Pat Miles Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Hell! I gave up playing in the tub when I gave up my army men at about 5 or 6. Never too late to have a happy childhood! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxbat Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 produces less shine? I triple cleaned brass when I dry tumbled, and thought I had bright shiny cases, until I wet tumbled and found out how wrong I was. I would agree, I get clean cases with dry tumbling but nothing gets as clean and as shiny as I can get with wet tumbling. Depends, I guess, on how you dry tumble them. I used to do it to near-extreme polish, and several months later, in a sealed cardboard boxes, they have lost very little of their luster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 Doing my first wet tumble right now. I just have time to piddle these days so it's something new to try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 Hmmm.... It's quite a bit of work. Brass finally looks awesome after two attempts. Here are my notes: When I opened the box I found the sample pack of cleaning solution empty. It was kind of all over the inside of the box. Other than that everything was there. Pins weighed out at 5.08 pounds. I added about 800 9mm cases, some dawn and some lemishine and some water and let her rip. First run through the brass came out brown and everything was kind of covered in black oily substance. Either the pins needed to be washed first or the silicone spray I used as lube gunked up the works. Not sure which so I'm going to run another batch of lubed brass to make the final determination. But I ran the brass through again and they came out awesome. FA pins most certainly ARE ALL DIFFERENT LENGTHS. And yes the short ones will jam down inside 9mm cases. I will be ordering the ones steveRA recommends. My adviCe is to get a bucket style rotary tumbler to sort out the last handful of pins. It doesn't have to be covered if you just take it easy. I used my small Dillon tumbler and it took a lot of water to "float" the brass and was unwieldy when dumping off the water to get to the pins. Don't get overly aggressive when rinsing 9mm in the tumbler. If you shake too hard 9mm will fit between the grates in the caps. They are not very strong and you can actually push 9mm right through with ease. If you just twist as recommended you won't have a problem. Remember the S&B that looked like brass but was really steel in disguise? They turn bright pink so you don't have to run a magnet through the brass anymore. Some of the cases got small pink blotches on them on the second run. I guess in theory they were tumbled for 5 hours or so. I think I read somewhere that they can be restored so I'll be reading a lot today. Other than that, so far so good. I still have a shopping list of stuff to get. Tumbler, pins, Armor All cleaning/wax solution, a decapping die and a cheap press so I can keep all the dirty brass away from the press in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
safeactionjackson Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 Sarge I use 1 tablespoon of Dawn Ultra (blue dawn is the one to use), and a 1/2 teaspoon of LemiShine. I use Hornady One Shot to lube my cases when I size/deprime. The mixture above works excellent, and it took me a little bit find the sweet spot. I do between 1100-1400 cases (but haven't seen any ill effects on smaller batches) of 9mm without altering my ingredients in any fashion, I also use hot water and tumble for 2-3 hours, and have never had to run a batch twice..... ever. I think the proper amount of cleaning agents is the key, Dawn Ultra seems to be the best option. Hope this helps! ~g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Absocold Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 If you're seeing pink on regular brass then you're either using too much Lemishine, leaving the brass in the Lemishine for too long or some combination of both. http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=222321&page=3#entry2489632 One 9mm case full of Lemishine per full load of brass is enough to get them very shiny with most tap water. If your water is hard and needs more Lemishine, then I recommend switching to distilled water instead of using more Lemishine. This is especially important for people who are tumbling the same pieces of brass over and over and over. Once the brass starts showing some pink, it's no longer safe to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 I don't lube pistol brass. So...so far, I haven't had a problem with the brown or black water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 This is going to be fun! 3 batches and they are all different colors! I am still leaning toward the silicone being the culprit. I tried the car wash wax stuff on some brass I tumbled dry to get the silicone off and the brass is not nearly as shiny as with dawn. Did a third batch with silicone still on it and it came out brown but clean. I'm running about 8-9 pounds of brass so I think I'm going to try the 50/50 weight ratio that steveRA recommends, go back to dawn and reduce the lemishine to nearly nothing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 Sarge I use 1 tablespoon of Dawn Ultra (blue dawn is the one to use), and a 1/2 teaspoon of LemiShine. I use Hornady One Shot to lube my cases when I size/deprime. The mixture above works excellent, and it took me a little bit find the sweet spot. I do between 1100-1400 cases (but haven't seen any ill effects on smaller batches) of 9mm without altering my ingredients in any fashion, I also use hot water and tumble for 2-3 hours, and have never had to run a batch twice..... ever. I think the proper amount of cleaning agents is the key, Dawn Ultra seems to be the best option. Hope this helps! ~g I'm wondering if silicone is different somehow? But I am going back to try Dawn again, but will try using more per load. Thanks for the info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDA Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 You need to get rid of that silicone Sarge, it is causing you problems. Run the siliconed brass in a dry vibratory tumbler and get off the silicone first. Also, you need to clean the inside of the tumbler and the pins, use a couple tablespoons of Dawn and hot water and run the drum with the pins in for 30-60 minutes and get it rinsed out good. Try again with the de-siliconed brass and fresh drum/pins. I also recommend 1 tablespoon of Dawn and 1/2 teaspoon of lemishine. Check it at 60 minutes and you'll know if this worked or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
safeactionjackson Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 Sounds like you need to ditch the silicone. It took me a bit to figure out the proper amount of LemiShine, but my results are super consistent. Sometime I even let the brass soak over night, or for several hours after it's completed tumbling.... without any ill effects. ~g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Miles Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 Doing my first wet tumble right now. I just have time to piddle these days so it's something new to try. Early Christmas Sarge? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 Doing my first wet tumble right now. I just have time to piddle these days so it's something new to try.Early Christmas Sarge? Yes indeed. Now to go to Costco for a big bottle of excedrin for the headaches! lol My wife and I do a goofy Christmas tradition. Since we know everything we get each other anyway we just buy what we want and put empty boxes under the tree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Miles Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 Doing my first wet tumble right now. I just have time to piddle these days so it's something new to try.Early Christmas Sarge? Yes indeed. Now to go to Costco for a big bottle of excedrin for the headaches! lolMy wife and I do a goofy Christmas tradition. Since we know everything we get each other anyway we just buy what we want and put empty boxes under the tree. I like that idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slavex Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 this shows my worst brass going through two washes. I was initially happy with the how it first came out, good enough for practice brass. But then processed it as I was bored and ran it again, in half the amount of brass per load, but same mix of ingredients; hot water, 1tblspn Laundry detergent (liquid), 1/4 teaspoon lemishine. Initial run was FART loaded right to the bottom of the neck with brass, second time was half full. first run was 2 hours, second run was 2 hours Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
safeactionjackson Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 Outdoor range brass? Most of my brass comes from an indoor range, so one pass is more than enough.... even if it's stored in my garage and is exposed to temp changes and some moisture. ~g Sent from my iPhone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Absocold Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 He'd have gotten it one pass too but overloaded his tumbler on the first run. To the neck is prolly 85% full, about 70% gets much better results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Huh?! I have never run the FART with more than 50% brass. At least not yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slavex Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 this was brass that had sat in a bucket of water for probably close to a year. there was also some other brass mixed in (the shiny-ish stuff). I don't think I would have gotten it as nice on the first pass even if I'd only filled the FART 1/2 way. I normally fill to the neck and have no issues with my range brass, but then again it's not that dirty really. I am probably going to put less in from now on though, but not 50% or anything, unless it's really nasty stuff I just wanted to show that it's not necessary to put a ton of ingredients in the water like some people are doing. That's the worst brass I've ever tried cleaning and it came out fine with my normal amount of stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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