I switched to Steel pin tumbling

[waterdog540]

The jug of boretec has the mixing ratios. 1:20 with water, and I did not supplement it with anything else, as I just wanted to give it a shot all on it's own. It says on the bottle that you can reuse it a number of times so Im going to just keep running it until is stops cleaning. In each of the 2 HF tumbler "drums" I have 1.5lbs of steel pins, and can fit either 25 30-06 cases or 50 .223 cases.

I was going to upgrade to a larger tumbler, but now that I can process brass 4x faster than before when I used lemishine and dawn, maybe i won't need to...

Hey Boozer, just wanted to let everyone know how his worked!
Put 250 9mm cases in my tumbler and filled it almost full of hot water. Put two ounces of Lyman sonic cleaner in there with it and ran the tumbler three hours. Had to run to town.
Here are the results.

 

[Boozer]

View attachment 120497

Hey Boozer, just wanted to let everyone know how his worked!
Put 250 9mm cases in my tumbler and filled it almost full of hot water. Put two ounces of Lyman sonic cleaner in there with it and ran the tumbler three hours. Had to run to town.
Here are the results.

Shiney, shiney! if the lyman stuff is anywhere near as good as bore-tech, then 3 hours was PLENTY!

 

[Varmint Hunter]

I use a K&m arbor press with a force pack. Seating pressure is very inconsistent with FL sized virgin brass vs fireformed FL sized brass. This is the only time I have clean necks. I'm not super anal about seating force but I will seperate the difficult rounds and use as sighters or for steel. I also agree that I never felt a difference using an O Press for bullet seating.

For arguments sake I'm going to debunk this for myself. I will stainless tumble 10 pieces of fireformed brass and 10 pieces tumbled in corn media. And see what a piece of paper says. Regardless I'm not investing in stainless as I'm perfectly happy with my current setup.

Your results would be very enlightening. Please post them. Old dogs CAN learn new tricks.

 

[jasonco]

Any issues with accuracy from removing the carbon inside the neck?

Never made a difference either way to me.

 

[SealT5]

Will do sir

Your results would be very enlightening. Please post them. Old dogs CAN learn new tricks.

 

[deadidarren]

I couldn't find a wet tumbler here in Australia so I made one .

 

[bob4]

After trial and error and reading from here. I seem to get a more consistent seating pressure with a bit of left over carbon inside my necks.
I have tried wet pin tumbling and they sure look nice but didn't make a difference down range.

 

[rickjoty]

I also just moved to tumbling with stainless pins, amazing results! I use the Lyman Cyclone, Lyman Media Separator and I have always used my old jerky food dehydrator for drying.
Using stainless media, hot water, food grade citric acid (get in bulk from Amazon) and Sams Club Heavy Duty degreaser.

If I want to do it fast with 50 or less, I'l stick with heated sonic cleaner and Sams Club Heavy Duty degreaser, citric acid and Kosher salt, compressed air for drying.

I love the results I get from steel pin tumbling. After tumbling I shake out the pins, roll the brass on a towel, then use a hair dryer on the pile while stirring them around. Brass looks like new, primer pockets cleaned.

 

[jasonco]

I ran these 100 or so HSM 223 and 50 Nosler 6.5x284 with pins and my "dip" for one hour, clean like new brass!

 

[Msgt William Toprock]

OK all, I don't know why I didn't do this eons ago but I switched to stainless media. Easy to use especially if you have a powerful magnet and all I did was what everyone else did, go figure. I did it on the cheap though. Split the 2 lb bag in half, one for each drum. 40pcs of 308 brass. About 9mm casing of lemishine. 2 squirts of dish soap. The below pictures were of it running only 1.5 hrs.
Harbor freight dual tumbler $43.99 %20 coupon
Stainless media 2 lb $20.00 cause I really didn't need the extra, media lasts forever
Lemishine $3.00 this stuff might last me the rest of my life lol
Dish soap $0.00 we always have this on hand, well I guess I pay for this from grocery bill
Water $0.00 , well I pay for the electric
Results and pictures of equipment, don't mind the craft project, the kid has been sick and home. She wanted to participate in the photo op.

One thing you have to remember that not all stainless steel is magnetic, many types of stainless steel is not magnet is so no matter how strong your magnet is it will not attract the media.

 

[crowsnest2002]

I have a system down now that I don't even use the magnet. It works pretty good. One bonus I've seen while gleaning my brass is being able to see what is going on inside the brass much easier now. I got some brass and cleaned, and I was able to see corrosion areas a little easier while filtering through it. So far I like this method and I don't really have much money into it. It does help me sort it visually as well. I just have to keep my eye on the times while its tumbling.

 

[Ga6570]

I've been using stainless steel media in my tumbler for about 5 years now. I love it. Insides and outsides of brass is perfectly clean. I also use a squirt of dish soap and some lemishine and it does wonders. The issue of leaving it running for too long was corrected by an $8 timer that shuts off power. I can select 1, 2, 4, 8hrs with that simple timer and let it be. I've found 2 hrs is plenty. Media never wears out(but can be lost) cleans better that any other method I have tried. I ended up getting my tumbler from MidwayUSA and the media from amazon.

 

[Remmy700]

I read posts earlier in this thread talking about how erratic seating pressure was an outcome of stainless media and removing all carbon from inside the necks. Have any of you that stainless tumble seen degraded accuracy? I have been running stainless media for some time but I always dip case mouths in imperial dry neck lube which is mixed into their applicator media prior to final mandrel sizing and then charge and seat. Just wondering if anyone has seen first hand accuracy issues that can be pinpointed directly to stainless media tumbling.

 

[jasonco]

I read posts earlier in this thread talking about how erratic seating pressure was an outcome of stainless media and removing all carbon from inside the necks. Have any of you that stainless tumble seen degraded accuracy? I have been running stainless media for some time but I always dip case mouths in imperial dry neck lube which is mixed into their applicator media prior to final mandrel sizing and then charge and seat. Just wondering if anyone has seen first hand accuracy issues that can be pinpointed directly to stainless media tumbling.

I'v been through 300 rounds in a new 6 Creedmoor with Starline brass and no issues with the stainless wet tumbling.