Help me out here with a perplexing issue.

Press is a Dillon 750. Hadn't reloaded anything in months. Everything sat, as left when I last loaded 9mm, on its tool stand. No monkeying with dies or anything.

Decided to invest in a wet tumbler instead of the media tumbling I've been doing for going on twenty years.

I size/deprime before I tumble. Done the same thing regardless of what tumbling method I use.

Ran two batches of sized 9mm cases through the wet tumbler. Increased the detergent and Lemishine on the second batch to make it shinier.

Set up to load, as per usual. Powder throw was perfectly as I left it, seat depth as I left it, crimp as a left it. All 5x5.

But the cases basically didn't flare at all. I often had to really wrench to get the expander out of the case. Lots of brass shavings down in the shellplate. Way, way more effort to pull the expander out than ever before. And like no belling at all.

Loaded hundreds and more or less none of them run through a case gauge. All the cases gauged just fine after sizing, but it's pretty obvious that the lack of belling is causing bullets to seat cattywampus and cause bulging on one side or another.

The shinier cases never gauge correctly. The slightly less shiny batch are a bit better, but nowhere near acceptable.

As an experiment, I pulled the powder measure and set the powder die down a bit to get more flaring. With the same die setting, the less shiny cases showed more flare than the shinier ones. Loaded about 12 rounds with this new setting and overall, the gauge much better, but still not close to my old standard.

I'm real perplexed here. How in the world can wet tumbling cause this? Nothing had changed about the dies or my method of loading except how I tumble. Gone from just about 100% flawless rounds through the case gauge to about 10%.

Nothing I've ever read about wet tumbling would suggest this could happen, but I can't think of any variable but the tumbling method.

Where in the house is yout loading area?

You said it had been months since you las loaded. It was probably cooler than now.

Metals expand with heat.

Presses are made of metal.

Just because you leave stuff all set up, doesn't mean it won't change. I had a similar issue a few years back and I mentionned it in my stickied thread.

Due to the wet cleaning, all traces of lubricant have been removed from the cases. This would make the expanding ball work harder. That is as far as I have got so far.

quote:

Originally posted by maxwayne:
Due to the wet cleaning, all traces of lubricant have been removed from the cases. This would make the expanding ball work harder. That is as far as I have got so far.

This is my guess as well. Try putting some case lube on the necks of some of your wet-tumbled cases and see if it makes a difference.

quote:

Originally posted by maxwayne:
Due to the wet cleaning, all traces of lubricant have been removed from the cases. This would make the expanding ball work harder. That is as far as I have got so far.

This is exactly what it is. I had a friend give me some cases he'd wet tumbled and there was a huge difference in effort for me to pull the handle on my LoadMaster. I used case lube around every 10th case to get by the problem and I'm using carbide sizing dies.

It's probably the only downside of wet tumbling, but it's annoying enough that I'm staying with tumbling with media.

Do you have steel dies or carbide dies??

I wet tumble all my cases. Haven't had any issues with belling the 9mm case mouth. I use carbide Dillon dies.

I might suggest, if the press has been sitting for a very long period, might be worth it for a good cleaning and re-adjustment of the dies.

Andrew

Hornady - One Shot

Put a 100-200 cases in an open top container(enough to cover the bottom of the container and about half that amount again) cardboard box or plastic it does not matter but I use a tupperware plastic container so that the One Shot is not absorbed into the cardboard box and more will go on the cases when you mix them around.

Give the container a few good shakes (this allows a lot of your brass to settle into a position where the case opening is facing up).

Give your brass a 2 second blast of Hornady One Shot….

Shake the box or mix up the brass with your hand and repeat the 2 second shot of Hornady One Shot one more time….

Let the brass sit for 10-15 minutes and then start your loading. One Shot will lube your brass (inside and out) but not leave a sticky residue.

I have loaded tens of thousands of rounds using wet tumbled brass (that I wet tumbled in a concrete mixer) following this process on my Dillon 650’s and Dillon RL1100 with no issues…Those cases and dies just need a very small amount of lubricant to make everything work like it does when you tumble brass because tumbling leaves a slick residue on your brass.

You can also modify your mixture - only use the Lemi-Shine if you have hard water….I use Simple Green and Armor All Ultra Shine Wash and Wax….Key word in this formula is WAX…..Makes my brass have a slick coating on them even before I give them a quick shot of the Hornady One Shot… and the Simple Green cuts the dirt, carbon, and powder residue..

I would check the setup. Maybe it drifted out of adjustment over the course of months and with weather changes.

I would also lightly lube those cases. They will have little to no lube on them after wet cleaning.

I'll second the Hornady One Shot. I wet tumble and use the One Shot as described above with no problems.

Hmmm...apparently the video won't embed. But click watch on Youtube and watch it. It explains your problem well and how to fix it. I had a similar post about wet tumbling with Dillons back in June. Found the video then. I've since gone back to walnut media and no longer have an issue. Smooth as butter like it should be.

Thanks, folks.

The 9mm cases that I'm working on now I'll try doing a bit of case lube in the mouth on every 5 or 10 and see how those go.

I'll also switch to the Simple Green and Armor All for further batches. What ratios of the two are you using?

Oat - Because I clean my brass in a concrete mixer this batch detail may not work for you.

3 gallons of water (tap temp.)
1/4 cup of Armor All Ultra Shine Wash &Wax
1/3 cup of Simple Green

Tumble for 60-90 minutes and if it is real dirty range brass I will tilt the mixer while it is running and run clean water into the tub allowing the dirty water to pour out. I will stop the mixer and pour out as much of the dirty water remaining as possible and then I will dump another three gallon mix (above recipe) into the mixer and let it run for another 30 minutes. It is rare that I have to give a batch a second cycle but it does happen from time to time…..Here is the Car Wash & Wax I was told to use by the professional brass cleaning guy that processes brass almost every day…..

Thanks for that. I can probably work out the ratios: my tumbler drum is 7L, so under two gallons.

I got some of that exact car wash last night and already had the Simple Green.