Trying a New Thing

[Captainkirk]

The first time I fired black powder cartridges, I treated the brass as I would any other smokeless brass...I put the empties in the ammo box and after a bit, I decided I would decap and clean them...horror of horrors!!! When I pulled the brass out of the box, it was the color of an old railroad spike and covered with some sort of green bio-hazard growth...gakk!

It took some doings to get that brass clean...it spent around 18 hours in the dry media tumbler, first to get the crud off it so it could get decapped (no way I was shoving THOSE things into one of my dies!), then several more sessions once decapped, sized and such. It did eventually come clean for the most part, but good golly Miss Molly, I didn't want to do THAT again!

So, I tried a tip I heard somewhere...I filled up a plastic coffee can with water and a drop or two of dish soap, and set it on the shooting bench at the range. The second a piece of hot brass came out of the chamber, into the water it went. Blub, blub, blub. Once I got home, I drained the filthy water and did several rinses, then spread the cases out on some towels to dry. Way better! This netted only 8-10 hours total in the dry tumbler and the brass came out very nice and clean.

But, as every tinkerer knows, we gotta keep trying to achieve better results with less effort. So, my latest purchase (bought with gift cards accumulated during the pandemic lockdown) was a wet tumbler and SS pins, plus some brass cleaner solution to mix in the water (40:1). And that's where my latest bunch of .45-70 brass is right at this very moment...to see if we can shorten up the process a bit. I'll let you know as I go along how it's working out.
I know a lot of guys have gone completely over to wet tumbling, being completely sold on it. I'm actually pretty happy with the results of dry tumbling on smokeless brass, so my intentions are to only use the wet tumbler for my BPCR brass. We'll see.

.45-70 brass as it came out of the coffee can. Very tarnished and discolored, but no green stuff growing, anyway...

[Hawg]

That pic is how my bp brass looks when I reload them. Shiny is overrated.

[Captainkirk]

That pic is how my bp brass looks when I reload them. Shiny is overrated.

To some degree, however I do feel a super-clean/super-slick case is far less abrasive to the insides of my dies, are less likely to get stuck in a die, and overall, show I take extreme pride in my craftsmanship. So there's that...

Besides, it's nice to say you can make a better product than the mass market. Just sayin'.

Do they shoot any better? Of course not. But in the end, I'm like a crow. I'm attracted to shiny baubles, I reckon.

[Hawg]

Nothing wrong with that. It just shows how lazy I am.

[mike116]

Shiny is better than not shiny.
The wet tumbler does not shine brass as good as a dry tumbler.    I clean my brass with the wet tumbler and the shine them up in a dry tumbler with walnut shells and Turtle Wax polishing compound.   I drop my brass into soapy water after firing too,  it makes a big difference.

These 45-70 brass are once fired BP loads from my Sharps rifle, cleaned with Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler and then polished with the Walnut shell/Turtle wax combo in the dry tumbler.   The wax in the Turtle wax keeps the brass nice for a long time.


This is what they looked like before cleaning and polishing.

[Captainkirk]

Very nice, Mike! In fact, you well might have been the one who told me about the dish soap and water trick. You're right; it DOES make a big difference! I fully intend to dry tumble the brass once it's dried. Probably tomorrow night. I'll also give your wax idea a go.

In fact, read on. Maybe you can answer some of the issues I encountered...

[Captainkirk]

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!

[AlaskanGuy]

i do like clean brass... but its a pain in the azz to be honest... my least favorite part of reloading.. right after weight sorting 500 22 cal cast bullets...

[Hawg]

Not very good stainless if a magnet sticks to it and it might rust.

[mike116]

I use this 
https://www.frankfordarsenal.com/case-cleaning/case-cleaning-separators/quick-n-ez-rotary-sifter-kit-with-bucket/507565.html#start=1
to separate the media from the cases.   Literally only takes 5 minutes and you don't lose any media.    I tried to get by without it at first but it's too big a pain in the butt to keep track of those pins.   I pour the water off the pins and then use the magnet to put them back in the tumbler.   No drying and I've never had any rust.     I use the media separator on both the wet and dry media.
The contraption is a pain in ass to store and takes up valuable space but worth it in the long run.

(The price was way better when I bought it.   Must have been on sale but I remember less than $30)

[Zulch]

Awesome post Captain Kirk! Maybe I’ll be there some day! 

[Captainkirk]

Not sure why my pix came out so dark? Seemed like were was plenty of light. Next time I'll use flash.

Mike, I have a media separator for my dry media already. Would that work for this as well?

[Hawg]

Not sure why my pix came out so dark? Seemed like were was plenty of light. Next time I'll use flash.

Mike, I have a media separator for my dry media already. Would that work for this as well?

As long as the media doesn't fall through. An old colander and a 2 1/2 gallon bucket should work well.

[Captainkirk]

Hawg, the media is so small it was falling through the screen.

[mike116]

You want the media to fall through but not the brass.    I use the same separator (in link above) for both dry media and the SS wet pins.   Just be sure the separator and bucket are dry when using dry media such as walnut shells or corn cob media.

For the SS pins, pour the brass, pins, and water into the media separator and spin until the pins have fallen into the bucket.  Take the separator off the bucket and remove the brass.   The brass is nearly dry when removed.   Pour as much water off the pins as possible and pick them up out of the bucket with the magnet and put them back in the tumbler.   

These spinner types work well for the SS pins but I'll bet one of the dish pan type separators would work as well,  just slower and more work.