Anyone have a tumbler that uses this?

I got my media from Stainless Tumbling Media.com

Are you asking about the little rods used in conjunction with soapy water?

Yes.

Works like a charm, but takes a little more effort. Brass literally looks good as new when done.

Yes.

It is a bit more work. Decap the brass. Add water, Dawn, Lemishine, the brass, and tumble for 3 hours. Once that is done, pour out the dirty water, and run clean water through the vessel with the brass and media still in the vessel. Pour that water out, dump the brass and media into a seperator and tumble. Turn the brass upside down over the media seperator pan and tap the side, removing more water and any media caught in the brass. Lay the brass out on a towel and get the outside as dry as possible. Place the brass in a steel pan and put it in the oven at 250F for an hour.

At least that's how I do it. Once all that is done the brass is clean inside and out, including the primer pockets.

i do the same as fireman but i use a electric heater during the winter.i put them on a towel about 2 feet from the heater works great.during the summer i put them on a towel in the sun works great also.

After I STM tumble, I rinse and throw them in a plastic bowl full of alcohol. Then I lay them out on a towel and they dry PDQ. One phenomenon I've seen is cases getting shorter, I can only assume from mouth/neck peening. I think it also had to with the number of cases in the tumbler vs. the amount of media/water/etc. I've also had cases that seemed to want to "swallow" the pins a lot more than others. All in all, the STM is a great tumbling setup. It's a vibratory and ultrasonic all in one, only better and faster.

^^Best explanation there is.^^

Fireman,

Chad has posted several times about loss of accuracy with brass cleaned with stainless media, especially among bench rest shooters. I'm guessing the answer is no, but have you seen this to be the case at all in your experience?

I have not.

Guys that are super picky about every little detail, such as benchrest, want a little carbon residue inside the neck. I won't argue with that. But the absolute best my last rifle ever shot (Custom .260 Rem) was on brass that had been fired twice, was stainless tumbled and annealed. Dave3575 loaned me his stainless tumbler and annealer. I processed all the brass, and used a bushing FL die, then loaded on a Chargemaster. The reason I knew it was shooting so well, is because I was headed to The Heatstoke Open rifle match in NW Oklahoma. Not only do we shoot steel very small and very far, we shoot paper 100 yards and in. Usually when we are on paper the targets may be 1" down to 1/4" at 100 yards, and/ or MOA inside 100 yards. The rifle punched exactly where I told it to, on that brass that had just been stainless tumbled and annealed.

So far I have not seen a problem with stainless tumbling, especially followed by annealing.

Great, thanks for the reply

Yessir

We talked about that here not too long ago, but I cannot remember who had the detailed explanation.

What I recall is that the phenomenon known as "cold weld" is real, and it is actually due to galvanic reaction between two dissimilar metals. Some shooters are known to load ammo with bullets only partially seated for storage, and then finish seating to desired length just prior to shooting. That will bust up any galvanic bonding that may have taken place.

It is believed that a little carbon residue in the case neck prevents the galvanic process.

I have no idea just how long it takes for the reaction to take place. I have also wondered what the factories do, if anything, to prevent galvanic bonding.

Judd is the guilty party.

I have witnessed him pull out ammo that looked loaded, pull out a little arbor press, and do the final seating just before he fired them.

Weirdo benchrester

Although I will admit I stopped loading up a surplus of ammo. Now I load what will be shot within the next month or two.

I'd like to see a well conducted experiment showing what the effect on accuracy really is.

I don't want to do the work, though. I want someone else to do it.

I've got 6 rounds of 22-250 left over from last year. I'm about to load 500 for this year's prairie dog trip. I can see if there's a difference and report back.

Cool. You gonna chrongraph them too?

Didn't plan on it, but I can.

Ordered an Extreme Rebel 17 this weekend. Can't wait.

I emailed Winchester last week and was surprised to see a rely this soon. Here's how it went:


Question:

I would like to know what steps Winchester takes to deal with or prevent "cold weld" between the brass case and jacketed bullet in metallic center-fire ammunition. Is cold weld a significant accuracy issue, and how quickly does it occur?



Answer:

RR,

Our loading operations take no specific steps to avoid this phenomena of “cold welding” and we have never heard of any complaints on our products that were related to this phenomena.

Best Regards,

Technical Services Dept.



I wonder how many people contact ANY ammo manufacturer bitching about cold-weld affecting accuracy adversely (how in hell would they even know?), so I am not satisfied with this non-answer.

I'm not impressed with the correspondent's command of the English language either, but never mind that.

Pretty much how I do it...... Love the perfect shine. I absolutely love the BigDawg Tumbler and do not miss the dust of dry media.

Well thank you for doing bit of research for us. I am not surpirsed with their answer.

Now, will you contact Brian Litz and see what he say?