So I'm new to reloading.  When I was buying my initial equipment, I just bought the biggest, cheapest bag of tumbling media on the shelf.  It was that godawful Lyman walnut crap with the red polish.

I cleaned my horde of brass, some 2,000 cases of pistol and rifle, but I was learning the ropes so I just worked in batches of <50 pistol cases.  When I needed a handful of brass, I just used a paper towel to squeegee the inside and outside of the case to get the red dust off.  Too easy, right?

Now I'm starting to set up for rifle loading, and I realized each and every case has a layer of red dust inside it.  Whatever, I tossed my first two batches into the tumbler with corn cob media.  That worked well to clean the outside... but the inside?  Not so much.  Shining a flashlight in the case, it's definitely coated red.  So now what do I do?  I could take a Q-Tip and individually clean each and every case, but that would take WEEKS.

How clean should the interior of a case be?  What's the acceptable level of cleanliness for your brass?  Squeaky clean?  Free of debris?  How can I overcome the vile awfulness left behind from the evil red media dust?

I would suggest soaking them in warm water with Dawn dish soap and Lemishine if you have some.

Swish them around with your hand several times  until you see the red crud start to loosen up.

Rinse several times with clean water and inspect them.

Throw the rest of the red death crap in the trash .

Add some torn up used dryer sheets or liquid polish.

I use nothing but crushed walnut shells sold as pet bedding in pet stores and while left alone it is dusty, adding the liquid polish cuts down on the dust.

I got rid of all of my tumblers (dry vibrating). I had the same problem with the residue.
Get a wet tumbler (like the one for polishing rocks) get 5 lbs. stainless pins some lemishine and armorall car wash.
The tumbler I got was from Cabela's. It will take 5 lbs. brass 5 lbs. of ss pins and 5 lb water. 1/4 tsp. lemishine and 1/2 tsp. Armorall car wash, tumble for 4 hr.
your cases will look like new inside, outside even the primer pocket.
I had some 1917 45 apc brass that I shot over 40 years ago. they came out like new. The water was black as ink.
The down side is the initial cost ($200-225 for tumbler and pins) but the pins can be used over and over.
Do search on it you will be amazed.

That Lyman media is the worst crap imaginable.  If I were to design a media as an FU to reloaders that I secretly hated - it would be that God Awful flash hole plugging red dust Lyman crap.

I switched to wet tumbling,  and that went away.

Not sure that the evil red residue will inhibit ignition or cause any pressure problems.  You could try loading and shoot them, that will clean out the inside of the cases.  I use Lyman corn cob media with a little polish from another maker once in a while, works just fine.

It doesn't need to cost anywhere near even $200. I got straight into wet tumbling when I started reloading and I bought the Frankford Arsenal Platinum series tumbler for $130 shipped and it comes with 5lbs of pins. I love that thing, it works great!

That is a good deal. I never saw prices that low.

The red stuff polishes nice, but leaves a lot of residue. There should be directions that say use this with untreated media 10 to 1. Dry tumbling doesn't clean the inside of cases as well as the outside. Don't worry about the residue, it's not going to hurt anything, but I definitely would not use it full strength again.

The worse experience I've had in reloading is buying 1000 once fired pistol cases that the seller polished with the Lyman red rouge. Took forever to remove the red caked on buildup inside the cases. I had to add Odorless

Mineral Spirits to my media to get most of the rouge out of my cases. Then throwing out the media and switching to new corn cob media.  I'm not going to load and shoot with caked on abrasive rouge whether it wears barrels

or not. That crappy red and green polishing media should be banned. Don't use it, don't buy it, and dump it in the garbage.

Just shoot it with the red dust inside. Doesn't hurt anything. I've done it that way for the last 20 years.

As of a couple of months ago that's how I did it, now I have a wet tumbler.

It does hurt and I personally know people who's barrels died prematurely after shooting that crap through their bores.

It's an abrasive and if you launch it down your bore with 55,000 PSI and 2800 fps you'll get wear and tear that would not normally occur.

I would tumble that crap out using plain corn cob or untreated walnut with a little solvent like mineral spirits.

Most likely died from something else.

It is rouge.
Iron oxide.
Powdered rust.

It is extremely soft.

One of the reasons it is used to polish precious metals.


Aluminum cleaning rods have a nice coating of aluminum oxide.
THAT is very hard.

used it for yrs and hated the red film. I now only use it for polishing random stuff, not cases.  I have a sonic,two dry tumblers, wet tumbler.

Wet is the best for clean that would take the dry many hrs to achieve if it even could.

Dry for case lube remover , and an added polish as an anti- oxident for the super clean wet tumbled cases that bling.

Sonic is slow and dont compare to the wet tumble. It gets other uses, Like cleaning the rouge out of cases before I get into wet tumbling.

Get crushed/ground walnut at Petco or Wally World it is sold as Lizard Litter
Get your corncob at Grainger you want 14/20 grit

Screw the commercial stuff from Lyman!  YUCK!

Walnut cleans better.
Corncob polishes better.

Use used dryer sheets with each batch of brass you run. They will come out black as coal.

If you need a media additive..... Iosso, Dillon, or Flitz are all good to go.  Nu Finish cut with mineral spirits is good too.

Change out your media after 20-25hrs of use.  It is cheap!

 
I also use cut up dryer sheets but not used ones, works great.

And it gives my brass that spring time fresh scent.

Mine showed up in the mail today. Not kidding, it showed up three hours ago.

The cheapest I could find was $165 on Amazon. Free shipping with Amazon Prime

I also have a bag full of brass covered in that red Lyman dust. That'll be my first batch. The Lyman stuff is going in the trash.

What do you use to clean the lube off after resizing? Do you wet tumble again?

I ask because I watched a couple of YT videos where they wet tumbled, resized, then dry tumbled with corn cob to get the lube off.

What do you think is the best approach?

I use 50% mix of corn cob and walnut and love the results.

Clean and shiny brass .

That's the biggest concern I have.  I switched to corn cob from Wal-Mart after a while, but I already have two bins of brass with red dust.


I tried the dryer sheet trick, and the mineral spirits trick.  DON'T BE FOOLED!!!! That red dust is reloading herpes, it never goes away.  I even re-tumbled in corn cob, but it only cuts down on the film- doesn't get rid of it.  

I'll try to soak it in a dishsoap/Lemishine mix and see if that works.

Thanks dryflash. That seemed the most reasonable approach. I appreciate the advice.