Pistol brass tumbling

Any recommendations out there for tumbling pistol brass?

Deprime first. Are you wet or dry tumbling?


JTD

Havent decided on that yet. dry sounds better though semms like it would be less messy

If dry tumbling, add nu finish and some mineral spirits to the media. Some people use walnut, some corn cob, some people mix both together.


JTD

The nu finish helps polish and protect the brass, and the mineral spirits helps clean the brass and cut down on dust.


JTD

Does that aid in the cleaning process?

Yes it does.


JTD

Dry tumble if you like lead dust - I wet tumble does a much better job and no lead dust.

JTD-

How much of the nu finish and mineral spirits should be added to the dry tumble mix?

I take the lid from the nu finish and fill it half with nu finish and half with mineral spirits. When my media is new, I treat every load for the first 6 loads or so. After that, I treat the media every 2 to 3 loads.


JTD

Thank you, JTD. The sharing of your insights and knowledge (and all of the others that graciously contribute) is greatly appreciated by reloading rookies like me!

Any time!


JTD

JTD
whats your opinion on tumbling with stainless steel pins?

My wet tumbler is the harbor freight dual drum rock tumbler. I do not use stainless pins or chips. Just dawn and lemishine. The stainless media will get the inside of the brass and primer pockets cleaner, but for me, that is a small trade off for not having to deal with the pins.


JTD

Do you run your brass through both wet and dry rounds? and do you clean between each reload?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

I’m a single stage reloader, so my system may be set up differently that people using progressive or turret presses.

First thing I do is deprime my brass, then put it in the wet tumbler. I like my brass clean like that before running it through my sizing die, so there is nothing on the brass to scratch the inside of the die.

Then I size the case and flare the case mouth.

Next, I put the sized and flared brass in the dry tumbler to do a final clean and polish.

Then prime, powder, seat, and crimp.

I am not I high volume shooter, for pistol I usually work in batches of 500-1000. It doesn’t bother me if it takes several days to get it done. Ive fine tuned this system to suit my needs over the years.


JTD

I tumble wet and dry, depending on batch size and how dirty the brass is.

For dry tumble (small lots of semi clean brass) I use corn cob and a bit of nu-finish. For wet tumble (bigger lots or very dirty brass) I don’t use any media... just brass, water, and frankford arsenal case cleaning solution. I’m not so concerned about the insides of the cases or primer pockets, I just want to get the dirt and soot off of the cases so it doesn’t end up in my dies.

With the larger frankford arsenal wet tumbler I can do a lot more brass (roughly 800 pieces of 223 in a couple hours) quicker than dry, but there is the slight mess of rinsing and drying the brass afterward.