Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wet Tumbling Brass Cases

I have both the Thumbler’s and Frankford’s. No matter the drive train, the wet solution & pins do an incredible job.

I have the Lyman wet tumber and use a very small amount of Lemishine and dawn dish soap. I do not use the pins at all. Works great. When I started, I air dried and as the fall got cooler, 24-36 hours wasnt enough and I had several fail to fires until I started waiting longer to dry or using a dehydrator to dry.

My old sidewinder finally died on me.
That's when I picked up my thumblers tumbler.


dave

i only use 40 to 60 rifle cases, so i decided to use a Habor Freight Dual Rock Tumber. i have pieces of sewer pipe, so it was natural to me. i was a water/sewer main line operator/laboror.

I lube,resize,trim in 100 case lots put in the Frankfurt Arsenal tumbler.
Add water, pins, a bit of Dawn soap and a 9mm case of lemi-shine
tumble for 2 hours remove and put in a reloading block and leave them out
until next day then start reloading. If needed just put a small fan to run air over them overnight.
X

I just use the RCBS case cleaner with walnut shell, not sure why I’d need them any cleaner than that? Of course some do retain a small neck burn, but for my caliber of shooting, that wouldn’t be a deciding factor..I’m happy hitting the target at 400 yds

I prefer wet tumbling. I use a Thumler with a bit of Dawn and a tablespoon of Lemishine. Fairly clean brass is done in 45 minutes, while tarnished stuff gets 2 hours. I rinse the cruddy water out a few times and, after separating. I put the brass on a cookie sheet in the oven on the warm setting (no hotter) for a half hour.

Certain size brass, generally .223, can see some pins get hung up in the neck, so I keep an ice pick handy. But it's better than picking walnut bits out of primer pockets, which happens on just about everything.

Built a machine out of an old treadmill... worked out fine...

Gave it away...

I like walnut tumbled brass better for function.

Not sure why some add Lemi-Shine. Ivory Liquid, water, and pins gets brass sparkling new looking without it.

I use the same setup, works great.

Thanks for the info guys!

Maybe it's faster with Lemishine...I dunno.

How long do you typically tumble? Have you reclaimed brass that laid on the ground so long it has just about turned black?

SS pins got lodged sideways in the primer pockets and were a PITA to remove, switched to stainless grit and it was wearing the tumbler drum lining. Gave up on SS entirely and use hot water with Dawn and Lemi-shine, drain the water and dry on an old cookie sheet in a 170 degree oven for 20 mins.. After cleaning the case mouths get chamfered using a VLD (very low drag) chamfer tool, bullets seat effortlessly.