Does wet tumbling cause cases to stick on powder funnel of 650

[Sarge]

15 minutes ago, rmantoo said:

 

I see people talking about having to lube in bags & such... I just dump brass into my casefeeder and then spray liberally with dillon case lube.  The rotation of the feeder plate seems to spread it enough to take care of it for me.    Of course, this all goes back to my goal of using the fewest possible steps, and streamlining those steps as much as possible... and since I'm using a Mark 7 pro, I'm not too worried if lever effort is higher than if I took time to lube them better.

Dillon lube should be fine but a little sticky to shoot into my CF. But beware one shot can ignite if sprayed directly into a CF.

[Mytmousemalibu]

30 minutes ago, rmantoo said:

 

I see people talking about having to lube in bags & such... I just dump brass into my casefeeder and then spray liberally with dillon case lube.  The rotation of the feeder plate seems to spread it enough to take care of it for me.    Of course, this all goes back to my goal of using the fewest possible steps, and streamlining those steps as much as possible... and since I'm using a Mark 7 pro, I'm not too worried if lever effort is higher than if I took time to lube them better.

 

Thats completely understandable, no reason you can't do it that way. I do the shake n' bake method in the bag for a couple reasons. One is im a neat freak with my 650. The DCL when dried is kinda tacky so it keeps the casefeeder and feed mech. a little bit cleaner. Using the bag method after a few loads the bag accumulates dried lube and you can use less DCL and the mist of alky I spray in softens that leftover lube. Looking at the brass, i can see where case mouths scrape lube up in tiny amounts and that transfers onto the powder funnel and keeps it smooth. Loading 9mm Major at 9gr of 3n38 left almost full to the rim brass so any sticky/snappy motion would jolt the press and spill powder so that smoothness is well appreciated! So I do the brass treatment 1st and dump if in and load primer tubes while the alky flashes off. Its an extra step but I don't mind in the grand scheme of things and it has a couple advantages im my experience. I will say use good heavy mil bags for this. I work in aviation and get plenty of really nice, rugged parts ziploc bags from Aviall. 

[rmantoo]

17 hours ago, Sarge said:

Dillon lube should be fine but a little sticky to shoot into my CF. But beware one shot can ignite if sprayed directly into a CF.

HOLY CRAP!   I didn't know that about one shot.   I mostly use dillon, but I do have 2 cans of one shot that I will randomly, for no specific reason, use instead.

[Sarge]

1 hour ago, rmantoo said:

HOLY CRAP!   I didn't know that about one shot.   I mostly use dillon, but I do have 2 cans of one shot that I will randomly, for no specific reason, use instead.

Yes I never would have believed it but a buddy shot some into his running CF AND WOOF! Nice blue fireball. It went out right away but with powder near by that could have been ugly.

[rmantoo]

On 6/21/2019 at 4:06 PM, Sarge said:

Yes I never would have believed it but a buddy shot some into his running CF AND WOOF! Nice blue fireball. It went out right away but with powder near by that could have been ugly.

 

That event, much like setting off primers in the feed tube on the press, is something I would rather not personally experience.    

 

[G-rant]

I do the wet tumbling with the pins, and the cases definitely do stick. It's more like a snappy kind of stick where it breaks free with some pressure but it's still not ideal. I'm confident that with lube it wont stick much at all, but I think polishing would be a good idea. It works on guns doesn't it!?

 

(Note: I was simply testing the load with unlubed cases, and I started with the powder station so it didn't have to go through sizing first.)

[PEG941]

I'm not sure what you mean by "It works on guns".    I loaded another 500 rounds of 9mm after tumbling with car soap/wax combination and it works great.      I had a couple that "weren't  smooth" but nothing that I would classify as sticking where you had to reallyou pull the handle to "break it free".     I think it works great and I don't use any lube once they are cleaned.   

 

My only issue is I have some spotting that I'm trying to figure a out how to get rid of.     It rubs off so I'm not sure if it's residual soap, wax or water spots.

 

You should try the car soap/wax combo.  

[G-rant]

ProfessorAtlas has a thread on CZ SP01 polishing on here which I followed and now have a super smooth gun! Polishing just works really well for a lot of things.

 

I'll definitely take a look at the car wax and wash stuff, but I have this Lucas slick spray on wax that seems like it would work amazing for this.

 

Huh, the waterspots I used to get don't rub off... Maybe it's the soap?

[PEG941]

Could be, I was using Dawn and lemi shine and they were spotless however I had terrible sticking on my powder funnel.    I switched to lemi shine with Armor All soap/wax and now the sticking has gone but some of the spots have appeared.   I don't particularly care for it but I will take the spots over the sticking.     Once the Armor All is gone I will try another type of soap/wax I guess.

[Falloutboy89]

I’ve done a few loads where I added the wash/wax to dawn and lemishine. I also cleaned my powder drop with isopropyl alcohol. No problems on the last 500 rounds since then. 

[jakfrost1]

I have a 650 that I have tried everything to have new brass, ( Starline ) run thru it without sticking at the powder funnel. Polished the heck out of the powder drop tube, which for me meant 're-polish' about every 50 rds, ( unacceptable ), tried 'lubing' the end of the tube itself every few rounds, ( unacceptable ), and then resorted to the usual lube formula, 18% liquid lanolin in an isopropyl alcohol solution, applied sparingly to the brass in an extra large zip lock baggie with a fine mist hand held spray applicator followed by the 'shake and bake' routine. 

 

This works extremely well, ( the press runs so smooth I get less deviation in COAL...bonus ), if you are NOT filling the case almost to the top with 3N38 in order to make major power factor, because...its obvious that the fine cut powder is 'clumping' and sticking to the lube residue on the inside of the case mouth, ( the area that needs the lube the most in this case, no pun intended, haha ), even after I have left the lubed cases sit overnight. 

 

My question is: should I be concerned that the affected powder has been compromised by the lube, and, could the neck tension be affected as well, either of which could cause the SD, ( standard deviation on the Chronograph ) numbers to soar to new levels, ultimately affecting my PF and possibly accuracy ?? 

Edited September 6, 2019 by jakfrost1
conjugation

[PEG941]

I can't answer your question on the power factor but one other suggestion,. In  your wet tumbler did you try using soap that is a soap wax combination for example meguiar's Car Wash Wax..  I had the same issue on my 550, I switched to McGuire's combination wash wax and it took care of the issue.   Just a thought I wanted to pass along if it works it would solve your issue of the clumping or your concern of the lube in the case.

[m700]

On 6/24/2019 at 8:01 AM, Falloutboy89 said:

I’ve done a few loads where I added the wash/wax to dawn and lemishine. I also cleaned my powder drop with isopropyl alcohol. No problems on the last 500 rounds since then. 

I wouldnt run the dawn and wash and wax together. The dawn willl break down the wax and stop it from doing anything. Its best to run dawn /lemishine however long you prefer drain refill and add wash wax for 15-20 min

[PEG941]

Interesting, never thought of doing a combination of both.    I don't want to sidetrack the original inquiry but how much of a rinse do you do the second time after the soap/wax combo.

 

[Face5535]

It’s not just on the 650... at least for me.  I have some jerking on my 1050 as well.  Also, I don’t think it’s just on wet tumbles brass... I also have some sticking with Cobb polished brass as well...  Case lube seems to help a lot;)

 

 

[jakfrost1]

I realize that I failed to mention in my original post that I stopped using the wet media, pins and all, over a year ago as I was unable to find a combination of 'wet' that relieved the 'sticking' problem, so all my 'used' brass is cleaned ONLY in dry tumblers, which leaves the 'natural' lube of carbon on the inside of the cases, reducing the 'stick/clunk' to an acceptable level.

 

However I would very much like to use a 'controlled quality' brass such as new Starline for my important matches, ( like the Canadian Nationals...), etc., but the problem still exists of course, the same as if I had cleaned the brass in SS pins. Hence my question regarding the use of 'lube' and its affects on the resulting bullet, given the 'clumping' issue. 

 

So to satisfy my curiosity, I went to the range this morning and chronographed 3 strings of 10rds of the 'lubed' ammo:

LUBED: AVG 3 Velocity  1313/13116/1304 

SD:                                     13.3/11.0/7.0.

PF:                                     164.1/164.5/163.0

 

And 3 strings of the 'non lubed ammo':

NON LUBED: AVG 3 Vel 1323/1322/1324,

SD:                                     9.6/10.6/10.8

PF:                                     165.3/165.2/165.5

 

So what I'm taking from this is that despite the 'clumping' ( see attached photo ), the SD's are pretty close, however, the consistently reduced velocity is probably due to the residual lube in the case mouth, giving less neck tension and subsequently lower velocity numbers....and...subsequently lower power factor. Not a show stopper but something to be aware of.  

 

 

Edited September 7, 2019 by jakfrost1