drying brass after using a wet tumbler

[Huntlakewood]

I used the Frankdford Arsenal pins that came with my tumbler for awhile, but I hated that they would get jammed in the cases. The short pins would get stuck in the primer pocket, and the longer ones would wedge across the case mouth, especially on .30 caliber brass. I switched to Southern Shine stainless steel tumbling media and have been extremely happy with it. SS is the chip style media, so it still gets the primer pocket clean and gets down inside the case. I have tumbled without media, but while the outside of the case gets nice and clean, primer pockets and the inside of the case just don't turn out as nice. Brass comes out looking brand new and I've never had any of it get stuck in the flash hole or primer pocket. I typically tumble for an hour and I stopped using Dawn and Lemishine because it was getting the cases TOO clean. Loading on a Dillon, I found that the powder funnel would stick pretty badly when belling the case mouth on pistol brass, and seating bullets on bottleneck cases required more effort due to the "cleanliness" of the brass. I started using a wash-n-wax soap designed for automotive use (and a tiny bit of Lemishine). This leaves just enough wax on the cases to alleviate the sticking problem. Another solution would be to dry tumble the brass before loading, which leaves a bit of dust on the case and accomplishes the same thing. However, this is an extra step and the wash-n-wax works for me.

thank you I will try what you said and I have heard of different media to use in the tumbler. What did u do tom dry your brass

[JeffreyDeGraff]

I used to put my brass in the oven at 170° for an hour. Now I have a frankford arsenal brass dryer, I put the temp at 160° and dry for an hour.


JTD

[cynjon]

thank you I will try what you said and I have heard of different media to use in the tumbler. What did u do tom dry your brass

I use a LEM dehydrator that I picked up cheap somewhere, Runnings maybe? https://www.lemproducts.com/product/...od-dehydrators

I like it because it has adjustable temp (I set mine at 140F) and a timer, so I can just "set it and forget it". It will hold a ton of brass. The only other thing I did to mine was to cut a square of heavy duty window screen material for each tray. Smaller brass like .380ACP and 9mm tended to want to stand up in the mesh of the trays which was a little obnoxious. It makes great jerky as well!

[Oddduck]

I put my brass in the oven @ 215 for about 15\20 minutes

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