Q. How do you keep the brass from tarnishing or spotting after it has dried?
A. Make sure you occasionally tumble just the Media with soap for a few hours to clean carbon from media. Use only 1/4 teaspoon LemiShine or less, more is not better. Try using Cold water to tumble and Cold water to rinse brass and make sure you rinse the brass really good. Let the brass dry on its own and see if that helps.
I found that minimizing amount of lemi-shine is the key and using enough soap so that after the tumble you still have suds. I tumble in COLD water. Rinse in my media separator in COLD water. I then put the brass on a clean bucket give a final rinse swirling it in HOT water. I drain it in my media separator to sping all the water out as much as I can and lay it out to dry on a towel. It comes out without water spots or tarnishing.
I couldn’t find lemi-shine when I started out wet tumbling so I used Finish dishwasher rinse agent and a small squirt of dawn, no problems there with any discoloration and no, I don’t measure, just a small amount (roughly 1/2 tsp) of Finish goes into my Sidewinder.
I also use tap water from the local municipality, no telling what’s in that besides all the additives they use… lol
Not considering cost or hassle, is it better to get a water softener or use lemi-shine? After seeing the results from friends I would like to use a wet tumbler myself
It takes much longer to get that high polished look when the tumbler is full (overfilled). I know that when I put more brass in than I should it looks like you described, if I take it out too early. Probably not what you’re talking, but maybe…
i have been using very small amounts of lemi and same with soap(dawn) 1/2 teaspoon. use what ever temp is comming out when i turn on the hot tap. have noticed that pmc is almost always diffrent shade than every other head stamps i also weigh out my cases to keep from over loading, and if i’m in a hurry to dry i’ll turn the oven to 150 and put them in a metal container and let sit for 1/2 -45 mins. been purposely digging up as much brass out of the dirt as i can find when i go to the range found the tarnish will polish out to light staining after an hour of tumble, have had zero problems getting it to feed
I have had some pretty nasty rounds in batches of OFB and they come out like you describe, you can still see the ‘staining’ but you cannot feel it… so it’s pretty much irrelevant and should work fine as long as you inspect the cases carefully…
I’ve been doing a fair amount of reloading lately (after my kids go to bed) but almost no shooting. The one chance I had the other day, I just got my chrono set up & it started raining. I was so pissed.
The opposite here. I sort & clean brass all summer, but I reload mostly in the winter only.
I shoot with some buddies and we hit it pretty hard during fair weather. We shoot 2 gun & 3 gun leagues and spend alot of time working on fundamentals and doing drills. My son and I shoot trap & skeet together and my oldest daughter shoots alot of rimfire challenges, etc.
I shoot the majority of weekends from April thru October, then reload all winter to supply the next seasons ammo needs. End up spending alot of late hours after the kids go to bed.
We’re down a babysitter right now & my wife has been working a lot so I’m getting a lot of daddy time with our girls. It a good thing but at least I know I’ll have plenty of ammo to shoot when I finally do get the time.
My wife is a stay at home mom, so I’m fortunate in that respect and can shoot Lot with the older kids without any issues.
And there is nothing, ever wrong with excess Daddy time, brother. They’ll be gone before we know it and there will be plenty of “free” time. Then we’ll wish we were “tied down” again. Lol
I never regret a minute of time spent with them. All the time “missed” shooting to attend football games and practices and dance recitals, etc. are the best “missed” range time I ever spend.
I tried several routines for prepping rifle brass with SS pin wet tumbling.
What I do now is:
1-clean fired brass in a vibratory tumbler with walnut shell.
2-lube then decap, size and trim (Dillon trimmer) and neck expand using a progressive press.
3-Wet tumble in a Thumbler 15# tumbler.
I use 4# brass (approx 300 223 cases)
3 quarts of room temperature water
5# SS pins
1/4 tsp Lemishine
1 Tbsp Dawn detergent
Run for about four hours.
Rinse and re-rinse in the tumbler barrel until the soap suds are mostly gone.
Fill my small Dillon media separator with room temp water to the top and separate the pins from the brass.
Roll the brass back and forth in a large towel then either leave to dry or put in a 200* oven for about two hours.
The SS pins deburr the case mouths, clean the case necks and primer pockets. The detergent removes the sizing lube. I have a water softener but since using the Lemishine I have had no issues with spotting etc.
I read the military arsenals used to clean brass with a hot sulfuric acid/bichromate solution then after rinsing in hot water they neutralized the acid with a soap bath. They then dried the brass and left the soap residue on the cases to prevent tarnishing.
Using regular old fashioned soap like Ivory this would work but I would not leave a detergent like Dawn on brass cases.
For using my thumler tumbler, I am going to try cleaning the brass with corncob in it first, and then lube the cases and resize and/or deprime. The reason I really want them pretty clean is I’m using them through the hornady case feeder. Then dump the corncob in a container and then use the steel pins and water. Or I suppose I could buy another thumler drum.
