Cleaning Brass Question

[C-Money]

I was happy to get a brass tumbler and some walnut media for Christmas. This will be my first attempt at tumbling brass. I usually always reload new Winchester brass for rifles and never really had a need to clean any. With the current shortage of supplies, time to clean brass. I am thinking this will be fine, but thought I'd ask...I'm going to re-size to get the old primer out, and trim case to proper length. Next step will be to tumble. Any potential issue with deformation of cases during tumbling? I really doubt it, but what's your process of steps when reloading? I'm going to toss in some Hornaday, Remington, Winchester, and Federal brass to see if any clean up nicer than the other.

[Jingles]

In my experience I have found that the corn cob media is better for a finished polish on used brass, in addition to using  cob media I add about 2 tablespoon fulls of Flitz Metal polish in the media. Have not has any issues of tumbling causing any deformity of resized/trimmed brass.

[jjness11]

I have two tumblers. One for walnut and one for corn. When I get done shooting, the dirty brass goes in the walnut to do a “first clean”. I do this to avoid running dirty brass through my dies. Then size, and tumble in corn cob media to remove the case lube and polish. Then trim, chamfer and debur. That’s what works for me. Ask 10 people, you may get up to 10 different answers. Like the guy above mentioned, Flitz is a great additive to corn cob media.
Also, Sportsman’s sells both walnut and corn cob in 5 gallon buckets for pretty cheap. So I try to keep my media fresh.

[C-Money]

Great info, thank you for the replies! Never gave a thought about running dirty brass through the die. I'll grab some Flitz as well.

[Evil_EdwardO]

In my experience I have found that the corn cob media is better for a finished polish on used brass, in addition to using  cob media I add about 2 tablespoon fulls of Flitz Metal polish in the media. Have not has any issues of tumbling causing any deformity of resized/trimmed brass.

 

I do the same and use Flitz also.

[BigGoonTuna]

I usually clean mine in the tumbler for a few hours before case prep. Once I’m finished with prep work I’ll usually toss them in for 15-20 minutes to get the lube off. I use corncob media with a capful of nufinish car polish added.

Really considering getting a rotary tumbler for cleaning up sooty necks. Shiny stuff works better, right…right?

[NRA4LIFE]

Flitz user here too.

[Bareback]

Rotary tumblers beat the brass up pretty good. Every time the brass falls and hits another piece of brass it puts a ding in it. At least that’s what I’ve found.

[Norman89]

Another vote for flitz and corncob. Really dirty brass ( dirt/mud) goes in the tumbler with water and dawn dish soap for 5 minutes, rinse let dry or dry in the oven then into the corn cob

[hunter399]

I was happy to get a brass tumbler and some walnut media for Christmas. This will be my first attempt at tumbling brass. I usually always reload new Winchester brass for rifles and never really had a need to clean any. With the current shortage of supplies, time to clean brass. I am thinking this will be fine, but thought I'd ask...I'm going to re-size to get the old primer out, and trim case to proper length. Next step will be to tumble. Any potential issue with deformation of cases during tumbling? I really doubt it, but what's your process of steps when reloading? I'm going to toss in some Hornaday, Remington, Winchester, and Federal brass to see if any clean up nicer than the other.

I clean first,then resize just cause the walnut stuff gets stuck in the flash hole primer pocket . So if I clean first I know the flash hole is clear by the deprimer pin .
But that's just me. You can always go through clean primer pocket and punch out the walnut stuff out the flash hole later.

Trim
Clean primer pocket.
Prime
Powder bullet.
There's a lot in between ,depending how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.

[C-Money]

30, 30-06 brass are now tumbling! I may have done it all bass akwards, but I resized & trimmed first. Put the Range Maxx tumbler together and filled to 2/3 capacity with Lyman walnut media. Appears to be working great. The media and brass are circulating well. I did not add Flitz, as I didn't make a trip into town to grab any. But will next time I'm at the hardware store. Fun project today.

[callturner]

Yep, I deprime and resize then trim if needed. I use SS pins, gave up on the organic media years ago. Thumblers B tumbler all the way. 1/2 tsp of either Lemi Shine or citric acid and a squirt of dawn dish soap and cover with about a inch of water, no more. About 2 hrs.' and their done, primer pockets included. I do 50 to 100 at a time, no dings or peened case lips.

[Iveexcaped3]

Heard you can use walnut bird bedding to save money

[Caseknife]

I use a dedicated decapping die and an older cheap press first.  Then everything goes in the tumbler with brass pins and a cleaning solution.  Many ways to skin a cat, brass will be cleaner than when it came out of the gun.

[HighlandLofts]

Back when I used the dry tumblers I added different kinds of additives. Then when I started selling lots of range brass I switched over to wet tumbleing with the bigger Frankford Arsonal wet rotary tumbler. I can tumble larger loads and the brass comes out cleaner.
When I was just reloading for myself the dry tumbler was good enough because the brass wasn't to dirty. If you tumble the brass after you resize them look for the media stuck in the flash hole.
I bought a small four piece punch set to clean the flash hole. I used the straight one that looks like a mini ice pick.
Harbor Freight has a twenty-five pound box of crushed walnut hulls pretty cheap. If you buy a box from there but the coarse ones.

Dry tumbleing does create a lot of dust, wet tumbleling no dust and cleaner cases.