Called Dillion about cases sticking after wet tumbling

[Poconolg]

I have heard that after wet tumbling cases may stick to a Dillion powder funnel. When I called them to ask about this they were very against wet tumbling. I have read on this forum a fix for this. It is to use a 1/4 cup of Armorall wash. Has anyone with a Dillion run into this problem and if so what was the fix. Thanks for any help.

[Ben Dover]

Rinse and then dry the cases properly and you'll have no problems. I load on a Dillon 650, and wet tumble all of my brass in liquid Tide and Lemi-Shine.

[buck460XVR]

The way I understand it is that wet cleaning actually makes your cases too clean.

[jmorris]

Yep, too clean. Lube them and the problem will go away.

If you are adding a lubricant to your wet mix, that will also work.

[drain smith]

Hornady makes a wet tumbler. RCBS makes a wet tumbler. Dillon doesn't. Are we really surprised that Dillon is against wet tumbling?

[Poconolg]

Ben Dover, How much liquid Tide do you use?

[Old 454]

Just use a bit of hornady 1 shot on your brass before reloading. I use it all the time. Press will run alot smoother.
You can also pull your powder funnel clean it and one shot that also. Just make sure to let it dry out before using.
I also use it kn the platform that the primer disk rides on. That helps also with press operation.

[David R]

Strong words...

I would ditch my dillon before my wet tumbler!

I rinse after tumble and some car wash wax with hot water for a couple minutes. Then drain and dry. I do not rinse the wax off.

I also keep a can of one shot near my bench. If things get a little difficult, I lightly spray the brass.

David

[Old 454]

Ditch the Dillon ... never... lolol... to funny

[Stats Shooter]

I did a thread on needing lube to seat bullets after wet tumbling on .223 and .308. Its the same problem with the necks being too clean. I used graphite as a lube and my SD's and ES's dropped.

I also load on a dillon 550/650 for various cases.

After a while i started tumbling the brass, after wet tumbling, in some walnut shell media to polish. The "too clean" problem went away. I assume due to walnut dust acting as my new graphite.

It's an extra step, but I do big batches so the additional time spent per round is relatively low, a lot lower than graphite lubing bullets.

[Stubert]

After wet tumbling, I have to lube the inside of the necks on 223 cases or the shoulders will buckle while seating bullets. My next time wet tumbling, I will try Armorall wash and wax.

[Unclenick]

I just saw a vendor site (forgotten which one, already) the other day that commented part of the Dillon problem was the portion of the expander below the flare was too long, and they shortened that portion to eliminate most of the grab. Inside neck lubes are the obvious thing to try.

[Master Blaster]

Wet tumbling is a solution in search of a problem.

JMHO YMMV

[Stats Shooter]

Wet tumbling is a solution in search of a problem

This is a silly comment.

Often range brass pickups are full of mud and other debris crusted in that are not easily removed without soaking which wet tumbling takes care of quickly.

Next, wet tumbling cleans out the primer pockets that you otherwise have to do by hand on each individual case.

Then, wet tumbling gets the carbon and gunk built up on the inside of the case without the use of chemicals.

Also, wet tumbling does not create the lead dust and other dust that some dry tumblers create.

I dont knock guys who use other methods to accomplish some of the same tasks. But to say it is essentially some frivolous process that was never necessary is ridiculous.

Cleaning out 10k rounds of muddy range pickup 223 would be a real pain without wet tumbling.

[pete2]

I agree with Blaster. Brass doesn't have to be spit shined to work. Corn Cob works just fine and it's faster and a lot less trouble.

[sevt_chevelle]

I bought some new powder funnels from Double Alpha. They are basically M die style die that replaces the stock Dillon powder funnel. My case sticking went away cause they work the brass less and I also believe the finished quality of the ammo improved.

https://www.doublealpha.biz/us/mr-bu...-powder-funnel

I believe there was a guy on ebay also selling a powder funnel like these but in different calibers.

[Unclenick]

I turn my own versions of those funnel/operating rods. The first one was for my Square Deal B back in the early '90s. Basically, I copied the dimensions off a Lyman expander die I had from a complete die set, just as you suggest. In fact, this configuration does produce better ammunition. Moreover, Dillon told me they made this expander form an option at one time, but dropped it. I don't know why.

Prior to making the one on my SDB, my 45's came out with the bullet base position mirrored unevenly by the slight bulge around the case, indicating bullet tilt. After going to the M profile, bullets were essentially all straight and the mirroring was as even as the wall thickness of the brass, and at 50 yards, there is about half an inch reduction in average hardball groups. Of more practical use to the offhand shooter, lead bullets going into the barrel more straight cause less leading.

Originally Posted by pete2

I agree with Blaster. Brass doesn't have to be spit-shined to work. Corn Cob works just fine and it's faster and a lot less trouble.

I don't think anyone is suggesting the mechanics of loading and firing guns requires the extreme clean pin tumbling provides; only that it has some advantages. One already mentioned is eliminating lead toxicity. One of our members had a friend in the lead contamination monitoring business. He got his friend to go over his whole shooting-related work area. He reported no appreciable contamination in the loading equipment nor even in the bullet casting area. The only area that set off alarms was around the vibratory tumbler. It was due to acid-soluble lead compounds in the primer residue dust the vibratory tumbler loosens. The wet tumbling is done with some amount of citric acid (whether purchased as citric acid or as Lemishine). Citric acid chelates lead, which is to say it binds lead into a form that is non-toxic or low toxicity because it is very hard for anything to get the lead loose from that form to do harm. The term "chelate" comes from, I think, Greek for "claw" to describe how the molecules grab and bind the metal. This chelated lead is then flushed down the drain and does not do environmental damage, much less damage to the shooter.

The pin process was invented around 20 years ago by our own board member Hummer70. He was an Aberdeen Proving Grounds test director and incident investigator for many years, as well as being a 2 time U.S. Palma match champion. He cares about the details. He came up with it because he could detect the throat wear contribution from shooting the hard carbon residue in primer pockets down a rifle barrel and wanted a way to completely remove it, so he experimented with a lot of methods, wet and dry, and a lot of different kinds of media until he empirically arrived at the SS pin method. He propagated it among top-tier shooters and sold bulk-purchased pins at cost to others for a long time before someone else decided to commercialize it. Now it seems to be everywhere.

How much difference does it make? At 45 Auto pressures and velocities, I think it isn't important. An Airforce match team armorer told me he'd found 45 Auto hardball barrels would run around 20,000 rounds and softball barrels around 50,000 rounds before peak match accuracy cannot be recovered by refitting it to the gun. This included not just the match team guns firing new ammo, but handloader's guns as well. So, apparently, it's not a dominant wear factor there. But as pressure and temperature and energy in the propellant go up, the situation gets worse. I've seen a couple of reports by military snipers about their M24's, which are always shooting new ammo without carbon crust, running past the 15,000 round point and still making accuracy specs. Most hand-loading match shooters figure about 3,500 rounds for a 308 Win SS barrel to lose its peak accuracy. I have no idea how much of that huge life difference has to do with carbon elimination, how much has to do with the more regular cleaning routine keeping carbon and other fouling out (at least every 10 rounds is what a retired Marine Scout Sniper told me they used when circumstances allowed), and how much is just that the qualifying accuracy for the M24 is not tight enough to be satisfactory to a top match shooter. Its tightest requirement is 1.4" mean radius at 250m (273 yards). Mean radius is close to the value of the radial SD, so figure 95% of groups would be within about twice that size, or 5.6" at almost 300 yards, or about 2 moa diameter. But that's just the minimum requirement. Figure that most passing guns did better than that. Some, a lot better. All we can be sure of is all those factors likely figure into it.

Finally, the bright brass color itself. It makes no difference to the guy shooting a bolt gun single-shot at a bench and who is collecting all his cases as he extracts them from the gun. It makes no difference to a revolver shooter who isn't dropping cases on the ground to practice speed loading. But if one of my Garands drops dull, oxide-colored cases in the grass at Viale Range and the range officer gives us just a few minutes to police it, that coloring camouflages it in the grass. Without a clear yellow color, it is just plain hard to find, so I lose more of it. From that standpoint, getting the brass yellow is an economy.

[GWS]

Unclenick.....great essay on why one might like to consider wet tumbling....all absolutely true. However you left one important factor out.

The Feel Good Factor.

I think we ought to have the right to feel good no matter what some naysayer says about how "ridiculous" we are to do something extra for that. Why can't we have more tolerance? When are such people going to understand that other people don't have to do everything the so-called right way, which is total nonsense anyway. There is no one right way.

I've been loading for 47 years....most of that producing ugly but otherwise great reloads. I have the right to improve that, and do it without ruining further ..... lungs messed up by working in the building construction industry. I like wet tumbling for the all the reasons Unclenick cites......and yet I'll be honest.....the best reason for me is the bling! My eyes are old, my body is tired, but I still love to load and shoot. Let me enjoy the eye candy without cynical remarks about wasting my time. It makes me feel good.....when I feel good I shoot better.....simple as that.

BTW, I have run across the "too clean syndrome" especially on MG LC brass. I cured the problem by going back to "real" lube. The old RCBS lube pad outside, and dry lube in the necks worked for me better than Imperial or lanolin.....mind you....that's not the ONE right way either....just worked for me....as did STP oil treatment....

Yet I would agree with most that it's hard to beat lanolin spray for the easy day to day use in a progressive, where bling, machine guns, or large cases aren't a problem. I even use Imperial at times, but not when the going gets rough.... example below:

[jmorris]

The powder funnels Dillon makes these days are not the same as they have always been.

30 + years ago they made them like the one on the left, the one in the middle is how they make them for the SD, 550 and 650, the one on the right is for the 1050, to bell at #5, with the two step expander/backup rod at station #3.

[Baldwin]

If you wet tumble, ArmorAll Wash and Wax is your best friend. . .