OK, sooo...
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
The Good. After only two hours in the wet tumbler, I decided to experiment and see if that was a long enough period for the initial wet cleaning. Well, almost. I think I might increase tumble time to 3-4 hours. There is still a wee bit of grunge in the primer pockets, but likely that will come out in the dry tumble sessions. The brass is, for all intents and purposes, clean enough for most folks. Not me, but most folks.
The best part is, the INSIDE of the case is as clean as the OUTSIDE. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
The Bad. Let's be honest here; any story that starts with a half-million tiny stainless steel pins can't really have a fairy tale ending. I did a little thinking ahead and bought the magnet to pick up the pins with. Good move, although quite frankly, the magnet sucks. Not very strong. So, you've got several hundred wet steel pins on the end of your magnet and, well...you get the idea.
I couldn't think of a way to pour the tumbler drum out into the laundry sink without sending several hundred to a watery grave, so I pondered a bit and came up with somewhat of a solution. I took an empty plastic coffee can and drilled a bunch of holes around the perimeter, then cut a piece of fiberglass window screen and made a sort of sock out of it. I fastened the sock screen to the inside of the can using clothes pins (see below). In retrospect, it worked way better than I thought it would. I doubt if I ended up losing more than a couple of pins this way. A good idea; I'm glad I thought of it.
The Ugly.OK, who knew that half a million wet pins would stick to a soggy paper towel? And who woulda thunk it that the time you save not dry tumbling, you will spend sorting wet media? Or that now that you have your wet media in a pile, you have to dry it, or it "might rust" according to the instructions? So now both cases and media sit in front of a fan, hopefully they will dry OK. I will say this much: Wet tumbling works. Very well. However, I have yet to decide if it's worth the aggravation and extra work involved.
Home-made media separator...Magnetic media tool...Brass, after two hours in the bathtub. Don't forget to wash behind your ears!