Comments on: Cleaning Brass with Stainless Tumbling Media

By: Kris

Kris — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 20:44:11 +0000

Used this stuff for several years. Not worth the headaches the peening on the case mouth causes, particularly in tight chambered precision guns. There are ways to minimize it, but once it happens, it’s very hard to get rid of. Trimming works the first couple of times, but the peening also reduces the case length, so after a couple of cycles, you need to either neck turn/re-turn the necks or trim below minimum length to get rid of it.

A simple test to see if its present is to try and drop a bullet into a fired case. It should drop in freely. If it doesn’t, it basically means that you have case material being pinched between the bullet and the chamber. While this didn’t always affect velocities (SD’s), the traces recorded by my pressure trace system were erratic and bullet exit times were inconsistent. Loads never shot as well as they did when the traces were tight and bullet exit times were uniform.

By: Ian

Ian — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:41:55 +0000

I use and swear by STM but it is not without its frustrations. The pins are loo long and are the perfect size to jam in the mouths of sized 6 and 6.5mm cases. removal scores the inside of the brass and it means each case must be properly inspected.

If thise pins could be made th half the length, they would be perfect.

[IMG]http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk7/obtunded/stainlessmediaphoto.jpg[/IMG]

By: Dasher

Dasher — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 23:06:58 +0000

Also beware of peening on turned cases with tight neck barrels. Deburring and/or trimming may be necesaary after spinning in the stainless media.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 23:21:17 +0000

Have been using it for over two years now in conjunction with annealing. Works perfectly for me.

One key I found: Use only COLD water for cleaning and rinsing.

Using hot water doesn’t clean any better (contradictory to everything else I clean….) and will leave discoloration/tarnishing/odd colors.