Tumbler advice

[jmorris]

I have an old midway tumbler I use for little batches like that. Works just as good as the Dillon I have just won't hold as much. +1 on the media separator.

Wet tumbling involves more work than dry. Why I didn't try it until I built my own tumbler, no way would I go through all the extra work for the tiny batches you can do in realitively expensive tumblers like the thumbler.

A thumbler b with stainless is good for 200 40 cases and costs the same as the large dillon that will do more than 1000, in a single load, with less work and no need to dry.

Edited April 21, 2015 by jmorris

[BillD]

I have a large Harbor Freight that is on sale regularly for $150. It will hold well over 1000 pcs of .45 acp brass at once.

If something about really, really clean brass trips your trigger, you should get pins and water, and figure out how you are going to dry them.

Does anyone using wet tumbling show a marked improvement in the accuracy or reliability of their reloads?

[Old Vark WSO]

I'm a wet tumbler proponent - have a couple of RCBS Sidewinders. The biggest advantages I see are keeping all the primer dust off your progressive press since (I'm assuming) most decap on a single stage and the inside of the cases are clean so you can more easily see the powder after the drop. One could consider the extra time used to wet tumble as "paying it forward" as you keep your press cleaner. And the chance of a getting a squib load is smaller - something I see on the line occasionally - after the timer goes off. My $.02. Cheers.

[Meyer23]

I've been using a Lyman 2200 Auto-Flo Tumbler and love it. Pretty quiet and get get quite a bit brass done in one go.

[jmorris]

The biggest advantages I see are keeping all the primer dust off your progressive press since (I'm assuming) most decap on a single stage.

The big advantage of a progressive is that you can take a fired case and reload it with less pulls of the handle. I don't decap on a single stage unless I am loading on one.

Side by side, I have not seen any accuracy improvement with clean vs dirty primer pockets.

The dust argument is valid of you use enough polish you won't have any dust. Also worth pointing out that if you don't lube your cases before running them through your press you are going to have a considerable increase in force required with wet/SS cleaned brass.

If you do use lube, dust sticks to it.

Edited April 22, 2015 by jmorris

[BillD]

My brass only gets on the 650 once, to make it into a ready to fire round.

[slavex]

The Frankford Arsenal wet tumblers are the best deal on the market. Cheaper than the Thumbler and holds more cases. I too will never go back to dry tumbling after my first try with wet. Sure it's a tad more work, maybe an extra 5 minutes per batch. But I can do almost 1500 cases at a time, and they come out looking better than new. I don't inhale any crap from the dry method anymore, and I get cases so shiny and clean I barely need to lube them.. Never ever again will I use dry tumbling.

[9x45]

The Frankford Arsenal wet tumblers are the best deal on the market. Cheaper than the Thumbler and holds more cases. I too will never go back to dry tumbling after my first try with wet. Sure it's a tad more work, maybe an extra 5 minutes per batch. But I can do almost 1500 cases at a time, and they come out looking better than new. I don't inhale any crap from the dry method anymore, and I get cases so shiny and clean I barely need to lube them.. Never ever again will I use dry tumbling.

Like I said earlier my method produces no dust as the walnut is loaded with mineral oil and the corn with liquid car polish. I also minimize the primer residue during de-prime and re-sizing by letting them fall into a plastic tray with about a 1/8" of mineral oil. Even when it is near full the oil coats the dead primer. You can see the tray, Primer Spa in Mineral Oil.

Edited April 23, 2015 by 9x45

[slavex]

wet tumbling still does a better job of cleaning the cases and reducing lead exposure. Nothing else comes close.

[TANFARM]

I think Nick's procedure is the rule of thumb for me....vibratory pistol ....Thumble rifle......

[BillD]

wet tumbling still does a better job of cleaning the cases and reducing lead exposure. Nothing else comes close.

You are assuming a "better" job of cleaning is necessary.

Since we have been reloading brass cleaned in corncob for decades without issue, it's clearly not needed.

[jmorris]

I get cases so shiny and clean I barely need to lube them.

Interesting I find the surgically clean cases tend to require more lube than my corncobb/polish cases.

[mjohn]

Get the small Dillon. It's the quietest and you know you've got a great warranty.

"All the electrical/electronic components of Dillon equipment are covered by a one-year warranty from date of purchase. This unit is designed for dry media only."

Otherwise, I would interpret that other non electrical parts will be covered under life time warranty.

[warpspeed]

I have 2 small Dillon tumblers, both CV500's. One seems to tumble better than the other. That is to say, one seems to turn over faster than the other.

I have had the CV-2001 but found I didn't use it much as it did not work well for me without being fully loaded. I do like the big separator though.

As for the wet method, I have one of the Harbor Freight rock tumblers and like it for what it is. I clean 100 pcs of 243 brass at a time 50 in each small drum. I'll have to look into the 4" PVC idea. In about 2 -2.5 hrs, it is perfect. Looks like factory new. Since I rarely shoot more than that at a time, it works perfectly. Tumble, separate, let dry for 3 or 4 days, sometimes longer.

[Jimk60]

Warpspeed,

Unless it just doesn't fit the tumbler, use 6" or even 8" PVC, if you can find it. is more efficient than the 4", and holds significantly more.

Most big box hardware stores have the 6" in 2 types, 1 for sewer (green pipe) and 1 for non-sewer (white pipe). So be sure that any fittings you get are of the same type

[rtp]

I have an old midway tumbler I use for little batches like that. Works just as good as the Dillon I have just won't hold as much. +1 on the media separator.

Wet tumbling involves more work than dry. Why I didn't try it until I built my own tumbler, no way would I go through all the extra work for the tiny batches you can do in realitively expensive tumblers like the thumbler.

A thumbler b with stainless is good for 200 40 cases and costs the same as the large dillon that will do more than 1000, in a single load, with less work and no need to dry.

The biggest advantages I see are keeping all the primer dust off your progressive press since (I'm assuming) most decap on a single stage.

The big advantage of a progressive is that you can take a fired case and reload it with less pulls of the handle. I don't decap on a single stage unless I am loading on one.

Side by side, I have not seen any accuracy improvement with clean vs dirty primer pockets.

The dust argument is valid of you use enough polish you won't have any dust. Also worth pointing out that if you don't lube your cases before running them through your press you are going to have a considerable increase in force required with wet/SS cleaned brass.

If you do use lube, dust sticks to it.

Exactly this. ^^

While I'm sure many reloaders have varying levels of OCD, I use a progressive because my time has value, as well.

Wet tumbling takes longer, for little discernible real benefits, at the expense of added time and steps, as well as cost, if you want to tumble a 'reasonable' amount of brass at one time.

People buying food dehydrators, 'jerky makers,' or throwing brass on cookie sheets into an over, de-priming before tumbling - none of this adds up to more efficiency, just added time and expense.

The only way to 'go wet' is in large quantity and home-made, IMO - Big Dawg makes some nice wet tumblers, but that $ could buy an *awful* lot of components, or a backup gun.

The Frankfort Arsenal unit looks like a reasonable trade-off in $ vs capacity, and short of building a large home-made wet tumbler, is probably the way I'd go if I ever wanted to spend more time cleaning brass and less time loading.

[Swanny10]

Thanks for all the input folks. At one time I was entertaining the idea of wet tumbling but I've decided that it's not worth the effort considering my original motivation was to run small batches immediately after returning from the range. Having to deprime the cases first defeats the purpose. And putting an ultra shine on them isn't a priority either.

The small frankford unit looks like it might fit the bill. I wanted to give the small "SmartReloader" unit from Midsouth a shot but no one has them in stock. Discontinued maybe?

[jmorris]

While I'm sure many reloaders have varying levels of OCD, I use a progressive because my time has value, as well.

Wet tumbling takes longer, for little discernible real benefits, at the expense of added time and steps, as well as cost, if you want to tumble a 'reasonable' amount of brass at one time.

People buying food dehydrators, 'jerky makers,' or throwing brass on cookie sheets into an over, de-priming before tumbling - none of this adds up to more efficiency, just added time and expense.

To be fair I guess it depends on the day, how OCD I am or maybe it comes down to tinkering. I built my wet tumbler for less than my big Dillon cost.

It will hold more than 3X what the Dillon will and has them clean in a shorter amount of time. The TX sun works better than any other method for drying. This batch of around 3000 was dry in 2.5 beers.

Edited April 27, 2015 by jmorris

[TONY BARONE]

I recently got into wet tumbling and like very much how the brass and primer pockets are squeaky clean using pins. However with wet tumbling I have experienced some loose primers after reloading even setting the primers .006 deep. This is with 8x fired brass. I never experienced that with vibratory cleaning with primers left in. It seems with wet tumbling without primers in place and using

pins may remove some material from the brass. Also the burnt residue in the primer pocket probably helps to hold the primer in place in highly used cases. I have never had a primer loosen using Starline cases and vibrating brass with primers left in.

[mcracco]

Wet vs. dry tumbling has a lot to do with what condition your brass is in when you start and what you need it to look like when you finish. I am processing brass commercially and I get brass in that ranges in appearance from unblemished and dusty to completely black with tarnish.There is no way on God's green Earth that dry tumbling will prep the brass to a condition that I would want to run it on my machines. I wet tumble to start then wet tumble as a final step. Finished brass glows inside and out and it has to because that is what someone paying hundreds for a box of brass expects.

I don't believe the wet tumbling takes longer thing. I've done both and in both cases you load it, tumble it, separate it. The only difference is with wet tumbling I stick it in a dehumidifier for 4-5 hours. But since I don't have to sit there and watch it I don't count that time.

But surely if your brass is in good condition to start dry tumbling is good enough it you are loading for yourself.

Jmorris: Love it!

[jmorris]

I don't believe the wet tumbling takes longer thing.... I stick it in a dehumidifier for 4-5 hours

You don't need to add water, soap or lemishine to the mix and that takes longer than polish not to mention you don't have to dry the cases for 4-5 hours. So it is as easy to prove that it takes longer as it is that it does a better job of cleaning the cases.

[9x45]

I get cases so shiny and clean I barely need to lube them.

Interesting I find the surgically clean cases tend to require more lube than my corncobb/polish cases.

Yes, because they are cleaner and have a higher coeficient of friction than brass tumbled in car polish corn media. You don't need any case lube then, they just slide on thru.

[rtp]

While I'm sure many reloaders have varying levels of OCD, I use a progressive because my time has value, as well.

Wet tumbling takes longer, for little discernible real benefits, at the expense of added time and steps, as well as cost, if you want to tumble a 'reasonable' amount of brass at one time.

People buying food dehydrators, 'jerky makers,' or throwing brass on cookie sheets into an over, de-priming before tumbling - none of this adds up to more efficiency, just added time and expense.

To be fair I guess it depends on the day, how OCD I am or maybe it comes down to tinkering. I built my wet tumbler for less than my big Dillon cost.

It will hold more than 3X what the Dillon will and has them clean in a shorter amount of time. The TX sun works better than any other method for drying. This batch of around 3000 was dry in 2.5 beers.

Agreed again, thus this part of the post you'd quoted:

You being the master of building all kinds of things - no surprise which way you went - big AND home-made. :beer:

eta - damnit, forum s/w cut off the rest of my response..

Now just waiting for the jmorris 'end to end' system that accepts unsorted brass, cleans, sorts, then loads up collators, and depending on which caliber is selected currently, then starts loading one enough brass is accumulated/ready for processing.

The only way to 'go wet' is in large quantity and home-made, IMO - Big Dawg makes some nice wet tumblers, but that $ could buy an *awful* lot of components, or a backup gun.

Edited May 2, 2015 by rtp

[jmorris]

You being the master of building all kinds of things - no surprise which way you went - big AND home-made. :beer:

That's not the biggest wet tumbler I built, just my first one.

I built 3 of these double drum tumblers for a local company, they tumble three 5 gallon bucket fulls in each drum and yes there is an electric crane to load and unload the drums.

[HOGRIDER]

One of the (IMHO) steps that really makes wet tumbling more desirable is to de-prime your brass first.

1. De-priming makes the primer pocket available for cleaning.

2. It removes one of the main contaminants, lead, from the process.

3. It greatly improves the dry ability after cleaning and washing. Both ends are open allowing air flow.

4. If not de-primed, it introduces the possibly of adding lead to the wet process, the primer itself holds water and complicates the drying process.

I went from Vibratory (hated it) to home built wet tumbling. I will never go back.

Same here!

Edited May 3, 2015 by HOGRIDER