Just got my setup (HF dual tumbler $41.00 in store, 1lb ss pins $12.90 shipped from bestbyte.net, and 2lbs of citric acid $11.24 shipped from Amazon - Total investment $65.14) up and working last night. It is night and day over the walnut/corn cob media I've been using in the vibratory tumbler. Still working out the process but so far so good. I'll add a couple of pictures of the results tonight.

I've done several batches of 9mm and 223 running it for 4 hours and still have a fairly large percentage of primer pockets that aren't spotless. I don't think half a pound of pins is enough per drum. To be honest though, they are more than clean enough for my purposes. The drums were weighing in at just over 3lbs each .5lbs of ss, 1lb of brass, and 1lb drum with water to the top of the brass. I shook the drums after sealing them to get the soap good and sudsy before running them. The water that comes out at the end sure is dirty!

I decided to go with citric acid over the LemiShine after reading this blog article: What's in Lemi Shine?.

My plan is to continue to use this setup while I source the parts to fabricate a larger unit for the volume 9mm and 223 brass. I'll continue to use this for the lower volume stuff for the bolt guns. I really like the fact that you can run two different cases at the same time without the need to separate them from each other after the fact. I do think the HF tumbler will need some upgrades if it is going to hold up for the long haul. As others have noted, an additional heatsink, fan, and better "bearings" for the rollers are in order.

Brian

Pictures coming soon.

Ok, I give....  Or gave I should say....  I bought the HF dual drum unit and the pins and separator are on the way from Midway.  I blame you all!  (Thanks!)

I am familiar with HF and Chicago Tools and I have been running their 5# vibratory cleaner for several years with nothing but praise for it.  While I am happy with my current method, there is residue inside the cases, the dust, dealing with walnut, then tuffnutt, then corn.... and then the whole primer pocket thing...  This looks like a better option.

I do have a question i hope you can help me with, while I was smart enough to use the 20% off coupon, I could not bring myself to get the one or two year extended warantee.  They have gone up to $13 and $20 respectively.  It has a 90 day and I have 30 days to go back and get an extended warantees but I just don't think I need it so:

Do those of you who have been running these a while think it is necessary?

Many thanks to the OP for this project.  Like others here, the HF dual tumbler was purchased while on sale and a 25% discount code added to the joy!  Five pounds of pins and a sample pack of Lemon shine ordered through Ebay ran $42 from Bullseye reloading.  

Didn't have to look to far to find some initial victims, I had several K of range pick up 44magie brass.  Several hundred were dug from swampy sand/crud,  Those were washed and tumbled in crushed walnut, leaving me with polished but junks.

Did the initial weighing using an old spring balance postal scale, zeroed with a small Acrobin set on the top.  63 pieces of 44mag brass = 1 pound.  So I did the initial run of four hours, using a pound of pins, a drop of Dawn and a pinch of Lemon shine,  filling the remainder of the container with tap water.  Uh, some but not much improvement.  Next run, had half a 9mm empty cart of Lemon shine and a healthy squirt of Dawn, this time filling with water to just the top of the brass and pin pile.  Another four hours and brass magic!

Following the setup tips from other posters, thanks guys, I set up the tumbler by running a couple of drops of 10 in 1 oil in each bearing cup, then rotating the shaft ensuring bearing saturation,  Then I snugged up the belt by adjusting the motor mounts.  All other screws were checked for tightness.  There was some kind of shmeg on the plastic shaft covers, so that came off with a dry rag.  Machine is quiet and at least for me, does not run hot.  

I notice that the containers after rotating for about 15 minutes would shift to one end of the machine and the aluminum end cover for that drum would rub against the tumbler frame.  Kinda figured that something was not level and that was causing the drums to rotate towards the low end of the machine, causing the rubbing.  Bench top is level, machine across the top is level, drive shaft and idler shaft sit level.  Hmmmmmmmm!
Without measuring the spacing between the shafts at both ends of the tumbler frame, a WAG being that the shafts are not parallel to each each other,  I added several washers under each foot at the low end.  Drums now stay centered on the frame.  The machine manufacturer must have been aware of this problem as there are small black plastic bearing plates on both ends of the frame where the large washer on the ends of the drums would contact the frame, depending on which frame end the drums would rotate towards and make contact.

Six batches down, sooooooooooo many to go.  Got curious and found how many USGI 3006 casings equal a pound, 35!

PSA: "half a 9mm case" = 1/8 teaspoon, level.

Have run several batches as OP and others say to do and it is going great.  Have to lube the drum keeper tabs as they squeak a little but that is the only negative to report.  

While I am no expert and dont have much wet tumble experience, I advise to de-prime first.  I see it being much easier to get water and pins out of cases and to move air through them when drying.  Not to mention getting all the fouling out of the flash hole.  Just my thoughts...

awesome great post, Im getting ready to get into reloading and I was going to start with a RCBS case tumbler but I like this wet tumbler and its not 250 bucks like the one I was looking at.  I already have a Harvey deprimer and a bunch of cases done.

I saw a 1LB bag of ULTRA 47 Stainless Steel Pellet Pins on ebay, can this be used?  It aids its LLC but packaged differently

Sounds right, who's the seller?

The .047 is ideal for not getting stuck in certain cases although the older .041 everyone used before is still usable. Should be 0.047"x0.255.

Bullseye-reloading.com has always been fast and they're excellent.

Just took mine apart to clean it and hopefully find the clicking sound it has. Would oil (5w-30) or lithium grease work better on the roller bearings?

I would think grease would do a better job especially lasting, but either would be much better than nothing.

Well crap, stripped the threads on the big pulley. The screw will no longer get tight and it just slops around.

Anyone know where I can get another? or at lease one that will fiit?

I found that half a 9mm turns my brass dark. I use just a literal pinch now (probably 1/4 of a 9mm)

So I think after reading the last 17 pages I am going to pick one of these up. I am new to reloading and am still trying to get my process straight.

So I should
1.deprime
2. tumble
3. lube then resize
4. ??tumble?? clean lube
5. Load

I think dryflash put his back in his dry tumblers for step 4. Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask but I want to know what people are doing with this set up.

Thank you DryFlash
How many hours should I run the brass? Is it the same soap and Lemon mix?

Do you have a water softener?  Is your water softened at the treatment plant?

Got the dual tumbler, SS media (2.5lbs) a little lemishine. All set to go and try it out.

Thanks for the post, OP! This is definitely relative to my interest.

How I haven't seen this before is beyond me.

I have about 200 lbs of sorted brass of different calibers that needs tumbling, and your process is just what I need.

I'll check out the tumbler the next time I'm at Harbor Freight.

Thanks again.

Well thanks to this thread I now have a HF dual tumbler and my 5 lbs of pins from bullseye should be here today...

Thanks for the post OP. I have been having problems getting Dillon case lube off my .300AAC. I just ordered all my gear. HF shipping on 2 tumblers is $6.99. Gas to drive to the store would have cost me more than that.



My tumblers came in today. A squirt of dawn, 1/4 cup ss pins, 1/2 9mm case of lemishine, containers 1/2 full of brass with 1/2" more water. 4 hours tumbling. Rinsing produced almost coffee colored water. I rinsed until clear, towel dried, air dried cases with compressed air 3 at a time, and here they are:

I'd read elsewhere that you should deburr & chamfer again after wet tumbling...even if you don't trim.

True? False?

With the dual tumbler, I have cleaned about 300 9mm and 500 5.56.  Into one gallon of water mix 1 9mm case full lemishine and 1 lb of pins in each tumbler.  fill with brass about 2/3 way, pour water to cover brass and run for 4 hours.  Comes out pristine. Then on to drying cartridges, use compressed air and blow water out from cartridges. Sit in sun for 30 minutes. Prepping for resize (primers removed after each shooting session with the Harvey hand deprimer (It so easy as I build up my pile of deprimed cases in preparation for cleaning).. The to lube the cases, that old cheap loaders receipe of 2 ox of lanoline mixed with 12 oz of 99% Isopropyl alcohol.  take large plastic zip lock bag and after shaking the mixture of lanoline and alcohol, a couple sprays inside the bag and then put in your casings and roll them all around to get coated.  Workes perfectly during resizing. The give a quick tumbling to remove lube. You will love your results.

Tec

Look at my case mouths.  These were deburred and chamfered before tumbling.  They are even smoother now.  All the media and cases do is roll around.  Not really any banging around.  The containers have no bumps or baffles.  I would guess that if your containers have bumps or baffles, the chance of peening may increase.

Thanks, wildearp!

That brass is so beautiful I actually have a lump in my throat.

I hope I can get mine to look that good when I'm ready.

I have now put 400 pcs of brass through my HF setup, 300 5.56 and 100 '06.  I am quite content at this time with the setup.  

Do you think you get enough additional cases in one "homemade" container to justify messing with it?  For pistol brass and my needs the HF cans work great.  Rifle brass (.30-06) makes me wish I had a little bigger option.

What grade (Schedule 20 or ??) pvc did you use?  

 












 

You can't just throw something out there like this without more data. I just deprimed a metric butload of .45 that were wet tumbled and I inspected each one. Not a single separated primer. The brass had sat for about three days and I was checking primarily to see if the primer pockets were dry. They were. This brass was pretty nasty to start.



Re: the photo. Were those once fired factory rounds? Factory crimped? Sealed?



If not, what propellant and primer? How tarnished and nasty were they before they were tumbled? How many per thousand separated? What chemicals do you suspect played a part in this?



I expect a few crushed primers per batch when loading, that is the nature of the game. I load primarily pistol rounds and have never seen a primer split like that. If my .223 dies came in the UPS today, I will deprime a stack of wet tumbled crimped LC brass. These have also sat for a couple days.



Has anyone else experienced this? With any other calibers?



edit:  no dies today.

I tumbled these for 4 hours tonight.  I left them a bit wetter to see how they dry under the ceiling fan.  I was so busy swilling hard apple cider while depriming and checking .45 brass, that I forgot to add the stainless media to these cases.  I did put the Dawn and Lemishine in the tumblers.  These are mostly once fired .357 Sig brass from a local swat team with a few miscellaneous cases added in.  The once fired Sig cases have been sitting around for over 5 years.  They are cleaner than any of my walnut media tumbled cases have ever been.  This is quite telling................

Thanks.  Funny, I already have some of that wire, the sched 40 (4") and test plugs...  hmmmm.

Ok I got into this and have ran a few loads.

I am not sure exactly what I did, and I hope the picture is clear

using the 1 lb of pins, 1 lb of brass and 1 lb of water, 1/2 9mm case of lemon shine and squirt of dawn



Left to right.

2 brass .45 ACP I did a few days ago
2 nickel brass .45 ACP from same tumble
2 supposed to be brass .45 acp from today 5 hrs in the tumbler
2 300blk from today different tumbler but 5 hours
2 .308 Winchester in same tumbler as 300 blk
1  supposed to be nickel brass.45 acp also from today
1 supposed to be brass .45 acp from today

Why do the ones from today look like copper.  I did find a Wolf steel case in there also, could that have done something?  I mean it is not a problem for me, just wondering if anyone else has had this happen.  the nickel cases from today are still nickel inside.

Well that would explain it then.  I have to admit it is kind of interesting looking.

May start putting a steel case in a few more batches.  might be good for separating different loads.

I actually need to sit down and make a bunch more 300 blk cases.  I have some ideas and experiments to run hopefully soon.

I always run a magnet over all my brass. Golden Bear is the devil.

Picked up my set today. i was pretty hesitant on it once i saw how small it was but decided to go for it. finishing my second batch right now. these cases were lightly cleaned, then sized and i needed to get the lube off. didnt use pins, just cases, soap and lemishine. turned out great!

i see myself in a very near future ditching the plastic drums.

I just put my first batch of brass in my dual tumbler thanks to this thread.

We'll see in a few hours how they look!

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words.

Just took that first batch out of the tumbler.    Looks great!  I don't have a media separator at the moment (left mine behind when we moved), so I separated by hand with a strong magnet.  Not fun, but it got the job done.

Now the brass is drying.

Crappy cell pic, but I don't know where my DSLR is at the moment:

Alright people, you've finally done it. You pushed me into wet-tumbling.
I don't tumble in large enough amounts to warrant a Thumler's and I definitely like the idea of being able to do two calibers at once.
Used a discount code (56762840) which knocked the already on sale price of the dual drum model down to $43.99
Where are you guys getting your SS pins at?
Are you guys using 1lb of pins per drums or altogether?

*Edi* I ended up grabbing a 2lb bag from STM

PSA:

Looking at JaRoot's photo of his tumbler, notice that the rotating shafts are shielded.  

Some of you with your custom rigs are running big motors with pulley reduction units to slow speed (which also increases torque to the drum), with exposed belts pulley and shafting.

DO NOT let folks with long hair, loose clothing or long haired pets get around those machines when they are running.    

I am probably well over 40 - 50 hours on the HF tumbler I posted earlier.  

I don't use a scale.  I have been using 1/4 cup measuring cup for pins, full to not quite full.  4 drums add up to about a pound of pins, judging from the amount missing from the 5 pounds I bought.   I bought mine at Buffalo Bore.  I went with them because they were recommended, they had them in stock, shipping was fairly cheap, and I could order on line.

I just got done with my first few batches.... These were gun show buys but had a few cases come out just like yours.... said damnit! and took a magnet to the rest of the bag... two steel cases in a houndred round and lucked out they went into the same batch! I guess I got lucks

Well my tumbler just arrived so we'll see the results in 3hrs. Got one drum filled with some 9mm and the other with .223. Maybe I put too much brass in but I've already had to adjust the belt to be alittle tighter. Noticed it started to slip about 10 mins in. Seems fine now and the belt still has plenty of slack

After a little more than a 1000 cases here are some things I think help, ymmv:

Separator: I couldn't wait for a separator to be delivered and could not find one locally so, to get started, I bought a $2 (I think) dish pan and a $1 strainer/colander at WalMart - put strainer in dish pan, after rinsing out funky water and soap out, I dump drum contents into strainer. Add cold water to cover brass well, swirl strainer around and agitate brass with hand as needed = done. Remove strainer, shake out excess water, dump brass on a long hand towel. I pour water off from corner of pan, then put pins on a dish towel to air dry. Do the bowling ball polish thing with the brass then put brass on a second hand towel and then on the shoe dryer rack in the dryer for 15 minutes or less.

It is not as difficult as that may sound and after many thousands of cases through dry media, I am sticking with this.

I finally had some "pink" brass - three pieces, all S&B, the rest of the brass in that drum was dark... Looking back, when adding soap, water and Lemishine, I thought I had spilled most of the Lemishine out of the dipper so I added more. Guess I didn't spill much at all... After this, I searched the drawers and found the 1/8 teaspoon measure I mentioned a while back and have gone back to using that at "a hair or two less than full".