I have been considering buying a food dehydrator to dry cases. Maybe lay them out to dry for 24 hours to kick off the initial moisture and finish them off in the dehydrator. Can anyone who is currently doing this give us some feedback? I definitely don't want to get to the range and experience what GSPBirdDog did.
I just learned the hard way last week to make sure after wet tumbling, that all the cases are dry! I loaded 700 9mm bullets and had to pull them all by hand! I wet tumbled the cases and laid them out for a whole week to dry. Went to the range and 30 out of 35 did not fire. Primers were struck, but no boom. After pulling the bullets, i noticed the powder was damp and the primers were nothing but a glob of goop. So from now on, I am going to run the cases through the corn Cobb media for 30 minutes before loading. The oven is a waste of time in my opinion. Next time i am going to deprime and size before tumbling. It shouldn’t take much time to run a couple thousand through the Dillon 650 real quick.
I have been considering buying a food dehydrator to dry cases. Maybe lay them out to dry for 24 hours to kick off the initial moisture and finish them off in the dehydrator. Can anyone who is currently doing this give us some feedback? I definitely don't want to get to the range and experience what GSPBirdDog did.
I have the Frankford Arsenal brass dryer, which is really just a rebranded food dehydrator, only it costs more.
I use it for *every* batch of wet tumbled brass, and have never had an issue with wet powder or primers. Not even once.
After wet tumbling, I pour the wet brass into a large towel, and shake it around a bit. I actually take each edge, and rock the brass back and forth like cleaning a bowling ball in on one of those cloth cradles if you are familiar with that technique.
I next pour the brass into the dryer trays, and set it to 150 degrees or so, and then let it run for 1.5 hours on a timer, and finally remove the dried brass and place into containers. The brass is very hot, so I usually let it cool for a while. I wet tumble for 3 hours normally, so as one load is tumbling, one is drying/cooling.
Works perfectly, and if it broke today, I would order another one before the day was out. I hear Walmart has their food dehydrators in stock for less money, but the Frankford Arsenal dryers are about $43 on Amazon.
Highly recommended.
I just learned the hard way last week to make sure after wet tumbling, that all the cases are dry! I loaded 700 9mm bullets and had to pull them all by hand! I wet tumbled the cases and laid them out for a whole week to dry. Went to the range and 30 out of 35 did not fire. Primers were struck, but no boom. After pulling the bullets, i noticed the powder was damp and the primers were nothing but a glob of goop. So from now on, I am going to run the cases through the corn Cobb media for 30 minutes before loading. The oven is a waste of time in my opinion. Next time i am going to deprime and size before tumbling. It shouldn’t take much time to run a couple thousand through the Dillon 650 real quick.
As far as drying, I saw a guy on youtube put his brass in a large bath type towel, wrap it like a burrito, then tip the poles back and forth several times. This gets 90% of the water off. I then put a tiny fan on the brass and towel over night and it's always dry.
I tumble my brass n walnut & never deprime .. My Dillon press does the rest..lol
Thats an easy fix, dry tumble.. I can honestly say, I have never had a wet misfire due to dry corncob tumbling..I did the exact same thing with the towel you are talking about, then let them lay out for a week. I still had misfires using this method. My guess is the primers were holding water or seeping out during deprime, size, and load.
I tumble pistol and rifle brass after I size them, I dont mind cleaning the corn cob out of the primer holes. I don't understand using a depriming die when you can just use a sizing die and have one stage already done. I dry tumble with corn cob and Dillon polish and with the time guys spend washing and drying brass I can have it loaded on a Dillon, packed in boxes and cooked steaks on the charcoal grill and eaten before the wet tumbled brass is dry yet. I have better things to do with my time than watch brass being run through a washing machine and a jerky dryer.
As far as drying, I saw a guy on youtube put his brass in a large bath type towel, wrap it like a burrito, then tip the poles back and forth several times. This gets 90% of the water off. I then put a tiny fan on the brass and towel over night and it's always dry.