I am looking to buy a wet rotary tumbler.

I don't want to add an additional step by first having to deprime the cases, as most people advise to do, as the pins will be stuck in the dead primers.


So can I effectively use a wet rotary tumbler without the stainless steel pins?


I don't need brass that will win a beauty pageant. I'm just looking for a way to clean brass, and find the dust from using corn or walnut a bit unbearable.


Surprisingly, when I google this issue, no one seems to have addressed this issue.

I have never tried it with out pins or before depriming.

It seems like it would be hard to get the brass dry with the primers still in place.

I think that you would have to deprime separately make sure that there is no water in there, so you might as well do it before hand.

JMO

Many people deprime before wet tumbling. That is more work for anything other than rifle brass that needs to be trimmed than I care to do, so I skip the pins.

Works just fine and will shine it just as well without them. You could use a media separator with the pins, but another thing to consider is that stainless pins are heavy... and when you skip them you can add more brass!

Even with the pins, I never had them stick in primer pockets, though. Perhaps that is a problem with the smaller diameter pins.

It will not clean out primer pockets without pins if you care about that. I don't, so I skip using pins unless there is some serious corrosion or something on the brass. As you don't seem to want to deprime first, I would suppose you don't care either.

A squirt of dawn and a touch of lemishine will work.

I throw the brass in a convection oven for a little while at low heat to dry it afterwards. If a live primer were in the mix and somehow wasn't deactivated by that point, you might get a rude surprise.

9mm, 3 hours, no pins. Been sitting for a few days so some of that "straight from the tumbler" sheen has dulled a tiny bit. Brass was recovered from a police range and was very dirty, although not corroded.

As mentioned the primers will hold water and if you don't dry right away you might have some issues with the water sitting there.  The pins get into the cases to clean the insides of the cases and will clean the primer pockets when the primer is removed.

I have tumbled with the pins and with and wihout the primers intact.

With the primers in I have had no I'll effects as to any stuck pins or traped water in the pockets.

I use .047 pins and air dry for a few days when the primers are not punched out.

I've been wet tumbling without pins for years.  I always deprime first to help with air drying.  
Occasionally, I'll tumble some grungy brass with the primer in and have never had a problem removing the primer later on.

The mouths on my cases do get beat up with the violent action of the tumbler, so any rifle brass has to be chambered before loading.

I always thought it best to tumble first and get the nasty off the brass so you don't scratch the inside of the de-capping die.

Some off the brass I've seen y'all transform has led me to believe you either tumble, de cap, and tumble again; or you don't care about running crusty brass through your de cap die

I used to wet tumble (very large capacity) tumbler, and close to a 100 pounds of pins.  I stopped using pins though.  The brass gets just as clean (slight carbon in primer pocket) with just water, soap, and citric acid, without having to use the pins.  

Interesting and thoughtful question OP. I'm gonna have to try it. I too am not trying to win a brass pageant, just get some clean brass for loading and shooting. We tumble/clean without pins may just be the trick.

Thanks for all the feedback, gentlemen.
I went to Cabelas today and ended up buying a Hornady 7L sonic cleaner and a Frankford wet tumbler.





The sonic cleaner is awesome for cleaning gun parts. I spent the evening sonic cleaning gun parts. I can't believe I had never owned a sonic cleaner prior.

I used the wet tumbler without the pins and dried the brass buy cooking the brass in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes (this I only did because the missus wasn't home, otherwise spreading the reloading to the kitchen isn't the best idea for a clean house). In the end, the brass wasn't as shiny as corn cob tumbling, but it looked clean. Next time I'm going to run it longer to see if it looks clean like when I corn cob tumble.

My guess on pins is that the pins clean the inside of the brass and the primer holes. The outside of the brass should be cleaned just by rubbing and banging against other pieces of brass (the brass do to each other, on the outside, what the brass pins would do).

I may end up using the sonic cleaner for everything, even brass. It's pretty awesome and relatively quiet.
 

400 degrees? i would watch that heat, try 170-200 instead.

Ahhh, I see. Thanks for the explanation!

depriming cases adds a step but the primer pockets come out spotlessly clean, eliminating the step of cleaning the pockets
it actually takes less time than the step of cleaning the pockets

I use a Harbor Freight food dehydrator to dry the brass, heats cases to 200 deg. F, takes 30 to 45 min. to dry brass
and only cost 20 to 30 dollars (best reloading tool I ever got )

I have never used pins.

Tumble .223 at about 1K per time, dawn and lemishine. Cases are still primed when I put them in there, then I shake out as much water as possible (put them all in a shirt and shake it until water stops coming out).
The cases sit until I have time to load them a few weeks later. Never had a problem at all. They come out shiny as shit and I never have issues punching primers when loading, sure the pockets are still dirty, but I don't care.

Been using a RCBS sonic cleaner for a year now. Been thinking of a wet tumbler but not wanting to use the pins I passed on going wet tumbler. After reading this, may go for it. Thanks for the info.

Bought a Frankford Arsenal wet tumbler from Cabelas for $150 on sale. Ran a 1000 5.56 cartridges lat night. 3 hours, NO PINS, just a shot of Dawn and drop of Limshine. Brass came out beautiful, better than though my Dillon FL2000 and a lot less work. Took only a few minutes to rinse and left spread on a towel in the garage over night.

Without pins wet tumbling does a better job than dry tumbling in walnut or corn cob.

I personally have never had any issues with using pins with the primers in.   I clean twice anyways, before and after resizing (after to remove any lube).  Sometimes I run them through a decapper first.

I'd still want to use pins on auto brass like 45 ACP and 9mm. its just too easy to get the pins out. It is also helps clean the inside of the case to help see the powder level if using a poor boy single stage or turret press. However, necked brass..., I'm probably not going to use pins again. That's a big hassle removing the pins.