Brass Cleaning steel pins overated?

[deadidarren]

There are actually competitive shooters who wet tumble with SS media and they have two fixes.

1. They seat their bullets long and before a match re-seat the bullets to the proper OAL and break any bond between the case neck and bullet.

2. Dip the case necks in Imperial dry graphite neck lube which is just powdered carbon and re-coats the inside of the neck. It is the film of carbon that keep the bullets from bonding to the case neck.

The bonding process is because excess positive electrons like jumping over to other atoms with too many negative electrons. This is also what keeps galvanized steel from rusting, the zink coating keeps transferring its positive electrons to the steel.

Some people will say I have a lot of balls for writing the above, "BUT" if you look at my photo below you will see I do have a lot of balls.


Imperial Dry Neck Lube 1oz Powder

The easy way to apply dry neck lube to case necks. Simply dip the cartridge case neck into the ceramic media. The media consists of high density ceramic spheres that are pre- charged with Imperial Dry Neck Lube.
(powdered graphite which is nothing more than fine carbon particles)

Haha yep I use a 35mm film canister no7.5 shot and 1/3 of a tea spoon .

I'm curious as to what the old timers did to clean there brass before tumblers were made. I thought maybe they used a bucket with maybe some sort of soap other than lye. Or maybe a baking soda solution ? Or did they just hand clean ? And with what ? Burlap maybe ? I was given a container that looks like a portable potty with about a 3 gallon bucket in it. I got this when I bought a load of dies from a friend. It is for media cleaning he said. I'm just not sure how it works. Did they fill it with some form of cleaning solution & let it soak for so long. And agitate the brass occasionally ? It looks like it may have been from the 70s. But I'm still curious as to how the old old timers cleaned their brass. Or didn't they even bother ? I have some antique loading tools. And am not sure how they work either. lol

When I bought a new Tikka tac A1 in 260 Remington I decided I would run 100 cases without cleaning them this is a pic of one of those cases it has been loaded 16 times it has never been full length sized never been cleaned and it is still 0.005" under maximum cartridge length .

 

[M1A1ABRAMS]

Haha yep I use a 35mm film canister no7.5 shot and 1/3 of a tea spoon .

When I bought a new Tikka tac A1 in 260 Remington I decided I would run 100 cases without cleaning them this is a pic of one of those cases it has been loaded 16 times it has never been full length sized never been cleaned and it is still 0.005" under maximum cartridge length .
View attachment 378250

And is that Rem brass or something else ?

 

[LoneTraveler]

I started loading/reloading about 1960, No one thought about how dirty the inside of the case was back then. A little 0000 steel wool to take all the stains off and polish the outside off the case and reload it. I went to Walnut shell about 10 years ago and Ultra Sonic water bath about 5 years ago. I like to Ultra Sonic clean small cases just because of smaller case capacity. If I have to load hunting loads with fired brass for my 338 WM or 300 WSM I use The Ultra Sonic on those case too. I like the way the Ultra Sonic cleans the prime pockets, Less work on case prep.

 

[deadidarren]

And is that Rem brass or something else ?

 

[Wachsmann]

How does everyone get around the sticky brass after wet tumbling. This was my reason for going back to dry media. I had excessive pressure after wet cleaning when compared to dry cleaning with corn cob or walnut media. Charges, bullets, primers, powder, seating depth was all the same. I know the dust from the dry stuff probably acts like a lubricant when seating but the wet tumbling and then allowing to dry for a few days made the brass have sticky necks or the gripping of the necks was much greater.

 

[Varmint Hunter]

How does everyone get around the sticky brass after wet tumbling. This was my reason for going back to dry media. I had excessive pressure after wet cleaning when compared to dry cleaning with corn cob or walnut media. Charges, bullets, primers, powder, seating depth was all the same. I know the dust from the dry stuff probably acts like a lubricant when seating but the wet tumbling and then allowing to dry for a few days made the brass have sticky necks or the gripping of the necks was much greater.

In all liklihood, the "sticking" that you are experiencing is being caused by tumbling too long. The case mouths get peened and it causes the problem you have described. Tumble for 30 min or less. The cases will be plenty clean enough. Then use the chamfer/deburring tool to lightly bevel the inside of the case mouth. You should have no problems after that.

I've been SS pin tumbling for years without any issues but I have been cutting the tumbling time down as I learned more about the process.

 

[Wachsmann]

The that must of been the problem cause I was running them like 3 hours.

 

[Coyote Shadow Tracker]

A little bit of cleaning liquid as brass cleaner or Dawn and some Lemon shine water as pins. 30-45 minutes in the tumbler and comes out like new brass inside and out.