Originally Posted by punkey71
It seems to clean quite effectively and is a bit of an anti-tarnish. Probably not enough wax left on it to qualify as a lubricant.
Also, don't underestimate the value of drying wet brass quickly. Wet brass tarnishes quickly, and moisture in primer pockets can be surprisingly difficult to drive off. I am definitely a fan of thorough forced drying using a dehydrator or equivalent device.
Last edited by GuanoLoco; 03-22-2017 at 06:36 PM.
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Awesome, thanks
The dehydrator is backordered on Amazon for a month so I'm just towel drying and then into the oven for 15 mins in the meantime.
I was unsure about the dehydrator but your endorsement settles it.
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The dehydrator is what I use, I got lucky and had one from a beef jerky kit I had bought few years earlier. I'd made a few batches of jerky, but since my wife dosen't care for jerky, I ended up eating all of it, so, I lost interest in it and packed it all up. It sat on the attic steps for 2-3years. Now, I've found a use for the dehydrator. They do work well, an hour in the dehydrator, and the cases come out so hot they'll burn your hands, they are indeed quite dry.
The way I see it, most vibratory tumblers are designed to fail. With the shaft extending theough the motor, with a weight offset on it causing the vibration, the bearings in the motor will eventually fail. This was the main reason for me looking at another way to clean cases. I had two of the large Dillon tumblers, in both the motors failed. I took one down to a local motor shop to see if I could get a new motor and install it myself, after all, the motor was made by Emerson Electric, they tried to order one only to find out that that motor was a proprietary motor, meaning Emerson made them for one customer, and one customer only... Dillon. Dillon wanted $110 plus shipping to "rebuild" it, clearly, it would've been cheaper to buy a new one. I suspect this was the idea all along.
Anyway, I'm happy with what I have, since the motor drives the tumbler via a belt, it should last 5 times as long, and should it burn out replacement motors/belts are easily available. At this point I don't see myself going back to a vibratory tumbler, the wet tumblers do just a good of a job, and one dosen't need to buy media, or worry about lead dust. Water, dish soap,lemishine are all cheap.
Last edited by ralph; 03-22-2017 at 07:00 PM.
Just make sure you run it long enough. A buddy recently processed a 5 gallon bucket of 223 brass and didn't dehydrate long enough. The stuff on the top was hot but it wasn't all dry. He put it all in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid and then loaded a couple thousand rounds sometime later. After he had some hang fires and duds he disassembled a few rounds and realized that the powder was wet and clumpy. His prize batch of match ammo is now practice ammo or scrap. That was an expensive and time-consuming mistake.
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I use the racks/base that came with the dehydrator, they all stack on top of each other, and the hot air circulates all around, like it's supposed to. Putting the heating/ fan unit on top of a 5 gallon bucket of brass, and hitting the switch, (if I'm understanding correctly)with no real way for the air to circulate, is in my opinion begging for trouble... That idea might have worked if he had made some racks, and spaced them about a inch apart, so that the hot air could move around. The dehydrator I have is large enough that I can fit 9 lbs of whatever brass I'm drying, into it. It only takes a hour to dry them this way.
Last edited by ralph; 03-22-2017 at 07:22 PM.
No, he used an 8 rack 500 watt bottom dehydrator for 5 gallons of brass for 2 hours - obviously not enough - then transferred the brass to a 5 gal bucket with a lid which trapped any residual moisture. It was even decapped/sized/trimmed 223 brass which normally dries much quicker than brass with primers still in it.
I'm repeating the story as I understood it after working with him to troubleshoot his process.
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Oh ok, I did'nt completely understand, my bad. The last batch of .223 I did I had loaded up my dehdrator pretty full, still it took only a hour. One thing I also do is to grab a few cases from different racks and deprime them(I've got a Harvey depriming tool) and look in the primer pockets for moisture. So far, I've had no problems.
Last edited by ralph; 03-22-2017 at 07:37 PM.
Put a sample of dried brass in a freezer bag and let it sit overnight. If there is condensation on the inside of the bag in the morning then it wasn't dried enough.
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I air-dry my brass overnight (9mm, 5.56, and 6.8mm). No issues with tarnishing. They're always bone dry after 24 hours. I put them upside down in the black trays that factory pistol ammo comes in - the ones that are open at the bottom. I put the trays filled with wet brass on a dry bath towel. (I fish the trays out of the shitcans at my shooting club.)
I use the Extreme Tumblers Rebel 17 with SS pins that I bought from stainlesstumblingmedia.com.
Last edited by Shawn Dodson; 03-22-2017 at 09:17 PM.
Where do you like (curious about relative humidity)?
How much brass are you dealing with at a time?
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