What media for vibratory tumbler?

[b23]

If you want clean brass, inside, outside, and primer pockets, I don't know of anything that compares to wet tumbling w/SS pins or chips.  Curious, of those that wet tumble with SS media how many dip the necks in dry graphite after?  I pretty much always dip the necks of my cases in dry graphite.

[BULLBLASTER]

I dont. My brass comes out of the wet tumbler and then goes right to the annealing machine, followed by sizing, deburring, then loading. Im not interested in completing even more tasks to each piece of brass for what i have proven to myself is not a measureable benefit (cleaning outside of each, lubing each neck, etc). Incan already keep acceptable es and good accuracy at any ranges i am interested in shooting so why add more steps?

[Evil_EdwardO]

FWIW John Barsness, a credible gun writer (to me)  wrote that he did extensive testing and found no ballistic advantage to cleaning brass, so he doesn't anymore.  (Not an exact quote but my paraphrase combining several places he has mentioned this.)  If I recall correctly, he did find that some carbon left inside the case neck eliminated or greatly postponed cold welding (?) of bullet to case in ammunition unfired or stored for a long time.  I'm not sure of the correct term but have found long stored ammunition to have some bullets adhere quite strongly to case.

I like the look of clean brass but have backed off of cleaning more than wiping the outside.

Erik Cortina also did testing and found the same results. He says he doesn't clean his brass anymore because it's a waste of time. Also, there are a few in my pistol club that don't clean their pistol brass.

[HighlandLofts]

Everyone has their own thoughts on tumbling. It's not rocket science.
.

A couple of weeks ago I tumbled some dirty range brass in the dry tumbler for two hours in walnut media.
It was clean enough for some people.
Not for me.
I retumbled it in my Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler for an hour with the stainless steel pins.
The water was black as can be from the carbon and other contaminates  left on the cases after being two hours in the dry tumbler.


If you are going to tumble why not get the cases as clean as they can be.

[b23]

Years ago when I first got setup to wet tumble with SS media I ran some 223 brass I'd picked up off the ground at outdoor ranges through my wet/SS setup.  This stuff had been laying on the ground outside for years and was in full tarnish mode, it was nasty.  I used a decapping die to pop the primers out because there was no way I wanted it anywhere near my dies.  This stuff was bad and my expectations weren't particularly high but I'd heard of guys claiming even the most tarnished brass will come clean but I wanted to see for myself.  Dumped that nasty brass in the Thumler Tumbler full of water and SS pins with a squirt of Dawn dish soap and just a tiny pinch of LemiShine and let her run.  It probably was in there for about eight hours or so which is way longer than I typically let it run but this was a test so it didn't really matter.  When I dumped the water out through the strainer it was gross and pretty much black but I was amazed at how clean the brass was inside and out as well as the primer pockets, it literally looked like it was brand new brass it was so clean.  Had I not been the one that put it in there I don't know that I would have believed it was the same brass.

If someone wants clean brass I don't know of anything that gets brass as clean, inside/outside as well as primer pockets, like wet tumbling with SS media does.

[HighlandLofts]

I bought and sold about two and a half tons of range brass in the past couple of year. I set aside the nastiest tarnished brass.
When I tumbled this really tarnished brass I did it stages. I srperatrd it into three lots.
One lot to dry tumble in walnut media.
One lot to dry tumble in corn cob media.
And one lot to wet tumble.

I ran all thre batches for five hours.
Moat of the wet tumbled brass came out looking like new cases. A few didn't come out as good.

Both of the dry tumbled brass never lost the tarnish.
They were clean but really tarnished.