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Processed about 3k .223 brass so far and getting my tumbling down. I’ve collected almost 2k primers, approx. 20# of powder. It may or may not be cheaper than buying factory ammo, but what it does allow me to do is stay busy. I’m not spending money on another hobby so it’s a 2 birds 1 stone deal. I’ll continue to process brass, eventually trimming and swageing this 5k of total brass. Have a good stockpile all sorted and ready to load once I hit retirement and have nothing to do but shoot and fish! The Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler claims to have a 1k capacity. Here is 950 after 4 hours.  Here is half that after 2 more hours.  I haven’t loaded a single round yet, but I have dies and tooling for 223, 308, 30-06, 45-70, 9mm, and 10mm. Everything I have in factory ammo. Bottom line, I feel way better having this, and it’s wider capabilities than I would having 5k more factory ammo for the same cost.This message has been edited. Last edited by: OttoSig, 10 years to retirement! Just waiting! | ||
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Otto - Just a couple of comments to share with you. You will quickly learn that the Levi-Shine and Dawn mixture works great but to much Lime-Shine will cause your brass to come out dull or even with a “pinkish” tint. When I started cleaning brass with SS pins I used the Lemi-Shine and Dawn mixture with sometimes less than great results when I added just a little bit more Lemi-shine thinking it would make my brass even brighter - it did not. Also as your brass reflects, you should be able to accomplish clean brass in 1-2 hrs. Tumbling to long in Levi-Shine and Dawn can also cause your clean brass to have a dull finish rather than shiny. It’s all about what the Ph is of the water being used and that is affected by the amount of Levi-Shine you use. A guy who sorts, processes, and sells inside range picked up brass (usually processes about 25,000 to 30,000 pieces a month) told me what he uses and I gave it a try with GREAT results and you only need to tumble for one hour. He uses Armor All Ultra Shine Wash and Wax and Simple Green cleaner (links below with photos) and both of these can be purchased from most any retail store or parts house. Here is the kicker - This particular car wash and wax leaves a “slick” coating on the brass(not as slick as corn cob media) and the Simple Green cuts the carbon and powder residue. I only have a recipe for a concrete mixer so if you decide to give this a try using your FART it will not take much of each. I have been using these to clean my brass for the past five years and more than likely will not go back to the Levi-Shine and Dawn mixture. https://shop.advanceautoparts....s_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds https://www.lowes.com/pd/Simpl...JvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds Also, on your batch of clean dull 223/5.56 brass, you can clean those again and with the right blend they will come out as shiny as the smaller batch you had in your photos. Try reducing your tumbling time and your blend ratio. Some folks do not care if their brass is shiny, but I am very OCD and want mine to look as close to factory new as possible. You can also toss the dull brass into your FART with dry corn cob or walnut media and it will bring out the “shine” in that brass also - then you just have to inspect your primer holes to make sure none are stopped up with a piece of media. | |||
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Thank you, Sir, for the information. The second picture is the other half of the first photo. I read that the citric acid in Lemi-shine is the ingredient you want, so I added a teaspoon of citric acid. Results were not great. They second time through I used a squirt of dawn and about 2 caps of Simple Green as you mentioned. (I haven't been to Target to get actual Lemi-shine yet) I'll try to nail down the amount of simple green and dawn, I'll even try some of that armor all wax. I like that stainless media for sure as the primer pockets are nice and clean compared to dry media. That little 20$ lyman sifter (made for a 5 gal bucket) is quite the ticket. Wash it all throug hthe sifter, dumb the brass out, and empty the water in the bucket leaving 5# of media. I may invest in a Dillon sifter at some point, but for now I'll save the $100+. Again, thank you very much for the information. I'll give it a shot. 10 years to retirement! Just waiting! | |||
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Otto - Thanks for your reply and I will admit I mis-read your original post. I thought the first photo was 950 pieces for four hours and the second photo was another 450 pieces of dirty brass tumbled for two hours. After re-reading I understand now that the second picture was from the first batch you tumbled for four hours. If your rifle brass has a good coating of case lube from where you resized and deprimed, you may have to do what you did here - wash once to get that case lube broken down, rinse, and repeat with fresh water and your chemicals. About 90% of my brass cleaning is 9mm or 38spl. When I clean rifle brass (223 and 308) I usually give the brass a quick “hand bath” in an Tupperware container using isopropyl alcohol then wipe down with a shop rag before throwing into the SS pin mixture. For me I found that doing this removes most of the case lube. | |||
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Otto, take the time to check the flash hole on every single case you have cleaned. Because sometimes you can find two of those pins stuck in the flash holes. When that happens the two possible outcomes are a Hangfire or a Primer going off when you press in primer into the case. Note, never set a primer off but did have one hangfire and those are distinctly scary waiting to see if the gun will fire or just blow up. Thankfully in my case it did fire after about 2-3 seconds but it was a very nervous 2-3 seconds. Now every casing I reload gets a 0.82 inch diameter drill run thru the flash hole because that has proved to be a 100% effective solution to 2 pin jams. It's also why I prefer to load with Remington cases because unlike Federal or Winchester the flash holes are consistent at 0.082 inch diameter. Note measurements taken in about 2017 showed Federals can vary from 0.077 to 0.81 with outliers up to 0.083. Winchester was a bit more consistent and too small at 0.079 to 0.80. I haven't a clue where the newer ammo is but have enough cleaned and fired cases to fill my needs for the next 15-20 years and odds are I won't live that long. I've stopped counting. | |||
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Scooter - GREAT POINT This happened to me once about 10 years ago on a 223/5.56 piece of brass and when I went to insert a primer, that primer went off and it welded the SS pin that was stuck in the primer area. Scared the living heck out of me. After that I set up a dedicated de-priming die in station one (not resizing ONLY de-priming) so that if it happened again on any round (pistol or rifle) the de-priming pin would clear anything that might be in that primer pocket. About three to four years ago I purchased three of the FW Arms de-priming dies and put one on each tool head that I have set up for loading my ammo. They were about $40.00 a piece and worth the piece of mind they provided. | |||
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