Stainless Steel Tumbling- Interesting Discovery

[358156 hp]

I felt the need to see just how well I could uniform a mess of once-fired Federal 9mm cases, all from the same lot. I first dry tumbled them in my elderly Lyman tumbler, them sized & decapped them in preparation for a trip through the wet tumbler with stainless pins. All was well, and I ran them for a few hours until thoroughly clean. I planned to do some weight sorting, and wanted them as clean as possible for this. All went well, and then I inspected my cases as I fiddled with them.

One of the first things I noticed was that the flash holes seemed on the small size, I didn't think too much about it because case manufacturers seem to fiddle with such details at random. Then I found a few cases that were almost blocked completely. The flash hole from the primer pocket side appeared to be larger than it did from the case mouth side. All the cases were like this, so I checked a few other caliber cases that were cleaned and ready to load and noticed the same thing there too. It took me a minute, but I realized that tumbling the cases in stainless must be peening the burr around the flash hole flat, and that was causing the constriction.

I'm sure the cases would still fire, but I dug out my deburring tool and cleaned up all the cases I found like this, which was pretty much all of them. I can't help but wonder if this could be causing some match shooters some real variations in ES on their chronographs. I just thought I'd mention it. I'll still keep wet tumbling, but now everything will get the flash hole uniformed and deburred too. Weird, huh?

 

[fiver]

I probably don't notice it cause I pin clean, then size, then tumble in walnut.
I don't care about the primer pockets so much on pistol brass, and all of my rifle brass has the primer pockets and flash holes cut as a normal part of the routine.

 

[Ian]

Never noticed it. What kind of tumbler are you using? Mine doesn't throw the brass around hard enough to peen the broached metal back into the flash holes.

 

[358156 hp]

I use a Thumlers Model B. Mines the slow one too. I looked at some Winchester brass I have on hand, for some reason Winchester always seems to have larger burrs at the flash hole, and the large ones didn't seem to be affected by tumbling, the there were plenty of smaller burrs that were displaced into the flash hole. I'll see if I can take some decent pics tomorrow.

Like most guys, I have the tools for uniforming the primer pockets too, but promised myself I wouldn't do it anymore except for special needs. I found myself throwing fits when I lost even one single piece of fully prepped brass.

 

[Brad]

Deburring pistol cases, 9mm in particular, isn't on my list of things to do. Too much effort. I would ditch the wet tumbling before I would deburr the cases. Having 5K or so cases certainly has something to do with it.

I have never noticed this with the cases I have wet tumbled. I do know Federal has a reputation for soft brass, I wonder if that is a factor. They also must throw up a hell of a burr for there to be enough to peen back into the hole.

 

[KHornet]

Just my two cents! I just tumble in my old Lyman, with Lizard bedding
(finely crushed walnut shell), with nothing added. Usually let it go for
about an hour and a half. Works for me, satisfies me, and I don't hardly
ever fix what taint broke!

Paul

 

[freebullet]

Normally I don't look at 9mm flash holes till the rock I missed in the case ruins my decapping pin. I do have some 1xf 9mm for some testing though. Interesting that would be an issue.

 

[JWFilips]

Never understood the concept of putting soft brass in with hard stainless steel!

 

[Brad]

Never understood the concept of putting soft brass in with hard stainless steel!

It does clean cases like no other method. I mean really clean. Like factory new clean.
I don't use mine a ton because I hate drying out the brass.

 

[Dusty Bannister]

I use the Lyman tumbler with .045" pins. I load the drum with brass as recommended, then the pins, then the solution (Armorall car wash and Lemi-shine) and run for three hours. I have not noticed this as a problem, but only check flash holes to be sure they are clear. I could be missing something though. If you are not running enough liquid in the drum I suppose it could allow harder impact by the pins. I leave room to slosh around, maybe a couple of inches from full.

 

[358156 hp]

That's pretty much how I wet tumble as well. Deburring the flash holes doesn't bother me that much, I use a Lyman deburring tool, and once the depth is set it only takes about a second per case to uniform the flash hole and deburr it nice and clean. Another thing I noticed is that there is a large variance in primer flash hole diameters from manufacturer to manufacturer. And once a case is deburred, it never needs to be done again.

 

[358156 hp]

It does clean cases like no other method. I mean really clean. Like factory new clean.
I don't use mine a ton because I hate drying out the brass.

The quickest way I've found to dry straight wall handgun brass is to drain it really well, I use compressed air, then toss it in the tumbler for awhile. I was concerned about the wet cases packing the media inside, but have never had a problem with it. I imagine some of the super fine media could cause a problem, but I haven't seen it yet. This WILL NOT work with bottleneck cases..

 

[fiver]

I just throw them in while still wet.
the water helps distribute the NuFinish better.
about 2 hours and everything comes out dry and coated.
the finish also helps the cases slide through the carbide size die a lot easier.

 

[358156 hp]

I haven't worked up the courage to try that yet. I tend to get really annoyed with myself when one of my schemes doesn't work out the way I expected it to. However, since fivers doing it....

 

[fiver]

1.5 to 2 hrs each seems to be the trick.

I do rifle stuff different, it goes into the size die then the dry tumbler [to get the lube off] then the wet, then back to the dry, then loaded.

if I just neck size the cases they go into the wet then the dry with the polish.
anything that gets annealed [jackets, case necks] goes immediately in the wet tumbler then the dry.

the wet tumbler also gets used as a dry tumbler with corn cob media for a high shine polish.
or when I put a batch of jacketed bullets in after swaging.
I can run things through the system without a lot of down time because I have 3 dry and 2 wet tumblers.

 

[358156 hp]

Its good to see someone else who doesn't mind multiple tumblings. I've taken some criticism on other boards because I tumble rifle brass a few different times, especially surplus military brass. I dry tumble it to clean it up for sizing, trimming, & primer pocket reaming, then dry tumble it afterwards to remove case lube. Wet tumbling lubed cases has never worked out for me. Then wet tumble, blow out the cases with compressed air, and dry tumble with polish to keep them from tarnishing. Then I bag them for future use. It sounds redundant & tedious, but it really isn't. It's not like I sit and watch the cases tumble so I can go to the next step. There's always something else that needs to be done while the cases are tumbling, and my brass looks great when I'm done.

 

[Ian]

No criticism from me, but I tend to think it's a waste of time so I do it differently. I deprime in a universal die and give the brass 2-3 hours in the SSTM big drum with 5 lbs of pins, a Justin Wilson teaspoon of Lemi-Shine, and a hard two-second squirt of Dawn. The Dawn will take care of lubed cases, too. I put a big dose of liquid wax in the rinse water, use only rainwater for tumble and rinse, and use a media separator to shake out the pins and excess water. Dump brass on a towel, tumble shoe-shine style, pour out on a big cookie sheet covered in another towel, and set in the sun for a few hours. If I don't add the wax to the rinse, pistol brass gets mighty hard to pull off of the expanding/bellmouthing spud.

The only time I tumble clean brass is if it's a big batch of military stuff or similar that's had lube and turning/trimming/swaging material stuck all over it. I do the same with it as with dirty, tarnished brass, but only tumble for a half hour or so.

 

[fiver]

it seems like a lot of time.
but if your sitting there looking at 2-3,000 308 cases the tumblers are doing their thing while your in trimming, de-priming, and sizing the next batch.
I walk out for a smoke, swap everything over, then go back in to start on the next group.

the pocket cleaning, flash hole de-burring, and champhering is the time consuming pain.
I don't mind the pocket swaging part, but champhering case mouths is a royal pain.

 

[358156 hp]

I'm still using a motorized Lyman trimmer. Its a bit on the slow side, plus I still ream primer pockets instead of swaging. I am due for a few upgrades in equipment, but this way my brass only makes one pass through the press. I tried decapping, then wet tumbling, followed by the sizing and machine work. It seemed to take even longer than the way I do it now. I don't know what I'll do when I start annealing the military brass too.

 

[Pistolero]

Brad said,"I don't use mine a ton because I hate drying out the brass."

Why I never even went in that direction. I hate all wet processes, even water dropping.

Bill