New to wet case cleaning

[David Bachelder]

I'm looking to improve my case cleaning. I have a Lyman Turbo Twin tumbler. I'm wondering If I can use it to wet tumble brass? I'll be using stainless steel media. I have ten lbs of media on its way.

David Bachelder
Trinity, Texas

 

[44 AMP]

moved to reloading

 

[akinswi]

Most Wet tumblers I have are rotary and have rubber seals to keep water from leaking.

Your tumbler was designed to use media such as walnut corn cob etc.

You can use it to dry your brass after wet tumbling. Its what I do my brass never tarnished.

Give it a whirl but I wouldn’t put water in that nice tumbler

Harbor freight has a stone polisher that you can wet tumble brass I use it for small batches

https://www.harborfreight.com/dual-...MI2bPyn6Ty-QIVXPbjBx3dxgvMEAQYASABEgIXSfD_BwE

 

[Marco Califo]

Wet Tumblers

Depending on calibers and volume of cases, you may want to look at Frankfort Arsenal Rotary Tumblers (FART) wet tumblers. They make a larger one (I have), and a smaller one. You would want the larger one IF, and only if, you are going to be cleaning 1000+ pistol range brass, or 600+ .223, or hundreds of 308.
I bought mine because I wanted to wet tumble dirty range brass. I still had to de-prime first. They do work VERY WELL, rinsing is a pain if using blue FART juice. Some people say dish detergent and citric acid is easier.
I still have several dry tumblers, and media, and am keeping them for polishing processed brass.

 

[Shadow9mm]

I dont thinks its intended to be used as a wet tumbler, and if i had to make a prediction, it wont end well if you try. Everything will fall to the bottom and not cirulate properly. Water, and pins will add far more weight than walnut media and will be hard on your motor. The tub is unlikely to be water tight same with the housing. Sounds like a recipe to get water in the motor and wreck the unit.

I would reccomended the Franklin arsenal wet tumbler. I use the Franklin arsenal cleaning packs, but you can use dawn dush soap and citruc acid.

I also dont use steel pins. They make a mess. Some always get away. I found 2hrs in a cleaning solution gets them looking like new.

On a side note, one of the other reasons i stopped using the pins. They put tiny scratches in the cases, not much, but enough to make them harder to resize, especially bottleneck rifle cases.

My frankford will do around 1500 9mm, or 1000 223 at a time.

 

[akinswi]

My frankford is great for large batches but if your doing small batches like 50, I found the the harbor freight’s rock tumbler is excellent and its half the cost.

You will be amazed how clean your brass gets. If you do use lemi shine go easy on it and dont leave in the tumbler more than a couple of hours, It will start to discolor your cases

 

[mgulino]

I’ve used the Harbor Freight dual drum rock tumbler for several years. A little blue dish washing soap and lemishine for about an hour does the trick. I do use stainless steel media. Hot water to rinse, then put them in the sunshine to dry.
Using both drums, I can clean about 400 9mm cases or about 200 .223 cases in an hour.

 

[tmd47762]

I just picked up a rotary tumbler the other day, it’s so much quieter and no dust. Midway has been running some sales on them recently so it’s a good time to try one. That’s what finally pushed me off the fence on getting one.

 

[KentM]

I second the Harbor Freight tumbler. Get the 2 drum version.
SS Pins? What for? The brass tumbling against each other polishes itself.
I found that Lemi Shine discolors the brass, so I switched to Brass Juice case wash, available by direct order online.

 

[jetinteriorguy]

The lemishine won’t discolor the brass if you only tumble for 1-2 hours. I also use the HF tumbler without pins, just a small squirt of Dawn and about 1/4 tsp citric acid with an hour tumbling cleans brass right up. I don’t use lemishine anymore, I’ve found the citric acid used in canning works a little better. I also finish shining/preserving the brass with an hour in the vibrating tumbler using crushed walnut and a capful of Nufinish, this keeps the brass from tarnishing over time.

 

[Marco Califo]

I like my FART (Frankfort Arsenal Rotary Tumble), original large size. It is great for wet-cleaning deprimed range brass.
I also just discovered it works excellently as a jumbo dry tumbler and can tumble 1000 40SW to a brilliant shine in 4 hours with corn cob and Nufinish. The dry tumbling labor is minimal, not nearly as much work as wet tumbling.
I do have the same brand media separator, too. Made it easy! No residue in the drum. I just ran 3 batches and think my dry-bowl tumbers are heading to the trash can.

 

[Shadow9mm]

David Bachelder, you still with us?

 

[akinswi]

post is over a month old probably hasnt logged in seen the posts

 

[Unclenick]

Public profile says his last activity was September 3rd.

 

[Marco Califo]

OP's are not the sole party benefitting from responses IMO.

 

[jetinteriorguy]

OP's are not the sole party benefitting from responses IMO.

Zackly

 

[Shadow9mm]

OP's are not the sole party benefitting from responses IMO.

True, but input from the OP is generally very helpful as to whether we have answered the question, before we start going down our rabbit trails.

 

[Nick_C_S]

The stainless steel pins, being much more dense, will just sit on the bottom and won't interact with the brass.

I do have ss pins along with the corn cob media in my Lyman vibra-tumbler. But I have them in there to scrape on the black crud and keep it from building up on the bottom of the tumbler bowl, and has nothing to do the the cases.

 

[Marco Califo]

The stainless steel pins, being much more dense, will just sit on the bottom and won't interact with the brass.

Nick that may be true in dry tumblers. In fact I think that would be pointless.
The Wet Tumblers like the Frankfort Arsenal Rotary Tumbler (FART) move the pins in water, cleaning solution and brass in a rolling fashion and they certainly do interact.
Regarding black crud, mine goes down the toilet after FART-ing, and is the primary reason I FART. I decontaminate range brass as soon as possible in the FART. You do not want black crud in your home.

 

[Nick_C_S]

Nick that may be true in dry tumblers.

Yeah I know. That's what I'm talking about; because that's what the OP is talking about. The pins in the vibra-tumble is not pointless. As I mentioned, the point is to keep the black crud from building up on the bottom of the bowl - has nothing to do with the brass being tumbled.

I start with the same unit the OP has to get the brass clean enough for reconditioning (resize/decap, flair).

After reconditioning, I then wet tumble in a FART - with ss pins and solution.