Smithjdsr wrote:I’m thinking I’ll go with the Harbor Freight double for now. I can work in smaller batches until I see my way to spend a little more on a Franklin Armory. I have LOTS of picked-up brass and it needs a good cleaning. My plan is: do a short soak and wash in a bucket, decap, (get the HF tumbler) wet tumble with s.s. pins.
dont wet wash before you decap. getting that moisture out of the primer/primer pocket with the primer still there isnt the easiest thing to do (unless maybe you live in the saharah
)
get yourself a universal decapper, i think they're like $15 or so. use THAT to punch the primers out, and then go straight into the HF tumbler. basically for time efficency skip the pre-wash completely unless the brass is absolutely FUBAR. then once your brass is clean, worry about resizing and the rest of your brass prep process.
if you already have a vibratory tumbler, a quick pass in that (usually 20 mins) is enough to knock of any range dirt, or heavy debris. i do this to get the rough crud off so that it doesnt gum up my case feeder. if not a quick hand wipe before going into the universal decapper *should* do it.
a point to note about lemi shine - LESS IS MORE! - start with about 1/8th tsp / 2 quarts water and work down from there until you get an unsatisfactory cleaning. then go back to the next highest ammount that you had a good cleaning with. My current recipie is 0.5cc (1/10th tsp) per 2 quarts to clean 5 lbs of brass. Too much can cause spotting or tarnish on the brass, an in the extreme can even damage your brass. It *IS* acid (albeit mild) but too much can permantly damage brass. a bottle of the stuff *should* last most shooters years and years. also, when adding your soap, less is NOT more. You have to have bubbles left after your tumbling time. Thats what collects the schmoo (yes thats a technical term
) suspended in the cleaning solution. otherwise you'll get brass out thats uniformly grey (carbon gets redeposited). the good thing is, if that ever happens - just rinse the brass and pins, put fresh waster, lemi shine, and dawn in - and run for another cycle. it'll take it right off.
hth