Wet vs Dry Tumbling Brass: Which Is Right for Your Reloading Needs?
Welcome back to Jim's Armory. This time Jim steps away from the workbench and out into the yard for a reloading-adjacent topic: cleaning brass. He's normally a wet tumbler guy, but for this video he brings out a dry tumbler as well, running range-pickup 9mm and 5.56 through both wet and dry methods side by side. Jim's goal isn't to crown a winner - it's to show you what each method actually produces and how much time it costs, so you can decide which approach fits your own brass.
Why Clean Brass At All? Before loading up the tumblers, Jim addresses the obvious question. In his view it comes down to two things: personal preference and the condition of the brass. His own buckets of range brass are essentially raked out of the dirt, so cleaning makes sense. But if you're running once-fired brass caught in a brass catcher, or brass from a revolver that never touches the ground, you may not need to clean at all. Cleaning also helps with inspection - getting a good look at brass of unknown origin, especially rifle cartridges, to check for problems before reloading.
Equipment and Methodology On the wet side, Jim runs a stainless steel media tumbler through a few soap-and-water cycles, changing the water between rounds, followed by a final cycle using Armor All Wash and Wax with carnauba wax and Lemi Shine. On the dry side, he runs one cycle with crushed walnut media and a used dryer sheet, followed by a second cycle with corn cob media and thinned Nu Finish car wax.
Because he isn't depriming his brass, primer residue is a real hazard. Jim wears a P100 respirator, thick nitrile gloves, and keeps D-Wipes on hand for cleaning lead and other metals off his skin - all before he even touches the sifter.
Pro-Tip: When adding a dryer sheet to a dry tumbler, cut it into thin strips and tie a knot in the center of each one. The knot helps the strip distribute itself around the media instead of getting stuck in one spot.
Why Dryer Sheets Actually Work Jim also breaks down the internet lore about dryer sheets absorbing dust in the tumbler - which he says is negligible at best. The real mechanism, he explains, is static: casings and media rubbing together create friction, which builds up a triboelectric charge (the same effect behind static cling), and that charge is what makes dust stick to your brass. Dryer sheets carry positively charged cationic surfactants that neutralize that static buildup. He specifically uses a used sheet because the heat-activated surfactant left over from a hot clothes dryer cycle still has enough chemistry on it to do the job, even without the tumbler generating real heat.
Running the Cycles For the dry walnut cycle, Jim fills the container about halfway with a mix of 9mm and 5.56, adds media up to about two-thirds full, tosses in the knotted dryer sheets, and runs it for roughly two hours.
While that cycle runs, he preps the wet side: a tumbler filled with 5 lb of stainless steel media, brass filled about halfway, water, and soap, run for 30-minute cycles. He swaps the water twice, catching the dirty water (and the pins that come with it) in a bucket each time, and rinses the sifting screen with a hose between rounds. The final wet cycle swaps in Armor All Wash and Wax with Lemi Shine and runs for a full hour.
After sifting the walnut cycle - carefully, with a respirator and gloves on to avoid airborne contaminants - Jim preps the second dry cycle with corn cob media, another dryer sheet, and two capfuls of Nu Finish car wax thinned with mineral spirits. He notes he's tried adding the wax both before and after tumbling and found it doesn't matter much once it's thinned down.
The Results The plain walnut cycle left newer brass looking decent, but heavily tarnished pieces stayed tarnished, and the interiors of the cases - even the newer ones - didn't come clean. The corn cob and car wax cycle looked similar: smoother and shinier, but the tarnished pieces were still visibly tarnished and the insides still weren't clean.
The wet tumbled brass, by contrast, came out looking brand new - shiny on the outside and completely clean on the inside, including the rifle cases.
Time Comparison Jim tracked both active (hands-on) and passive (waiting) time for each method. He expected the three-cycle wet method to take considerably longer than the dry methods, but the numbers were close: the walnut-plus-corn-cob dry combo took 23 minutes of active time versus 25.5 minutes for the three wet cycles. Passive time favored dry tumbling more clearly - about 2 hours versus 4.
Final Thoughts Jim isn't declaring one method universally better. For his own filthy range pickups, he leans toward wet tumbling since it strips tarnish, clears out dirt and grime, and gets brass clean enough to properly inspect every piece for cracks or separation. Dry tumbling, in his view, is better suited to brass of known origin - his own once-fired cases that never hit the ground - where he might not even bother cleaning at all. He mentions his dry tumbling recipe loosely follows the manufacturer's instructions plus a few internet tips, and he's open to trying reader-submitted recipes in a follow-up video.
Thanks for following along - if you've got a dry tumbling recipe worth trying, drop it in the comments, and subscribe to catch Jim's next video.
