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Cases not shiny any more?


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I've been noticing that the last three batches of cases I've tumbled have not been very shiny. I shoot on a private range, with a tarp spread out. After each person shoots a stage, we pick up their brass and dump it in their bucket, it stays on the ground for less than 2 minutes usually, and on a clean tarp.

Then it sits around in that bucket for a few days or sometimes a couple weeks, and it goes into a homemade wet tumbler with SS pins, two .45 caliber cases full of Lemi shine powder, and a good squirt of dish soap. I tumble about 500 cases at a time, for at least 6 hours... a couple times, have been maybe 10 hours. Then separate and dry.

This has been my method for many thousands of cases, over the past few years, resulting in super shiny cases.

On .223 and .308, they come out so shiny I could probably use them as a mirror, but on 9mm, they now have a dull gold color to them. They are super clean, inside and out, but not shiny any more. I really only care that their clean, which they are... But it's nice to have them super shiny also. I've noticed this on the past 3 batches that I've tumbled. These are a mixture of multiple firings from me, and OFB. Mostly OFB since we just had a class out here and I got to keep their brass. Different manufacturers.

Any tips or ideas?

Here's a picture of the difference, both of these have been tumbled the same way, but the pile on the right is from a few batches ago.

post-42635-0-64516900-1408629878_thumb.j

Edited by Scratchthejeepguy
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...wet tumbler with SS pins...I tumble about 500 cases at a time, for at least 6 hours... a couple times, have been maybe 10 hours.

That is a very long time for wet tumbling with SS.

Might take a look at them after 30 min.

Yours get clean and shiny after a half hour!?

I guess I've never checked them that soon, but they might be good, I used to go a minimum of 4 hours, but it works out good for me to leave them in for 6 hours since it works with my schedule. The ten hour thing is when I forget about them and they go overnight (like last night...)

Maybe on my next batch of rifle cases, I'll try a short half hour run and see if they come out as shiny as they do when I go 6 hours. Then go up in time until they do.

Edited by Scratchthejeepguy
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Here are some cases out of a "test" batch, tumbled for more than 24 hours, wet with SS pins.

Note that everything except the head stamp (pins couldn't get into that part) have zero shine.

FWIW they fired just fine but they will never shine again.

post-6631-0-47578800-1408664355_thumb.jp

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This may be obvious, but I've noticed that when I have less brass and more pins (by weight of course) my tumbling time is reduced. Try smaller batches of brass tumbled for less time.

In the end, I realized my tumbler is simply too small for the batches I was trying to clean. Instead of upgrading my tumbler, I decreased my batch size and everything shines as it should now.

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You should have - at least - a 50/50 ratio of pin weight to brass weight. And - as said above - never tumble longer than 3 hours. If you are using plain water you can tumble all night if you wish, but you will really be sorry you did if you don't have some Dawn in the mix.

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Well it looks like time was probably a factor in my non shiny brass. I did three more batches in the last few days. 700 cases each batch. Same amount of lemi shine and dish soap in all of them.

The batch on the left was in for exactly 2 hours. Much more shiny than what I was getting, but still had some dullness to them.

The right batch was 2-1/2 hours

The middle batch was 3 hours.

I think I'm going to go with 3 hours from now on.

Not sure why I'm having this problem now though since I used to go 5-6 hours all the time, and my rifle brass look even shinier than these do at 6 hours. Still I like the shorter tumble times so I'll be trying my rifle brass at 3 hours as well.

post-42635-0-29233100-1409307735_thumb.j

Edited by Scratchthejeepguy
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I have the Horrible Freight rock tumbler with the .047 pins. My cases are as shinny as I need them in 30 minutes. They look like new to me. One pound of pins, one pound of brass, 1/3 tsp Lemshine, and about a tablespoon of dawn in each container along with 3/4 full of hot water. The bad part of the HF is it takes all day to do a couple of thousand cases. So I have packed it away.

I recently took delivery of the Frankford Arsenal platinum tumbler. I have not used it yet, but it should save me a lot of time.

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Does having your brass that shiny make the bullets hit the A zone faster?

Yes, shinier cases means cleaner cases. The cleaner the case is, the less air resistance there is on them, as they move up inside the magazine. If the cartridge moves faster, between shots, then I can have faster split times, and won't outrun the firearm with my trigger finger. If The shooter has more time between shots available, now the shooter has more time to gain a correct sight picture and get correct sight alignment, resulting in more A zone hits, at faster times. This has all been proven many times on the internet so I won't go into details as I'm sure you've read about it already...

Nutnfancy has an hour long video about it I'm sure, if you'd like to know more...

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The cleaner the case is, the less air resistance there is on them, ..

Now I have to figure out what the BC difference of polished vs just clean cases.

Never mind, I just use different springs.

Edited by jmorris
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  • 1 year later...

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