I think there are several problems with your argument.

First of all, on what basis or facts do you believe bottle neck cases present a problem?  I have done thousands and thousands of bottle neck cases now, and never had an issue.  Not a single pin stuck inside any case, bottle neck or not.  I have done so many, that given my process I no longer check.  I use the RCBS media separator.  When half full of water, the stainless pins slip right out, whether straight wall or bottle neck.   The pins are too long to "wedge" at all in the neck- no matter what you might think, they slip right out.  What makes you believe otherwise?  What facts are you basing this confined observation on?  Exactly why are you proclaiming that "bottle neck makes the media separator method unreliable" ?

Secondly- if a pin ends up in your barrel (explain that to me), just how on earth can you predict this will cause a kaboom?  What actually happens to cause this?  What are the various factors?  Is it more likely to kaboom, or more likely nothing will happen?

Thirdly- saying something like "I recently heard it in fact happened to someone".  Well, I'd venture to guess it never happened.  It's lore, it's myth.  Give us something accountable.  Don't discredit yourself like that.  You lose a lot of respect when you say such silly things.

just to note kaos didn't submerg his separator in water he just put the brass in and spun it. that is a lot diff. than having it submerged in water.

like i said earlier i have done 10,000 or so and i check them all (which you said i didn't) and i have had none stuck in the cases that weren't stuck in the primer pockets. yes i check them all

because they do get stuck in the pockets.

Hi BIGGDAWG,



Sorry if I mis quoted you, but my question still stands and that is how exactly did you check your 10,000 cases?  Did you check the flash hole?  I can believe this.



However, the only surefire ways I know of checking for pins insde the case (read not in the flash hole but I can understand the misunderstanding) is to either look inside each case with a light or to dump them inside a bucket of water and shake them with their opening pointing down while they are underwater like the OP.  The only reason I am thinking that you did not check them all is because I cannot envision anyone doing either method with 10,000 cases.

here is my proceedure,

tumble
rinse out container till no soap bubbles
poor batches in my frankfort arsnal tumbler submerged in water spin slowly at first then faster and back and forth. after that i pick up the separator and shake vigorously  for 30 sec or so
poor into a container and repeat till all brass is rinsed and ran through the separator.
poor brass onto towels, towel dry the outsides using a pat down method and bowling ball cleaning method. let dry with fan on them for 3-12 hours
perform bowling ball cleaning action one more time then hold cases upside down and inspect each flash hole if there would be pins in the cases they would come out now because they are dry.

no i do not shake them in water but i am totally confident in my method. i won't hash this out anymore and sorry for disrupting this thread.

100% checked for over 2500 223 cases.  I checked by blowing 80psi air into the primer pocket.  No way any pins are not coming out.  All were blown such that anything coming out would be captured in a 5gal bucket.  Zero pins left behind (other than the obvious pair stuck in the flash hole).

One teeny tiny pin is WAY different than partially filled with water.  You still haven't given substantial reasons one would get a kaboom.  You think a bitty pin is going to stop the bullet, causing a pressure spike to cause a kaboom?  But in any event- I wouldn't want pins in the barrel.  Nothing to do with kaboom, cause it ain't gonna happen.  Just don't want the thing to buger up my rifling or crown.  That's why I'm totally good with SS tumbling.  Rinse 'em good in a media separator, and you get all the pins out.  Period.

Come on, you can do better than that.  Hearing something from a friend is way different than reading a post from a total stranger on the internet.  Tell us who you heard it from.  Where's the pictures?  Back it up- betcha can't.   Ah, I bet you read it on the internet.

rjbishop, Since you got it all figured out and you are absolutely sure that it is safe, I would suggest you continue doing it your way.  Best of luck!

Similar offer to the one in GD in the Devising a plan to safely pitch a 55 gallon drum off a pick-up bed..... thread.





The first 3 guys who can be within 10 miles of Tyson Corner Virginia who actually own reloading equipment:





I'm offering 10 pounds of expended military 5.56 brass, once fired.





If you have your own tumbler, etc, you can have it dirty the way I scooped it out of the barrel.  Or you can have it wet tumbled, your choice.





I just want to thank you guys who make this a fun forum.




 

damn.  Virginia is a long way from Kansas so I'm out.  Sounds like you have more of that stuff than you know what to do with.

Kaos, ran the first batch of cases and got similar results to yours with the longer tumbling time.  Meaning the satiny looking brass, as opposed to the shiny, new look.  

I have done several thousand pistol and 30-30 cases, and other than the experimenting with lemishine amounts, can now get the brand new, shiny look out of the brass.
What happened this time around, is I got tied up with other things, and let it tumble in the Thumlers Model B that I have, for over 12 hours.  I never let any brass tumble longer than about 5-6 hours before.  I also have the older model B with the slower 1500rpm motor.  

And this is a first, also.  The water this time around had the usual suds to the top, but the water, instead of a Guiness black, was golden yellow.  

I am going to run another batch tonight, but let it go for about 4-5 hours and see what happens.  If I had to guess, I would say it just tumbled way too long, even at the slower speed.

Wish I had seen that you needed some help with the barrels.  Not that I could offer any kind of muscle being a wimpy little cubicle weenie , but I would've been happy to lend a hand!  I'm right around the corner in Falls Church.

Very jealous of your Whirlpool tumbler!  I just started wet tumbling last week, and with my Thumlers Model B one small batch at a time, I bet you tumble more in an hour than I do in 6 days.  

jlow,
You can look on page two of this thread for KAOS pictures of the brass.  Mine started out like the dirty ones in his pic.  My hands turned absolutely black just handling it to decap it.  I have always got the black water out of the drum, until now.  

Going to tumble another batch tonight for only 4 hrs and see what I get.  I'll update this post with the results.

Wait til it starts coming out looking like slightly dirty Simple Green.



I get so much small-bubble foam that I've cut back on the concentrated Dawn to (A squirt of Dawn)/(Approx 4 gallons water).

Most of the discoloration on my shells (and in the water) is tarnish rather than soot/dirt.

That's what's on your paws.





 

Update:
Got home from work, and started a load of shells.  Normal amounts of dawn/lemishine.  Let it run until a few minutes ago, making it about 4.5 hrs.  Opened it up to take a look, and the water is black, but the shells aren't 100% clean yet.  Still some soot on the necks, and insides.  I am going to let it sit overnight, then turn it back on in the morning, and go for 8hrs of runtime.  

On another note, I resized about a dozen cases, then measured them.  All came out at 1.70-1.75 in.  Book says trim to 1.750 and max of 1.760.  So, I trimmed them, and primed.  The last two, the primers went in way easy.  I tapped the case on the bench top and the primer came almost completely out.  Primer pocket extremely loose.  We had this problem with some Federal cases in .270, and was advised to use Federal primers.  I have some small rifle Fed #205s, so I tried them.  Same thing.  I am out of the CCI #41s, so I can't try that.

Anyone else have this issue with the Mil FC cases?

ETA: missing 7 in the numbers above.

I swaged/resized/trimmed a bunch of Federals with an RCBS swaging die a few days ago and didn't run into any loose pockets.  They all needed to be popped off the swage post on the downstroke.


What year(s) were the loose ones?  Take note of any that decap too easily, the year on the headstamp maybe, and see if those particular ones have a problem swaging?  I've decapped close to 20,000 rounds in the last week to 10 days, and I can't recall any popped out 'too easily'.  I guess it's possible that I got into a rhythm and blew passed a few, but I'm using a handle on my Hornady classic that's less than half as long as standard, so I 'think' I'd have felt a particularly easy one.  I WILL keep my mind on loose ones though, and toss any in a separate can for comparison and get back to you.





All the Wolf primers I used (the Wolf small rifle magnum primers) popped in with a hard snap.  Wolf is all I have, to test with/for.





Let me/Us know what you find on any others.
 
 

Latest updates.  Batch finished, on to the next.
 
The batch I started last night, got about 4.5hrs or so, then I let it sit overnight, starting it back off today.  I let it run for 3.5hrs to get up to 8 total and did a check.  Water was black as usual, and cases were on their way to bling.  
There was still some discoloration on the necks of most of them, and the primer pockets weren't as clean as I have been seeing, so I changed out the water and refreshed it, with hot water, dawn and lemishine.

Let it run two more hours and it was almost there.  Shells looked very shiny, but still some discoloration on the necks and insides.  I closed it up and let it run another hour.  Oh, water was blue-greenish in color.  
Mistake.  Now they have that satiny finish, but are clean, inside and out.  Water was the color of the dirty simple green, like you said, kaos.  

I had 420 cases in that run, maybe a little much.  But I was surprised how quick it turned to the satin finish, vice the normal bling look.  

And I think you're on the right track, kaos, with the discoloration being more exposure related, than powder fouling.  This stuff is lots harder to clean off than the usual pistol cases I have been doing since I started wet tumbling.

The two shells with loose primer pockets are both FC 03 stamped.  I use a RCBS hand primer to seat new primers.  They didn't feel any different on the decapping operation, as that would catch my attention.  I use a Rockchucker and have become very attuned to the feel of different brass when depriming in bulk.

Dryflash, you are correct with the numbers.  My fingers forgot the missing 7.  Mine are trimmed to the correct length, as it was just a typo error, not an actual trim error.  LOL, I think at 1.50, I would have trimmed the whole shoulder off.  Now that would look funny, trying to load a .223 bullet in that one.  

And the smaller batch got the bling back.  I ran 188 cases for 6 hrs and they shine like new.  I did up the lemishine to 1.5  45 acp cases full.