drying brass after using a wet tumbler

[Huntlakewood]

hope i can explain what is happening.

I started using a Frankford wet tumbler for cleaning my brass. I love it gets brass really clean saves time on primer pockets. So I size my shells full length before I put my shells in the tumbler ( I use dawn dish and lem bright with hot water)
After I I tumble for 3 hours I take them out rinse and put in oven at 225 for about 45 min to an hour with door cracked to dry them let cool. I just did about 200 rounds of 243. I measured shells and the ones that was over spec I went to trim with a lee hand held trimmer to trim to size the trimmer will not fit in the neck. I ran some shells back through my press and it worked great. is it possible that the shells are shrinking when dried in the oven.

Any help would be great
Huntlakewood

[JeffreyDeGraff]

Did you use stainless pins when you wet tumbled?


JTD

[Huntlakewood]

no I stopped using them cause of they got stuck in a batch of 308 shells I did.

[JeffreyDeGraff]

Shouldn’t be shrinking. You can dry at 170° tho. More than likely you case mouth are getting dinged or deformed just a tiny bit while getting thrown around in the tumbler.


JTD

[Huntlakewood]

JeffreyDeGraff
Thank you do you use a wet tumbler. I don't ever remember having this problem when using dry tumbler. I ran in a problem with some 270 I did also I thought that was because I switched bullet type. but now this. Its almost every one will not take the sizer

[JeffreyDeGraff]

I use a wet tumbler first. Then do all of my brass prep. After brass prep I use a dry tumbler, then load.


JTD

[Huntlakewood]

I use a wet tumbler first. Then do all of my brass prep. After brass prep I use a dry tumbler, then load.


JTD

that is what I was thinking I was going to do

[JeffreyDeGraff]

It adds an extra step but it has been working very well for me. I don’t use pins either. I deprime my brass, wet tumble (that way brass is squeaky clean going into the sizing die), size, trim, chamfer/debur, dry tumble in corn cob (removes any left over lube and polishes the brass), prime, and load.


JTD

[Kingrich09]

I will share what works for me. I end up tumbling twice once before case work and again after. If brass is relitavely clean to start will I will dry tumble first with walnut. If it's range pickups that were sitting in mud I'll wet tumble without pins. I will then do all my case work resizing, trimming, chamfer, and deburr. Then they go back into the wet tumbler with pins, some woolite, and frankford arsenal brass cleaning solution with hot water. This tumble is never more than an hour, usually 30-45min is sufficient.

I think what's causing your issue is excessive time in the wet tumbler causing the necks to deform slightly. I have experienced this myself putting them in for that long.

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[cynjon]

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.