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Posted: 1/24/2015 11:59:19 PM EDT
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I'll admit it...I am cheap, but I like the idea of wet tumbling.
Because of this, I tried to "wash" some brass that I had lubed out/in-side(neck, but it had to get all the way down into the case) for sizing. I used scalding hot water, Dawn and a dab of Lemishine(got the brass pretty shiny considering the time) and annoyed the wife and kids for about 15 minutes shaking/rolling it in an old container. Then I rinsed them in scalding water. Afterwards, I dried them too hot to touch with a hair dryer. Let the cases sit for a few hours before priming in order to sit down this evening and finish the load. Keep in mind, I did this all after I had dry tumbled for an hour prior to me trimming/chamfering the cases this morning. Well, I thought the inside was dry. It LOOKS dry, but when I charged my first couple of cases with Tac, I got a sticky, clumpy mess back out. Set the tray on edge and peered in with a flashlight and it still looks dry. I know it has to be lube, but what is still in there? And how to get it out since I have 3-4k cases left to do? |
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Can't wash again. Already primed. As a side note, should I be allowing more time for the brass to sit in the hot water/Dawn mix?
They have been dry tumbled for an hour before my attempt to wash. It seems that since it is already primed, that might mess up the flash hole. Is it possible that some of the lube didn't dry tumble or wash out and now it has somehow congealed inside the case never to out without messing up the primer in the primed brass? Did I pull a Homer d'oh moment? |
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Quoted:
Can't wash again. Already primed. As a side note, should I be allowing more time for the brass to sit in the hot water/Dawn mix? They have been dry tumbled for an hour before my attempt to wash. It seems that since it is already primed, that might mess up the flash hole. Is it possible that some of the lube didn't dry tumble or wash out and now it has somehow congealed inside the case never to out without messing up the primer in the primed brass? Did I pull a Homer d'oh moment? I'm guessing they just need more time to dry then. I would put them neck up a few feet away from a heater vent and let them sit over night, and the try again. |
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Sounds like you still have lube inside the cases if it's sticking to it besides some clumping. You'd need a bit of water to cause clumping and you said they were visually dry and I'm assuming so wasn't your powder.
Just curious, what type of shell (straight walled, bottle neck) and what did you use for lube. To answer some of your subsequent questions, I'd probably go ahead and pop the primers out and start over using corn cob and chalk it up as a loss. It'd be to risky getting squibs or worse under your description. I'd start by picking the worst ten and go from there. Plug the primer holes (tape, glue, maybe used primers). Plan on losing a bit of powder during your test, I wouldn't reuse the stuff you've used so far, call it lawn fertilizer. No sense prepping anymore till you figure out your issue. Just my thoughts. T. |
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After sitting out all night, I charged a few cases and let them sit for a few minutes. Poured them into the scale pan and they were dry, no clumps and poured easy.
Lube was either Frankford Arsenal spray lube or homemade 12:1 lanolin/99% ISO. Both appeared very similar. Best I can tell is that I didn't quite allow enough dry time and there was still a little moisture in the case. If it was case lube, it's residue dried completely overnite as well. I am a bit of a newbie at washing cases and apparently I need to change my procedure a bit. -use a little more of a squirt of Dawn -use more hot water in the mix than just barely covering the cases -agitate longer -let sit in the hot water a little longer and then agitate again -rinse better -LET DRY LONGER!! This was basically a test batch to try. I failed, but not totally unrepairably miserably. I think that even the primers are ok since the cases were mostly flat before trying to charge. The rounds I was loading for were some horrible looking pulled 62 gr bullets I was going to blast with any way, so any failures will be good training aids. |
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I don't wet tumble, yet. I plan to build a tumbler.
When I do go to wet tumbling my process for brass tumbling will be: 1 - decap 2 - wet tumble 3 - ream and uniform primer pockets (if new brass) 4 - size 5 - dry tumble to remove lube 6 - trim 7 - prime and load I use a progressive press and reload rifle only. I use a Gracey trimmer to trim. Soon I will trim during resizing on my press. After I build a tumbler I will build an annealer so I will add a step for annealing. Rifle rounds make two passes through my press. In addition I have to ream and uniform primer pockets one at a time. I also trim one at a time. I want to speed up the trim process by trimming on my press. Pistol rounds I have not started to reload yet. I do have a few calibers I will eventually hand load. Since pistol rounds don't need trimming I will probably wet tumble then size and load in one pass through the press. |
| I'm thinking what you did was fine, but you should have baked the water out or let them dry. A hair dryer may make them hot, but you have to get to the boiling point on the inside of the case if you want that water out fast. Heat can help dry time, but not that fast. It can take days if they are just sitting there. I can't imagine you'd use that much lube to withstand that kind of washing. If so, I'd also use less lube. |
| The only way I've been able to remove lanolin based lube with wet tumbling is to add some Simple Green to the Dawn/Lemishine mix. A lot of people dry tumble to get the lube off but I still think that wet tumbling gets the inside of the cases cleaner than dry tumbling. Some also say you shouldn't use Simple Green because they claim it has ammonia in it. If you look at the FAQ's on their website it specifically states that there is NO ammonia in it. |
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I would(... see that big bold "I" meaning I cannot recommend it to others) swish them around in acetone to dissolve anything inside of a primed case. I did this to get rid of the sealing tar in the necks of pull down brass. The acetone didn't seem to effect the primers, as in they all fired.
I use Oneshot so I have no recommendations for the future lube removal problems, Oneshot requires no removal. |
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