I got one of these kits for Christmas. I'd toyed with the though of getting one for years.

After my first batch, I decided to tumble all of my "clean" brass that I had stocked up that was cleaned using my vibratory cleaner + walnut media. Now I don't even want the cleaner or media separator for the dry method.

This stuff comes out looking soooooo nice.

Yup, the STM is a great cleaner.
You may want to consider a dehydrator (food) to dry them to avoid spotting.

I've been air drying, since the RH stays pretty low out here. So far, no spots.

I'm keeping an eye out though! If I get a dehydrator, I'll probably start up a food hobby.

I recently discovered Gun Tap detergent (available on Amazon and on their website).

https://shop.guntap.com/produc...rgent-free-shipping/

Really works well for wet tumbling.

I shoot competitively and wet tumble all of my brass with pins to cover me for the year after the season ends. I find it is the only way to go.

One thing to keep in mind though if you haven't reloaded any of them yet is that this method cleans the brass so well that it makes the brass sticky at times when reloading. Even quite noisy when crimping the bullet in the final stage.

When I get to the point of reloading it I put them open end up in a reloading tray and give them a quick shot of Hornady One Shot before tossing them in my case feeder. I have enough trays from my single stage days to fill up 600 rounds in trays and prepped.

Here's a couple of things I've found that helps over the years of doing it. I use a Frankford Arsenal tumbler and I can do 6lbs of brass at a time. Total tumbler weight with water, pins, brass ends up being 25lbs. Maybe you can use the following to fine tune your process for your tumbler.

I punch the primers on my brass first before wet tumbling. Helps clean the primer pockets and make things cleaner on the press when you load. I use a Lee APP with my case feeder to punch all of my primers to keep the mess away from my Dillon presses. I also think the brass dries faster.

My formula for the tumble is 6lbs brass, 5lbs pins, 1/4 tsp Lemi Shine, few drops of Armora All Shine and Wax car wash soap and water to fill container. Tumble for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. There are tumbling solutions you can buy but all you are doing using them is throwing money down the drain. They are expensive compared to just using what I mentioned and don't do any better of a job.

After I separate the pins and water from the brass I dump the brass onto an old towel, pull up the corners and shake it a bit and then put the towel down on the basement floor, spread the brass out and let it dry for a few days. Never had problems with spotting or water left in the cases.

I do about 70lbs of 38 SuperComp brass yearly using this process and love the way the rounds look, feed and shoot.

Enjoy your squeaky clean brass.

I'm confused on the noise issue. You should be lubing rifle cases anyway before sizing; were you only adding lube because of the noise? Or are you only talking about the seating/crimping portion?

I load all of my pistol rounds on 650's and 750's and prior to wet tumbling I never lubed my pistol brass. After I started wet tumbling I noticed that once rounds made it to the crimp die I would get a loud bang noise on the downstroke. I mentioned it to a few other reloading buddies that also wet tumbled and they suggested lubing all my brass prior to loading and that it would take care of the issue. They said the bang was caused by clean brass releasing from the crimp die.

I started lubing the cases and that loud bang as I loaded went away.

I don't think about dry tumbling anymore, wet is the way to go.

I too, deprime my brass with a universal decapper so the pins can get the primer pockets looking fantastic.

Never had the noise issue with them though, but I'll pay a little more attention.

I use Sleeping Giant SS media. It's chips that are smaller than a grain of rice versus pins. Nothing ever gets stuck and I've done 223 and 308 with no issues.
https://sleepinggiantbrass.com...teel-tumbling-media/






I use homemade lube and spray my brass with alcohol and liquid lanolin. 1 part lanolin, 9 parts alcohol. I spray it about 3 times and size. I use a Redding carbide floating neck expander, so I don't lube my case necks. After sizing, I throw the sized brass into an ultrasonic cleaner to get the lube off, then in the dryer it goes.

If you don't use lube on your bullets, the copper will cold weld to the brass when sizing. Spray your bullets with a dry lube before seating and your SD's will improve greatly. My SD's are usually single digits.



Shot this group a week ago. SD of 8.6


Tony.

Nice! I'm going to have to try that media; I haven't seen that before.

I deprime on a separate press and wet tumble with pins, lemishine, and Dawn. Spray with Hornady One Shot and toss them in the casefeeder. I like the clean shiny brass and appreciate not breathing in all the dust and crap when dumping a dry tumbler.