Are Wet Tumblers worth it?

[cusco]

Hi folks, just asking for opinions and user feed back on whether the wet tumblers with stainless steel pins really do clean out the primmer pockets well. I use a Lyman 5 station Prep machine at the moment for deburring, chamfering, primmer pocket cleaning. etc. Works well but takes time when loading up a few hundred cases. Then I use a dry vibration tumble to clean/shine the case. Web research says they do but would like some real life feedback. Looking at the Hornady one on special at the" Redcliffe" gun shop.
Cheers Cusco.

[deye243]

After giving up brass cleaning all together i would say nope and I made a wet tumbler that is pretty good .
Some of my brass I get 20 loads out of I don't clean and I don't see any accuracy issues even out at 1430 yards

[bigrich]

i've been using a hornady dry media tumbler for years . does a good job . emptying the media out of cases and wiping media dust with a cotton cloth is a bit boring , but they come out nice and shiny after about 2 hours . i think the media is crushed corn cob or something . i'm too ocd not to clean my cases deye243

[perentie]

I gave my vibrating tumblers away and have been using a rubber roller type with pins for years now. Wouldnt go back cleans out the primer pockets and everything shinier than new I wash after every firing though as I shoot Black Powder mainly. Not so important with smokeless. Its made for tumbling rocks and stuff.

[Wapiti]

I bought a Hornady wet tumbler a few years ago, it's got the rubber-lined drum and spins on two driven shafts that have rubber wheels on them to grip it.
The drum is a heavy kind of poly and the lid has a big wingnut that expands a rubber ring in the lid that fits in a groove in the drum. It keeps the lid on and seals it.
It came with a bag of SS pins, which I still use and don't imagine ever replacing.

I decap / size my brass first, then chuck it in the tumbler. Never a lot, maybe 150-200 cases at a time with all the pins.
I use just bore water, a squirt of car wash 'n wax (strong cleaner and wax-coats the brass and it doesn't ever tarnish then, true), and a teaspoon or more of "creme of tartar" powder from IGA. The "wash 'n wax" also degreases all the FLS sizing lube off whilst tumbling, saving that task.
I will set the tumbler for 90 minutes, and even the nastiest brass comes out like new.
Others might set a longer time, but in my tumbler, it's completely unnecessary.

I'm not sure what problems other people have or whether they even use these tumblers before criticising, but I would say that 90% plus of my brass has completely clean flash holes in my machine, the rest have a speck or two which is not worth worrying about.
Perhaps another 30 minutes would clean that too?
In fact, you have to make sure that no little pins are sitting in the flash holes, but not to worry because the pins are smaller than the flash holes and fall out when you shake everything in a bucket after pouring the drum out in the bucket.

Tip: I bought one of the Hornady "media separators" on special at Cleavers, you pour the drum of finished tumbled cases and pins into it, and close the lid. You turn the handle and it spins all the cases in a perforated drum, and all the pins and water come out and sit in a tray in the bottom. This completely removes all pins, without ever failing to do so. You can then save every pin without any bother, and reuse them hundreds of times.
Well worth the purchase.
Then I just lay all the cases, after a bucket rinse, on a towel in the sun. There's never any water spots, even from our hugely mineral bore water, because of the use of the car "wash 'n wax" and that detergent also cleans any lube from sizing off too. No further degreasing using this tumbler.

I used a dry corn-cob vibratory tumbler years ago, and they take forever, don't work very well, don't clean the flash holes, block the flash holes unless you don't decap them with media, (so an extra step afterwards again) and leave a coating of nasty media dust inside and out, at times even blocking the necks. More so if you put in a spoon of "brasso" as some do. Stuff that. I gave my dry vibrate tumbler away because the wet pin tumbler is 500% more useful for what I expect.
I will not go back to a dry tumbler again, they have been hugely superseded with a much better way.

So yes, my tumbler cleans out the flash holes, degreases and polishes the cases to shinier than new, inside and out, in one step, and leaves the cases with a polish coat you can't see or feel and you can find your shiny cases in the grass and bush WAY easier.
If you haven't yet bought a tumbler, don't buy the dry vibratory one and use something so archaic with all it's extra steps and worry about blocked cases. If you have one, fine, and upgrade to something that works better.