How to separate media from wet tumble

viper12161 · February 20, 2017, 08:54 PM

Hey guys,

So I recently just started wet tumbling my brass (like 25 minutes ago). I picked up the Frankford Arsenal Platinum tumbler. After tumbling, it recommends filling a bucket full of water then putting the ez case tumbler in the water, pour brass in tumbler and spinning to separate the media. My question is, do I really need to fill the bucket full of water? Can I just put the cases in the tumbler and spin it around like I do with the dry media? I don't have a sink in my garage so lugging a big bucket full of water back forth isn't really an easy option (and alerts the wife to my presence which leads her to asking me to do stuff)

Thanks!

DukeConnor · February 20, 2017, 09:04 PM

Without water the pins will go EVERYWHERE.

viper12161 · February 20, 2017, 09:09 PM

Dammit....ok thanks!! Just filled up the bucket to rinse (and got asked to load the dishwasher!!) Uuuuugh!!

deserted · February 20, 2017, 09:32 PM

Doesn't take long to load the dish washer. Around here (no running water except when it rains), that just means putting the dishes on the floor. Clean as a whistle in five minutes or less.

viper12161 · February 20, 2017, 09:38 PM

Haha, someones got hounds. Filled it with water and wasn't to bad to do, only took a few minutes to get it all separated (minus the dishwasher loading time) Will be better once spring hits and I can use the hose outside and stay out of sight. Brass is in the dryer now, man does it look pretty!!

Nvreloader · February 20, 2017, 10:45 PM

Viper

Make sure you check the flash holes, and case necks,
as SS pins can and do get stuck there.

Now, that they are clean,
you should do a careful check of the brass,
to find any problem brass etc.

You can also take a large sized speaker magnet,
place inside a Zip-Lock bag, seal it tight,
lay the bag/magnet at the mouth of the bucket, on top of the pins,
pour off the water, magnet will collect the pins and keep them from being
poured out down the drain, toilet or outside when draining the water etc.

Tia,
Don

viper12161 · February 21, 2017, 12:34 PM

Thanks Don. I'll be going through them now and taking a look. I found that all the pins were clumped nicely in the bottom of the bucket allowing me to pour most of the water out. I ordered the Frankford pin magnet to get em out of the bucket from there. For checking the flash and necks, are the pins pretty noticeable, or do I need a magnifying glass to check em all out.

ed308 · February 21, 2017, 12:50 PM

A clean water rinse helps reduce spotting. My system: I dump pins and brass into a Frankfort's strainer that fits on top and partial inside a 5 gal paint bucket. I run clean water of the brass and pins while swirling everything around. The pins end up in the bucket and the brass stays in the strainer. I pour most of the water out of the 5 gallon bucket then pour the pins back into the tumbler barrel for storage. I use the magnet to find any loose pins on the counter top.

JeepHammer · February 21, 2017, 03:41 PM

*IF* you are using a dry media seperator, set your seperator on tarp or blanket to catch flying pins,
They don't go far, but they do go in quantity.

The 'Wet Bucket' is often for a final cleaning of acidic/detergent,
If you flushed the brass well, it's actually not entirely nessary to do it again.

When I was using a small scale wet seperator, I used an old furniture blanket to catch pins. Worked VERY well...

Just for the record, a HOT water rinse reduces spots, the hotter the better.
I dry mine with a common fan on fish net, fan below.
Fish net set up like a hammoc with fan below drys quickly and by using synthetic fish net the brass doesn't tarnish where it touches the net.

Net allows me to move/shake the brass around with little effort and stows out of the way when not in use.

Nick_C_S · February 21, 2017, 04:41 PM

By pure coincidence and sheer luck, I just happened to have had a fine mesh screen that is the exact diameter of the opening of my Frankford tumbler. So I put the screen over the opening and pour out the water - refill and rinse a few times. Then I pour everything (pins and brass) into my RCBS rotary media separator. Once the brass is separated, they get laid out on an old towel for drying. Here in California, they're dry and ready for loading in 24 hours.

Oh, and I also keep a strong little magnet with me during all these handling processes with the pins - comes in handy; trust me

.

SS pins are kind of a nuisance to work with. You've got to really like having nice, clean, shiny brass (and ammo).

I do.

If that's not important to you, then I suggest just using a dry media vibra-tumble system after the brass comes back from the range, and load on. Vibra tumbling gets the outside of the brass clean enough to spare your dies from grit and other various range crud. That's all you really need.

I do both, btw: Vibra tumble; recondition brass; ss pin tumble; load.

My ammo looks awesome. Just sayin'

viper12161 · February 21, 2017, 04:42 PM

Huh, didn't think of the hot water. I just used warmish tap water. Will try that next time. Brass still came out great. I bought the Franford dryer and that worked very well. Had about 100 cases....dry in about 45 minutes

Wendyj · February 21, 2017, 07:16 PM

I love my Frankford Arsenal cleaner. Bought magnet and dryer at same time. It is a pain but I dump mine brass and all in a 5 gallon feed bucket. Run lots of cold water through and pour water out as much as I can. Dump brass and what pins are left in tumbler in my media separator filled with water to rinse. Drain both and pour ss pins on an indoor dog pee pad to dry. I hated it when I first got it. Took lots of different ways to increase time to clean up. Down to 10 minutes tops after tumbling is over. Note don't tumble straight wall pistol or 45-70 brass with bottleneck. Pins get inside and hold the two together. Hard as heck to get apart and the stuck ones don't get clean. 45 colt and 357 do same thing. If you shoot a lot and deprime before cleaning you will love it. Takes me a lot longer than 10 minutes to clean primer pockets on 5-600 pieces of brass.

JeepHammer · February 21, 2017, 07:32 PM

I'm up to a scale of 2,500 to 5,000 at a time, poly drum cement mixer.
Pull out a little more than half a 5 gallon bucket at a time, holes drilled in bucket for water/pins to come out,

Throw that bucket back in the mixer and let it knock around loosely,
Knocks out loose water & pins out of the cases, good time to flush with clean water (usually flushed twice in the mixer).
Puts pins back into mixer where they belong without slinging them everywhere.

Stainless chips & pins together work great, particularly when final cleaning, chips get into grooves of primer pockets and scrub things clean much faster.

muncie21 · February 21, 2017, 09:34 PM

For grins try tumbling without the pins. Granted the inside of the case and primer pockets won't come out as nice, but you'll get back some precious time to reload more

Metal god · February 22, 2017, 01:58 AM

I'll start by saying I've never filled my bucket with water . The only thing I can say to that is thank god I never read the direction

What I do is pour the water out of the drum in a way that does not let the pins fall out . I then fill with water and dump it out again . I repeat this three times . After the third time I then pour the rest of the water into the bucket allowing the pins inside the tumbler to also fall in the bucket , shake a few times . Note: you'll be using the straining lid on the drum to only allow the water and pins to transfer to the bucket .

I then pour the case into the separator and slowly spin . The fact most of the pin were dumped out after the third rinse there's not many left to go flying but they still do a little .

OR

You can get one of these . I did and like it very much
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

JeepHammer · February 22, 2017, 07:09 AM

I have been communicating with a guy that uses spent primers in the tumbler along with steel pins, says it works as good as chips... I can't vouch for that...

Every opponent of steel pin cleaning cites pin seperation as time consuming,
I can seperate pins from 1,000 or more brass in under 2 minutes.
Takes me longer than 2 minutes to towel off dust from dry media...
And I can't do nearly as many in those consumer grade vibratory cleaners.

The tell of the tale is,
I don't know of anyone that tried steel pin/water cleaning, and actually gave it a chance, that went back to dry media cleaning.
I didn't give up dry media POLISH, but for basic cleaning, it's steel pins all the way!

jmorris · February 22, 2017, 08:22 AM

The main thing that turned me off wet tumbling was the small batches. The extra steps involved are not as big a deal when you can do batches of 3000 +.

I use the Dillon separator and fill the tub with water. Gives a good rinse/gets all the pins out, then lay them in the sun to dry.

I still use dry tumblers too though, mostly for post load tumbling to knock the lube off.

Bayou · February 22, 2017, 08:34 AM

Yes, the water is used in the rotary media separator to break the surface tension between the pins and the brass. Once separated, the pins sink to the bottom of the water for easy recapture.

As a practice tip, once the pins are separated from the brass in the media separator, and the water is dumped out and pins recaptured, while the wet brass is till in the squirrel cage, throw in a dry towel and agitate vigorously for 20-30 seconds. This removes most of the moisture from the cases. Repeat with a second dry towel, and almost all moisture will be removed.

The primer pockets will still be damp, and they will dry out in 15 minutes of exposure in a tray.

Just FYI...

Metal god · February 22, 2017, 11:52 AM

I've only been wet tumbling a little over a year . At first I thought it took more time then dry tumbling but did not consider the other things you save on . Like I no longer need to manually clean primer pockets or brush the insides of necks . When you take those factors into account . I believe I save a measurable amount of time and not just a few minutes but more like 30+ minutes per 500 cases . That right there is worth the 5+ minutes extra it takes to wet tumble IMO .

Now guys that use a progressive and deprime when sizing hand gun . That benefit does not seem to translate so I'm not sure if it's worth wet tumbling hand gun brass when using a progressive .

For those that don't clean primer pockets . Does the fouling build up after each firing to where you do need to clean them at some point . Or does each firing blow out the old fouling only leaving behind about the same amount ?

jmorris · February 22, 2017, 08:23 PM

Quote:

For those that don't clean primer pockets . Does the fouling build up after each firing to where you do need to clean them at some point . Or does each firing blow out the old fouling only leaving behind about the same amount ?

I treat it like the carbon build up in my exhaust system and never think about it until someone brings it up.

It's not something that just keeps growing rather just residue.

Stats Shooter · February 22, 2017, 11:03 PM

I have the Lyman wet tumbler. It will do about 1000x 40 s&w cases or about 500x .223.... Usually takes about 2 hours.

I use distilled water, 2 squirts of dawn dish soap and a tablespoon of lemmishine(dish washer de-scaler).

The Lyman came with a straining system where you put a strainer with big slots (but too small for any cartridge) over the top of a strainer with a stainless steel screen to let water through but not the pins.

A couple tips:
1: rinse in warm water to reduce water spots
2: shake them around in a towel
3: put them on a cookie sheet in the oven at 200 degrees for 45 min or so...It drys them fast.
5: Do your best to get all the pins but don't worry too much, when they are dry any remaining pins will fall out.

6: trim and camper before you tumble, the pins actually help remove any sharp edges.

7: when you go to seat your bullets, you may want to use a dry lube on the bullet as wet tumbling gets the inside of the necks squeaky clean and increases friction. It isn't necessary but if match grade ammo is what you are making, it will reduce the standard deviation on you velocity....If you dry tumble it isn't as big a deal.

oldscot3 · February 23, 2017, 12:40 AM

I have a Thumbler's; after a wash I empty the contents into a large dish pan half filled with water. I dump the pins from each piece of brass while they are still underwater. They all slide right out. Occasionally two pins will wedge in a flash hole but that's not often. Rinse the brass, towel dry, set them in trays to dry, and I have brass that looks like new.

February 20, 2017, 08:54 PM	#1
viper12161 Member Join Date: December 4, 2016 Posts: 36	How to separate media from wet tumble Hey guys, So I recently just started wet tumbling my brass (like 25 minutes ago). I picked up the Frankford Arsenal Platinum tumbler. After tumbling, it recommends filling a bucket full of water then putting the ez case tumbler in the water, pour brass in tumbler and spinning to separate the media. My question is, do I really need to fill the bucket full of water? Can I just put the cases in the tumbler and spin it around like I do with the dry media? I don't have a sink in my garage so lugging a big bucket full of water back forth isn't really an easy option (and alerts the wife to my presence which leads her to asking me to do stuff) Thanks!

February 20, 2017, 10:45 PM	#6
Nvreloader Member Join Date: January 13, 2017 Location: Western NV Posts: 48	Viper Make sure you check the flash holes, and case necks, as SS pins can and do get stuck there. Now, that they are clean, you should do a careful check of the brass, to find any problem brass etc. You can also take a large sized speaker magnet, place inside a Zip-Lock bag, seal it tight, lay the bag/magnet at the mouth of the bucket, on top of the pins, pour off the water, magnet will collect the pins and keep them from being poured out down the drain, toilet or outside when draining the water etc. Tia, Don __________________ "Any person that fears me owning a firearm, then I have reason to fear that person" NRA Life Member Nam "Oct 67-Dec 68", 173rd ABN 2/503rd "Recon"

February 21, 2017, 04:41 PM	#10
Nick_C_S Senior Member Join Date: March 21, 2013 Location: Idaho Posts: 5,523	By pure coincidence and sheer luck, I just happened to have had a fine mesh screen that is the exact diameter of the opening of my Frankford tumbler. So I put the screen over the opening and pour out the water - refill and rinse a few times. Then I pour everything (pins and brass) into my RCBS rotary media separator. Once the brass is separated, they get laid out on an old towel for drying. Here in California, they're dry and ready for loading in 24 hours. Oh, and I also keep a strong little magnet with me during all these handling processes with the pins - comes in handy; trust me . SS pins are kind of a nuisance to work with. You've got to really like having nice, clean, shiny brass (and ammo). I do. If that's not important to you, then I suggest just using a dry media vibra-tumble system after the brass comes back from the range, and load on. Vibra tumbling gets the outside of the brass clean enough to spare your dies from grit and other various range crud. That's all you really need. I do both, btw: Vibra tumble; recondition brass; ss pin tumble; load. My ammo looks awesome. Just sayin' __________________ Gun control laws benefit only criminals and politicians - but then, I repeat myself. Life Member, National Rifle Association

February 21, 2017, 07:16 PM	#12
Wendyj Senior Member Join Date: April 3, 2015 Location: North Georgia Posts: 1,372	I love my Frankford Arsenal cleaner. Bought magnet and dryer at same time. It is a pain but I dump mine brass and all in a 5 gallon feed bucket. Run lots of cold water through and pour water out as much as I can. Dump brass and what pins are left in tumbler in my media separator filled with water to rinse. Drain both and pour ss pins on an indoor dog pee pad to dry. I hated it when I first got it. Took lots of different ways to increase time to clean up. Down to 10 minutes tops after tumbling is over. Note don't tumble straight wall pistol or 45-70 brass with bottleneck. Pins get inside and hold the two together. Hard as heck to get apart and the stuck ones don't get clean. 45 colt and 357 do same thing. If you shoot a lot and deprime before cleaning you will love it. Takes me a lot longer than 10 minutes to clean primer pockets on 5-600 pieces of brass. __________________ God is NOT dead!!!!

February 22, 2017, 01:58 AM	#15
Metal god Senior Member Join Date: April 10, 2012 Location: San Diego CA Posts: 6,876	I'll start by saying I've never filled my bucket with water . The only thing I can say to that is thank god I never read the direction What I do is pour the water out of the drum in a way that does not let the pins fall out . I then fill with water and dump it out again . I repeat this three times . After the third time I then pour the rest of the water into the bucket allowing the pins inside the tumbler to also fall in the bucket , shake a few times . Note: you'll be using the straining lid on the drum to only allow the water and pins to transfer to the bucket . I then pour the case into the separator and slowly spin . The fact most of the pin were dumped out after the third rinse there's not many left to go flying but they still do a little . OR You can get one of these . I did and like it very much https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 __________________ If Jesus had a gun , he'd probably still be alive ! I almost always write my posts regardless of content in a jovial manor and intent . If that's not how you took it , please try again .

February 20, 2017, 09:04 PM	#2
DukeConnor Senior Member Join Date: May 6, 2016 Posts: 224	Without water the pins will go EVERYWHERE.

February 20, 2017, 09:09 PM	#3
viper12161 Member Join Date: December 4, 2016 Posts: 36	Dammit....ok thanks!! Just filled up the bucket to rinse (and got asked to load the dishwasher!!) Uuuuugh!!

February 20, 2017, 09:32 PM	#4
deserted Senior Member Join Date: October 18, 2015 Posts: 103	Doesn't take long to load the dish washer. Around here (no running water except when it rains), that just means putting the dishes on the floor. Clean as a whistle in five minutes or less.

February 20, 2017, 09:38 PM	#5
viper12161 Member Join Date: December 4, 2016 Posts: 36	Haha, someones got hounds. Filled it with water and wasn't to bad to do, only took a few minutes to get it all separated (minus the dishwasher loading time) Will be better once spring hits and I can use the hose outside and stay out of sight. Brass is in the dryer now, man does it look pretty!!

February 21, 2017, 12:34 PM	#7
viper12161 Member Join Date: December 4, 2016 Posts: 36	Thanks Don. I'll be going through them now and taking a look. I found that all the pins were clumped nicely in the bottom of the bucket allowing me to pour most of the water out. I ordered the Frankford pin magnet to get em out of the bucket from there. For checking the flash and necks, are the pins pretty noticeable, or do I need a magnifying glass to check em all out.

February 21, 2017, 12:50 PM	#8
ed308 Senior Member Join Date: November 5, 2016 Location: DFW, TX Posts: 1,147	A clean water rinse helps reduce spotting. My system: I dump pins and brass into a Frankfort's strainer that fits on top and partial inside a 5 gal paint bucket. I run clean water of the brass and pins while swirling everything around. The pins end up in the bucket and the brass stays in the strainer. I pour most of the water out of the 5 gallon bucket then pour the pins back into the tumbler barrel for storage. I use the magnet to find any loose pins on the counter top.

February 21, 2017, 03:41 PM	#9
JeepHammer Junior member Join Date: February 27, 2015 Posts: 1,768	IF you are using a dry media seperator, set your seperator on tarp or blanket to catch flying pins, They don't go far, but they do go in quantity. The 'Wet Bucket' is often for a final cleaning of acidic/detergent, If you flushed the brass well, it's actually not entirely nessary to do it again. When I was using a small scale wet seperator, I used an old furniture blanket to catch pins. Worked VERY well... Just for the record, a HOT water rinse reduces spots, the hotter the better. I dry mine with a common fan on fish net, fan below. Fish net set up like a hammoc with fan below drys quickly and by using synthetic fish net the brass doesn't tarnish where it touches the net. Net allows me to move/shake the brass around with little effort and stows out of the way when not in use.

February 21, 2017, 04:42 PM	#11
viper12161 Member Join Date: December 4, 2016 Posts: 36	Huh, didn't think of the hot water. I just used warmish tap water. Will try that next time. Brass still came out great. I bought the Franford dryer and that worked very well. Had about 100 cases....dry in about 45 minutes

February 21, 2017, 07:32 PM	#13
JeepHammer Junior member Join Date: February 27, 2015 Posts: 1,768	I'm up to a scale of 2,500 to 5,000 at a time, poly drum cement mixer. Pull out a little more than half a 5 gallon bucket at a time, holes drilled in bucket for water/pins to come out, Throw that bucket back in the mixer and let it knock around loosely, Knocks out loose water & pins out of the cases, good time to flush with clean water (usually flushed twice in the mixer). Puts pins back into mixer where they belong without slinging them everywhere. Stainless chips & pins together work great, particularly when final cleaning, chips get into grooves of primer pockets and scrub things clean much faster.

February 21, 2017, 09:34 PM	#14
muncie21 Member Join Date: April 30, 2008 Posts: 40	For grins try tumbling without the pins. Granted the inside of the case and primer pockets won't come out as nice, but you'll get back some precious time to reload more

February 22, 2017, 07:09 AM	#16
JeepHammer Junior member Join Date: February 27, 2015 Posts: 1,768	I have been communicating with a guy that uses spent primers in the tumbler along with steel pins, says it works as good as chips... I can't vouch for that... Every opponent of steel pin cleaning cites pin seperation as time consuming, I can seperate pins from 1,000 or more brass in under 2 minutes. Takes me longer than 2 minutes to towel off dust from dry media... And I can't do nearly as many in those consumer grade vibratory cleaners. The tell of the tale is, I don't know of anyone that tried steel pin/water cleaning, and actually gave it a chance, that went back to dry media cleaning. I didn't give up dry media POLISH, but for basic cleaning, it's steel pins all the way!

February 22, 2017, 08:22 AM	#17
jmorris Senior Member Join Date: November 22, 2006 Posts: 3,077	The main thing that turned me off wet tumbling was the small batches. The extra steps involved are not as big a deal when you can do batches of 3000 +. I use the Dillon separator and fill the tub with water. Gives a good rinse/gets all the pins out, then lay them in the sun to dry. I still use dry tumblers too though, mostly for post load tumbling to knock the lube off.

February 22, 2017, 08:34 AM	#18
Bayou Senior Member Join Date: March 8, 2016 Location: SE Louisiana Posts: 300	Yes, the water is used in the rotary media separator to break the surface tension between the pins and the brass. Once separated, the pins sink to the bottom of the water for easy recapture. As a practice tip, once the pins are separated from the brass in the media separator, and the water is dumped out and pins recaptured, while the wet brass is till in the squirrel cage, throw in a dry towel and agitate vigorously for 20-30 seconds. This removes most of the moisture from the cases. Repeat with a second dry towel, and almost all moisture will be removed. The primer pockets will still be damp, and they will dry out in 15 minutes of exposure in a tray. Just FYI... __________________ Bayou NRA Life Member "Keep Calm and Reload"

February 22, 2017, 11:52 AM	#19
Metal god Senior Member Join Date: April 10, 2012 Location: San Diego CA Posts: 6,876	I've only been wet tumbling a little over a year . At first I thought it took more time then dry tumbling but did not consider the other things you save on . Like I no longer need to manually clean primer pockets or brush the insides of necks . When you take those factors into account . I believe I save a measurable amount of time and not just a few minutes but more like 30+ minutes per 500 cases . That right there is worth the 5+ minutes extra it takes to wet tumble IMO . Now guys that use a progressive and deprime when sizing hand gun . That benefit does not seem to translate so I'm not sure if it's worth wet tumbling hand gun brass when using a progressive . For those that don't clean primer pockets . Does the fouling build up after each firing to where you do need to clean them at some point . Or does each firing blow out the old fouling only leaving behind about the same amount ? __________________ If Jesus had a gun , he'd probably still be alive ! I almost always write my posts regardless of content in a jovial manor and intent . If that's not how you took it , please try again .

February 22, 2017, 11:03 PM	#21
Stats Shooter Senior Member Join Date: August 26, 2016 Location: North Dakota Posts: 1,636	I have the Lyman wet tumbler. It will do about 1000x 40 s&w cases or about 500x .223.... Usually takes about 2 hours. I use distilled water, 2 squirts of dawn dish soap and a tablespoon of lemmishine(dish washer de-scaler). The Lyman came with a straining system where you put a strainer with big slots (but too small for any cartridge) over the top of a strainer with a stainless steel screen to let water through but not the pins. A couple tips: 1: rinse in warm water to reduce water spots 2: shake them around in a towel 3: put them on a cookie sheet in the oven at 200 degrees for 45 min or so...It drys them fast. 5: Do your best to get all the pins but don't worry too much, when they are dry any remaining pins will fall out. 6: trim and camper before you tumble, the pins actually help remove any sharp edges. 7: when you go to seat your bullets, you may want to use a dry lube on the bullet as wet tumbling gets the inside of the necks squeaky clean and increases friction. It isn't necessary but if match grade ammo is what you are making, it will reduce the standard deviation on you velocity....If you dry tumble it isn't as big a deal.

February 23, 2017, 12:40 AM	#22
oldscot3 Senior Member Join Date: July 1, 2007 Location: texas Posts: 997	I have a Thumbler's; after a wash I empty the contents into a large dish pan half filled with water. I dump the pins from each piece of brass while they are still underwater. They all slide right out. Occasionally two pins will wedge in a flash hole but that's not often. Rinse the brass, towel dry, set them in trays to dry, and I have brass that looks like new.