Well I tried pretty much everything I have Tumblr with pins I have a vibrator with walnut shell and I have a Sonic cleaner.
I tried all of the additives to all of the upper cleaners my brass just would not come out clean no matter what I did I bought everybody's cleaner for the stainless steel pins they just got dingy.
Then I went back to basics I started with Dawn and lemi Shine cleaned all of my stainless steel media and started doing a little smaller loads everything started coming together and I got the stainless steel pen set up running beautifully.
So that was working so well I put Dawn and lemi shine and the Sonic cleaner and lo and behold that started working beautifully Sonic does a pretty good job of cleaning the primer holes next I said I've got to get the Walnut shells working so I went back to spray wax and nu finish and that started working perfectly.
So now after shooting I deprime I throw them in the Sonic for 30 minutes and then right out of the Sonic wet I throw them into the Walnut media for 30 minutes and they come out perfect I haven't even used the stainless steel media. if I pick up some really dirty brass ill start with the Sonic for 30 minutes then probably 30 45 minutes in the stainless steel tumbler and then polish them off with Walnut shells do not need to dry between steps. I need clean brass cuz I shoot in the dirt and sometimes I spend more time looking for my spent cases than actually shooting they're the same exact color I need the sunlight to shine on them to see them. At one point I was doing stainless steel media for up to 3 hours this is cut my time down to 1 hour no drying.
My brass cleaning is fairly simple I throw the cases in the walnut/corn cob media after adding about a tablespoon of charcoal lighter fluid in the media letting that smooth out with no clumps and add the brass and 10 or 12 1"x1" pieces of Scott Shop towel in the big bowl. I find that the charcoal lighter fluid helps cut the carbon/soot and also if the media has polish it tends to rejuvenate the polish and cleans the media as well!
This helps protect the dies with the cases somewhat cleaner while I resize the cases. After resizing and depriming I may rerun the cases again for a little while to remove sizing lube.
I have run loaded finished rounds in corn cob media for a nice luster finish and bag them in ZIPLOC bags with printed labels inside the bag and stored in Steel Ammo cans when finished.
These are key points IMO:
- don't wet tumble with SS pins for too long - 30 min works for me
- use warm water
- use Frankford brass cleaning solution
- don't use a dryer / oven - this will basically start an annealing process and only make it brittle and sticky
People like to cut corners with cheaper cleaning solutions such as Dawn, but this lasts a long time and is actually made for brass:
https://ads.midwayusa.com/product/1012723325?pid=918233 (https://ads.midwayusa.com/product/1012723325?pid=918233)
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/vbAAAOSwLiBf~b08/s-l1200.jpg)
Brass dryer set to 90 F but pumps out 156 F. They are all China made garbage:
(https://i.postimg.cc/zBvmG3Q5/Img-2202.jpg)
I tried the frankford pods I was not impressed still have them, I do use mineral spirits maybe every third load it really does make them slippery