFinish. My brass comes out new looking. I read than many people are adding mineral spirits to their media, but why? What benefit is the mineral spirits providing?

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It helps keep the dust down. I've tried bits of dryer sheets as people have suggested but to me the mineral spirits works better. You don't put much. Just enough to dampen the media. Now i don't suggest using it in walnut because it turns that dust to a paste. Which is nasty as hell. I don't ever use walnut. I've never seen or had the need to. Corn cob has always done what I need done.

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Also I use a universal decaping die before I put them in the tumbler.

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The mineral spirits does work well for dust. I use half a cap of nufinish, and half of the same cap of mineral spirits.


JTD

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Originally Posted by JeffreyDeGraff

The mineral spirits does work well for dust. I use half a cap of nufinish, and half of the same cap of mineral spirits.


JTD

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Yep

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Originally Posted by Travis Warren

My go to process to clean brass has been to dry tumbling w/ a course walnut w/ no polish. Resize/deprime. Trim. Lyman case prep tool, then finalize with a corn cob with NuFinish.

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I am just getting set up to reload and this is the process that I have settled on, but I have a couple questions. If the purpose of tumbling after sizing is to remove case lube, would adding NuFinish hinder that process at all? I plan on using the RCBS lube that came with my Rockchucker Supreme kit until it runs out and then I figured I'd switch to lanolin and alcohol. Since lanolin is not water soluble, would it be best to use more mineral spirits for that step? Would a mix of mineral spirits and polish be better? Or could I just use the polish and still get shiny clean de-lubed brass? TIA

I use nufinish and mineral spirits, that has worked the best for me. The mineral spirits cleans and cuts down on dust, the nufinish polishes and protects.


JTD

Thanks Jeffery. I know the polish really isn't necessary but shiny brass just looks so nice, lol. I'm most concerned with removing lube with that second tumble so I wanted to be sure the polish wouldn't be counter productive.

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Originally Posted by kcb38

I am just getting set up to reload and this is the process that I have settled on, but I have a couple questions. If the purpose of tumbling after sizing is to remove case lube, would adding NuFinish hinder that process at all? I plan on using the RCBS lube that came with my Rockchucker Supreme kit until it runs out and then I figured I'd switch to lanolin and alcohol. Since lanolin is not water soluble, would it be best to use more mineral spirits for that step? Would a mix of mineral spirits and polish be better? Or could I just use the polish and still get shiny clean de-lubed brass? TIA

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For initial cleaning and lube removal I use a dry walnut media. I personally use Hornady One Shot so I can't advice on a lanolin mixture that would work best. I only add NuFinish to my corn cob media which I only use after all processing is completed and/or when tumbling loaded rounds to remove any oil/grease from the loading process. Hope that helps to some degree

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Absolutely Travis, thanks.

I'm new here and I guess I should look around a little more. I see we have a whole subforum for this stuff.

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Originally Posted by kcb38

I'm new here and I guess I should look around a little more. I see we have a whole subforum for this stuff.

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Lots of good stuff in that section


JTD