what are the opinions on tumbling your brass? i have heard from some people it MUST be polished. and others say to wipe the outside clean and let it be.

what is your opinion on this topic?

by takeing this step,you do several things. when brass is tarnished it forms a thin layer of residue, which is sticky. not to mention ugly. ok so you don't care about ugly,ican understand that.understand this. the sizing die is set for a minimum tolarance, very tight. a dirty case is crowding that tolerance,decrecing accuracy,in the process of sizing that cass.i know it sounds like spliting hairs,is of great value to you.your dies stay cleaner longer,by the way i have yet to read of any one cleaning there dies,"inside" thats very important. They feed in and out of the die,and chamber in the rifle better. Better to check for case wear,you know presure signs,over worked brass,ect. Don;t forget about the inside of the cass it;s just as important,you know powder resedue build up,you've seen whats in your barell after shooting,same thing in the case. Not quit as bad but it's ther get rid of it.I'ts like changing the oil in your truck,car,whatever,but not the filter...not good! plus if you do it right you can take care of the primer pocket to,it's a win win deal. thats why a tumbler is better than just cleaning the outside by hand that's all you are doing. Hope i answered your question,good luck,tip em over! grey beard.

Well,

I'll give you slightly different answer. I have read (can't remember where) that tumbling/polishing peens the case mouth, so you should chamfer the case mouth if you've tumbled. Obviously, if you're going to trim anyway it's not a big deal.

Since I almost always just neck size, I just rotate the case neck on some fine steel wool--(pinch the steel wool around the neck, holding the steel wool in your "off" hand and twisting the case by the case head in the other hand) very quick and the neck is as shiny as if it had been tumbled, with no residue of any kind. Then, I have an old bronze brush wrapped with some steel wool that I have mounted to a variable speed drill which is clamped to a board. I simply push the case neck over the steel wool blob on the brush and it makes the inside of the neck all smooth and shiny too. The blob of steel wool should be narrow enogh for the case mouth to fit over it, so when it's rotating (pretty slowly) it gently scrubs the inside of the neck. I can do both steps with a 100 pieces of brass prety darn quickly, not much of an inconvenience. I'll try to post a picture of this rig.

I keep wanting to try the brass wool from Brownells but I always forget to order it. It supposedly doesn't "shed" as much as steel wool. I am careful to lightly 'tap' the case mouth down on a soft piece of pine as I throw the case into the "finished" bin so as to make sure there are not steel wool bits left in the case. As the steel wool gets worn and starts to shred, you just pull a new wad off and wind it around the brush.

My Dillon case tumbler is very lonely. It gets used for Moly (Danzac actually) coating and the occasional pistol brass (Why load for pistols when there are rifles to fiddle with!).

I don't think there's really anything wrong with tumbling/polishing, but I think that by the time I separate the brass from the media, wipe the cases off,look for plugged primer holes, etc. I like my other method better. Moreover, I don't think tumbling gets me that smooth inside of the neck result that hopefully results in more consistent "let off" as the bullet exits, AND it should result in fewer issues with the expander ball in the die working the brass unevenly.

[ 03-29-2003, 00:11: Message edited by: rogerinneb ]