Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Tumbling with Dawn & Lemi-shine..............

Like most of us I cleaned my brass with corncob/walnut media for years, when stainless steel pins came along I gave them a try. I was satisfied with the results from both but never liked the job of separating the brass from the media. Walnut or corncob got stuck in the flash hole and the pins would wedge themselves in the primer pocket, both situations called for laborious sorting. Since I was already adding Dawn and Lemi-shine to the pins I thought why not eliminate the pins and see how the brass looks. To my surprise after three hours of tumbling in Dawn, Lemi-shine and hot water the brass came out spotlessly clean. Best part no media in flash holes or pins in primer pockets to mess with, so I no longer use media or pins and have nice clean shiney brass.

Or better yet, don't tumble at all.

Just one more useless step that anal retentive handloaders seem to enjoy.

Yep.

I knew the nattering nabobs of negativity would check in. You are certainly free to not tumble should you choose to do so. Once dirty brass scratches your dies you may find that tumbling has some benefits. Y'all have a nice day.

Clean brass does reflect a bit on ones character, but excessive tumbling can actually shorten ones brass via peening the necks. Not something I would do with every pass over the loading bench. It's more of an issue in the BPCR realm where precise chamber fit and lead slugs are common.

Case necks can be too clean inside as well.

Yeah, a little carbon is gonna wreck havoc on those dies.

PS: Did you ever find that deer you lost last year....

I rarely tumble any brass. It has to be pretty gd'ed bad before I bother with it. Funny thing, with just normal wiping/lubing of brass I have yet to ever scratch a die- some of which dies have been in my service since Nixon was President (including a set of RCBS steel dies that have been used to load an ungodly number of .38 Specials.)

There's a lot more to worry about in this man's world than shiny brass that only serves to impress the nimrods at the range, if they even notice.

Clean brass or lack thereof is a reflection on one's character?

I was wondering that myself, gotta be the bizarre statement of the day.

It ain’t no big deal to get the brass out of the pins. Only take a couple of minutes.

I don't worry about tumbling rifle brass at all. But, handgun brass gets nasty, especially the stuff picked up in the caliche dirt at the range. So, I tumble/clean all of my pistol brass.

I still use walnut media in a Dillon 750 unit. Also have a Thumbler's tumbler that I use with SS pins, Dawn and lemishine. I tend to use the walnut more since I don't have to mess with drying the brass afterwards.

I use reptile bedding from the pet store (ground walnut shells). It's cheaper than the walnut media sold for brass cleaning. I add a squirt or two of liquid auto wax and the brass comes out shiny.

I was talking about getting the pins out of the primer pockets, they can become very tightly wedged. No pins, no media in flash holes = no problems, the result clean brass.

Get some .047" pins. That'll cure that problem.

I'm gonna try your water/soap/lemishine method and see how it works.

The length of the pins is the problem, not the diameter. They get stuck crosswise in the primer pockets. The Dawn/Lemi-shine/hot water works fine, the brass is clean you just don't get the jewelry like shine the pins produce.

Or if you're inclined to tumble (I'm not) you can always tumble before decapping? Cleaning primer pockets is also a massive waste of time in my world.

The pins i have seen are longer than that.

I tumble em sometimes