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The Annoyed Man wrote:... I haven't bothered with all the soap/washing/etc. myself. I just tumble them in my vibrating tumbler with a little polish added to the media, and the cases seem to come out nice and clean. I decap and resize them after cleaning them. It hasn't seemed to affect my results at all.

Am I doing it wrong?

I'm not sure there is a wrong way.

Try adding some diatomaceous earth to your tumbler and see what you think of that. I haven't tried the swimming pool diatomaceous earth which is heat treated and crystalline. The organic garden diatomaceous earth is what I've tried. It is mildly abrasive and my experimentation with it showed some really nice results. I use walnut shells in my dry tumbler and added maybe 20% diatomaceous earth to the blend, and yes wax of course. YMMV but I was pleased.

rotor wrote:When I first started reloading I used ss media and it really does work. The cases look like new but don't work any better than cases done with my Cabelas tumbler. I found that I was just wasting time for cosmetics. If you want to get those cases clean, inside and out than ss is the best with dawn and lemishine as noted. I deprimed first and the cases come out great. Drying to me was a pain in the neck though. Also you have to pull ss pins out of the primer holes.

You're right, it is largely about cosmetics.. and personal satisfaction.

I spend ~10 minutes separating pins from cases. I use a tumbling media separator filled to capacity with water. I've yet to have a pin stick in a flash hole. By separating under water the pins can't stick to/in the case.

As for drying, that is the easiest part of my process. I clean ~500 cases at a time. After taking them from the separator I pour them onto the center of a very large beach towel. I grab both ends of the towel and make a sling that the cases ride in. As I raise and lower each end of the towel the cases tumble inside the sling. From there I dump them onto a half sheet pan and shove the whole thing into a preheated 170° oven. I don't know how long it takes for them to dry but I usually pull them out after about 40 minutes and all are dry.

Beiruty wrote:I run SS wet tumber no more than 90min, 1st to quick wash and the second after case prep is done, another wash for 60mins max.

90 minutes is certainly adequate for reloading purposes. I let them go longer because I like the results and I think it's worth it. I also do my case prep before cleaning. As I mentioned, I start a batch and go to bed. I'm not sure how long it actually takes to get the results I like. Definitely more than 90 minutes but probably far less than 8-12 hours. I'm unwilling to lose sleep trying to figure it out though.

mrvmax wrote:I want to try the SS pins but there is no way I am spending 12 hours on brass. ...

In all I probably spend an hour on cleaning. I usually sleep and do other things while the tumbler runs overnight in the garage.

It takes all of 4 or 5 minutes to add the brass, water and Dawn to the tumbler and seal it up. I don't touch it again until I'm ready to rinse, lube and dry. I probably spend another 10 minutes running the cleaned brass through the media separator and rinsing. I then spray them with lube and tumble them in a giant towel to get the bulk of the water off and distribute the lube. That's another 5 minutes maybe. From there they go on a half sheet pan in the 170 degree oven for 30-40 minutes.

So that's 20-25 minutes of actual hands on time with my full attention and counting oven dry time about an hour. I have ultrasonic cleaners too. I process my high end rifle brass through ultrasonic. But for cleaning 5-600 pieces of 9mm or .45acp to near perfection I'll take pins every time. But that's me.

Surgeon wrote:...
BTW what is your recipe for homemade case lube if you don't my asking?

I use two bottles of this:
http://www.amazon.com/Swan-Isopropyl-Al ... t%2C+16+OZ

to one bottle of this:
http://www.amazon.com/Now-Foods-Liquid- ... 2C+4+Ounce

and apply it with this:
http://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Guys-ACC ... ck+of+3%29

If you like to shop you can probably find the ingredients for less. Make sure you get 99% isopropyl. Those sprayers are fantastic too. They have the finest mist of any sprayer I've ever used.

I use stainless steel pin media. I like it very much. I don't use Lemi-Shine, just Dawn for dishes and water. Way more Dawn than you think it needs. I use ~2 table spoons of Dawn in my 17# tumbler and usually let them go 8-12 hours overnight. They get acceptably clean with less Dawn and less time but I like shiny stuff and the extra time makes them gleam.

FWIW - I decap, size and expand before placing them in the tumbler. After tumbling I apply home made case lube and run them 30-40 minutes in the 170 degree oven to dry.