Wet polish process

Getting tired of dealing with the dry powder media for polishing brass.  Bought a thumblers tumbler and some stainless steel pin media.  Works great on pistol cases.  Not so much on rifle.  I did some 300AAC which worked fairly easily but some 30-06 had a lot of pins left over.  (which I promptly tracked all over the house) So now I get "the look" for not only the stray primer but also any tiny pin that is spied in the floor sweepings. I get the lecture about how if one of the dogs would get one stuck in his digestive track......  (same dog has no problem digesting Gloves, shoes and wooden knobs from the wood stove)

Where was I

Oh yeah.  Anyone use the stainless steel pin and wet media to polish .223 cases?  If yes what do you use to get all the pins out.  I use one of the round frankford arsenal media separators in a plastic bucket filled with clear water.  This works great for pistol cases but not sure would work for shouldered rifle cases as well.

I use SS pins for all my cartridges including 223/5.56 and 30-06.

I bought a wire mess basket that has holes big enough to let the pins fall through easily (about 1/4" mesh maybe a bit larger) and this basket fits inside a 5 gallon bucket. I put the basket inside the bucket and pour the cases/pins in the basket and then give a good shaking to the basket while holding it out of the water. Most of the pins come out and fall in the bucket. Those that don't get picked up with a magnet. I have to say that few pins fall outside the bucket, maybe 5-6 at most. I then put the cases back in the tumbler, put some clean water in barrel and tumble them again for about 2 minutes. Second wash with water works great for getting the pins that stick inside the cases especially bottleneck rifle cartridges. When dry I still do a visual inspection of the cases making sure there are no pins inside.

Somebody said one of those media separators like the RCBS or Frankfort Arsenal ones work great too.


Virgil

I use the same round tumbler to get the pins out but I add another step after I dry them out.  I throw about a couple hundred at a time in an empty vibrating tumbler they "stand up" I grab a handful and flip them neck down in my other hand and touch them to the side of the vibrating tumbler, any pins left inside spit right out.

- Dave

Also I dry out my cases in one of those throw away aluminum turkey roasting pans.  Turn the oven up to about 214 leave the door open a crack and all the moisture steams out.

This method works great for me:
Wet tumble with pins, hot water & Dawn soap for an hour.
Remove cover and flush with hot water (under the bathtub facet).
Wet Tumble another 30 minutes.
Separate pins and cases using an RCBS case/media separator filled with water.
Dump pins from the case/media separator back into the tumbler drum.

Here's the part that really gets all of the pins out of the rifle/pistol cases:
Buy a new 1 gallon paint can/lid.
Buy/make a wire basket that will fit inside the paint can.
Fill the paint can with Isopropyl Alcohol.
Fill the wire basket with brass from separator,  insert basket into the alcohol and swish around for half a minute.
Drain as much of the alcohol back into to paint can and seal.

Since the alcohol absorbed/displaced all of the water the brass can be tumbled in clean corncob media (no lead dust to breath and alcohol will evaporate quicker than water in cc media) to easily remove stubborn pins.
hope this helps.
Wes

I use the large Dillon Media seperator.  No problems so far up to .300 win mag(decapped first).  Gotta turn it slow or the pins will go every where.  Wear ear muffs too.  I'd like to find something with a lid, but can't go smaller.  I'm already seperating 50% of the brass at a time.  My tumbler is home made using an old tred mill, an 8" pvc tube and Dawn dishwashing liquid and Lemi Shine.  I clean 20 pounds of brass at a time.  Lots of rinsing with COLD water.  Then dry in a home made dryer.  My dryer will have your brass dry in 15 min or less!  Total time 2 1/2 hours dirty to clean/dry.(not inc depriming)  There is a huge thred on AR-15.com.  The owner of Big Dawg tumblers started/monitors it.  Nice guy.  You can email him with questions and he will share info concerning measurements, dimensions, rpm's and ratio's, if you wanna build your own.  I do all this in my driveway, even though it's pretty cold out.  No problem.

I went this route:

http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com/stm-complete-package.html

Never looked back and not a single pin left over after washing. Rifle brass looks new.

Joel

1joel1 wrote:I went this route:

http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.com/stm-complete-package.html

Never looked back and not a single pin left over after washing. Rifle brass looks new.

Joel

Hi, Me Too, for the last three years...

Tony