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  • EZ-E

    King Turd of Shit Mountain
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    Just one question? How many can you tumble at a time using both drums? I typically tumble several thousand. I don't like hearing it run very often.

    You can do 1lb of brass in each drum. My old neighbor built a big tumbler with an electric motor & 6" pvc tube. It would hold 15lbs of pins & 15lbs in brass.
     

    Gummi Bear

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    Mar 24, 2015
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    I can do hundreds of pieces of brass at a time.

    I adopted wet tumbling years ago, and have never looked back. I have a Frankford Arsenal tumbler, I run about 8 lbs of pins. I’ve never considered the weight. Just fill it, plus dish soap and Lemi Shine and let er rip. Water temperature makes no difference (hot water will cause your drum to leak, if it’s cool where your tumbler is, the heat cause the drum to be pressurized)

    I don’t have problem with pins sticking, maybe 1-2 cases per thousand might have one in a flash hole. How you rinse the brass takes care of them.

    I get sparkling brass, inside and out.

    I use a Dillon brass tumbler to shake loose the last few pins (the big one, not the crappy on in a 5 gallon bucket) and a food dehydrator to dry my brass.

    I can go from dirty brass to ready to reload in a couple of hours. High shine brass will take 2-4 hours in the tumbler, depending on how dirty it was to begin



    Some things to consider if you choose wet tumbling:

    * Clean pins = clean brass

    * clean your pins before you use them to clean brass for the first time. I add some extra degreaser to the tank along with the soap and LemiShine. Run it a couple hours then rinse thoroughly until there is no soap bubbles or dirt left in the pins.

    * rinse your pins thoroughly after eatch batch of brass. They will get cruddy if you do not, and you’ll get funky brass sometimes

    * I wash my brass after every few runs, with the degreaser, to prevent crud from accumulating (I wash a lot of range brass, so this is just a thing I adopted)

    * Too much LemiShine can cause tarnish. Start small, about ⅛ teaspoon per gallon of water is plenty. Adjust if your water is hard.

    * Some calibers will nest. 9mm will fit into a 40, both will fit into a 45, stuff like that. It’s best to segregate these, and wash them separately. They’ll get stuck, and neither case will get clean.

    * Don’t leave your brass in the tumbler for too long after running has finished. I will start mine when I walk out the door for work, and rinse when I get home, it’s usually fine. If you forget to rinse that evening, and don’t look until the next day, your brass might be cruddy, and you’ll need to rinse and re-run the tumbler.

    * I rinse my brass several times before dumping it out of the hopper (put on screen, and pour off dirty water) I do this until my water comes out clean. Just fishing the brass out of dirty water, and drying leaves spots and ugly brass.


    Some folks might think this is a tedious process, maybe it is. I like it tho. Processing brass keeps me busy. I do more brass prep than most folks, I think. Pistol brass is just pistol brass. Rifle brass goes through a process (primer pockets squared, trim, flash hole deburr, full length size, anneal, then wash). I anneal rifle brass after every 2-3 firings. Obviously, primer pocket and flash hole has to be done once (Sidenote - I’ve never had to do either process with Lapua brass, it’s darn near perfect right out of the box)



    I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...

    Henry David Thoreau
     

    deemus

    my mama says I'm special
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    I have a Midway tumbler that runs great. Usually 2-4 hours is fine depending on condition of the cases, and they look new. I have put in 200 9mm and maybe 100 30-06 at a time in it.
     

    unicom

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    Thanks for all the responses and help. I am going to get some corn media and try it. Might even get a wet tumbler too. I may be over focusing on something that won’t effect the cartridge once it’s reloaded. I will also try some of the things you guys add to the media as well


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    deemus

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    I like walnut much better than cob media. I switched to walnut because it works faster and makes it shinier.
     
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    hornetguy

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    I used to dry, vibrate tumble, and have always used treated corncob media, and it's always done a pretty good job. I used to run it for at least 3-4 hours.

    Recently, I got a rotating tumbler with steel pins. I've only used it once, and was very pleased with the results.
     

    TxStetson

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    I used to use straight walnut media because it worked faster than corn cob. For the last few months I have been running 90% walnut and 10% corn cob media and adding in a little Flitz or Colonel Brassy and it keeps the dust down while doing a decent job cleaning the brass. I don't try for the new brass look, I just clean my brass when it looks dirty.
     

    rotor

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    I used to dry, vibrate tumble, and have always used treated corncob media, and it's always done a pretty good job. I used to run it for at least 3-4 hours.

    Recently, I got a rotating tumbler with steel pins. I've only used it once, and was very pleased with the results.
    Absolutely correct. If you want it to look like new go this route. I actually went this route when I first started reloading. But for me it was a PIA and now just use corn cob. Both shoot the same. I tried ultra sonic too and didn't like it.
     

    Txmark

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    I have been using rice with a little NuFinish car polish for several years now. I let the brass run for about 2 to 2-1/2 hours and the exterior is shiny and clean. My system is when I back from the range:
    1. Throw all the brass in the tumbler and clean it. I don’t deprime because the rice will get in flash holes. I’m not worried about cleaning the primer pocket.
    2, Sort by caliber
    3. Anneal
    4. Size, deprime, and reprime.
    5. Trim on the the Frankford Arsenal to SAAMI length.
    6. Store away for future loading sessions.


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    cygunner

    Devil's Den - Gettysburg
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    Jan 20, 2021
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    At Lake City nobody cared how the brass looked as long as it shot. Went straight from drawing and anneals to priming, no polishing, same with demilled rounds pull bullet, dump powder and pop primers then remove primer case and away it went for tolling, reloading, outside sales, etc. We burnished bullets with corn cob media.
    That's how I remember it. Never made a round in 14 years, I was manager of project engineering.
     
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    Adept

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    I started using rice in the late 70's, walnut hull was expensive compared to a 20# bag of rice for a couple dollars (High School Dollars at that). I throw the brass in with old primers in place, if a piece of rice does get into the flash hole it will get pushed out when I de-prime.
    Over the decades I have added several polishing compounds, both name brand and home-brew, all worked though I shy away from the lemon/acidy stuff as I don't want to wash brass after tumbling to avoid tarnish.
    My current set up is a cement mixer from Harbor Freight. Much quieter than the vibratory rigs. I discovered spray cans of bed liner at Tractor Supply the other day and plan to line my drum in the near future, should cut the noise even more.
    *NuFinish......... that is now on my list to try.
     
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    rotor

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    I started using rice in the late 70's, walnut hull was expensive compared to a 20# bag of rice for a couple dollars (High School Dollars at that). I throw the brass in with old primers in place, if a piece of rice does get into the flash hole it will get pushed out when I de-prime.
    Over the decades I have added several polishing compounds, both name brand and home-brew, all worked though I shy away from the lemon/acidy stuff as I don't want to wash brass after tumbling to avoid tarnish.
    My current set up is a cement mixer from Harbor Freight. Much quieter than the vibratory rigs. I discovered spray cans of bed liner at Tractor Supply the other day and plan to line my drum in the near future, should cut the noise even more.
    *NuFinish......... that is now on my list to try.
    You must really do a lot of cases. I have heard of others using cement mixers. Have not heard of rice. Warning about rice, if you get rice weevils they will take over your pantry and are about impossible to kill. Drowning them in insecticide didn't work. We use a lot of rice, stick the bag in the freezer for a couple of weeks and keep rice in a sealed container. We had to throw out a ton of food and buy some very expensive insecticide. On the other hand they are harmless to humans and give that rice a little crunchy taste.

    Finally, don't be obsessive compulsive about case cleaning, and don't use anything with ammonia in it. Adept sounds like he really has this mastered.
     

    Adept

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    You must really do a lot of cases. I have heard of others using cement mixers. Have not heard of rice. Warning about rice, if you get rice weevils they will take over your pantry and are about impossible to kill. Drowning them in insecticide didn't work. We use a lot of rice, stick the bag in the freezer for a couple of weeks and keep rice in a sealed container. We had to throw out a ton of food and buy some very expensive insecticide. On the other hand they are harmless to humans and give that rice a little crunchy taste.

    Finally, don't be obsessive compulsive about case cleaning, and don't use anything with ammonia in it. Adept sounds like he really has this mastered.

    Yeah....... I used to average 800-1000 rounds per month. For my shooting the biggest mistake I ever made was running a public access shooting range. Watched others shoot all day and didn't have time for my own trigger time. Now I have retired twice and I'm building/working on my own facility in the SE Panhandle so the construction is a little overwhelming. 200-300/month live fire is more normal now but I do lots of dry/laser work in between.
    Can't say I've ever had a weevil issue, they leave a nice shiny shellac finish on the brass. hehehehehe
    You are correct, don't obsess over clean, sorted, matched and weighed brass for general/plinking/practice ammo. Watch for cracks and knock off the funk before you resize, load, shoot, grin, repeat!!!!
    I have actively loaded for 28 calibers over more than 4 decades and NO I don't have it all figured out, but I'll keep working on it.
     

    TEXAS "All or nothing"

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    Yeah....... I used to average 800-1000 rounds per month. For my shooting the biggest mistake I ever made was running a public access shooting range. Watched others shoot all day and didn't have time for my own trigger time. Now I have retired twice and I'm building/working on my own facility in the SE Panhandle so the construction is a little overwhelming. 200-300/month live fire is more normal now but I do lots of dry/laser work in between.
    Can't say I've ever had a weevil issue, they leave a nice shiny shellac finish on the brass. hehehehehe
    You are correct, don't obsess over clean, sorted, matched and weighed brass for general/plinking/practice ammo. Watch for cracks and knock off the funk before you resize, load, shoot, grin, repeat!!!!
    I have actively loaded for 28 calibers over more than 4 decades and NO I don't have it all figured out, but I'll keep working on it.
    You're not too far from me @110 miles N of Childress. 28 calibers or more like 28 cartridges (9mm, 40s/w etc)
     

    ZX9RCAM

    Over the Rainbow bridge...
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    I started using rice in the late 70's, walnut hull was expensive compared to a 20# bag of rice for a couple dollars (High School Dollars at that). I throw the brass in with old primers in place, if a piece of rice does get into the flash hole it will get pushed out when I de-prime.
    Over the decades I have added several polishing compounds, both name brand and home-brew, all worked though I shy away from the lemon/acidy stuff as I don't want to wash brass after tumbling to avoid tarnish.
    My current set up is a cement mixer from Harbor Freight. Much quieter than the vibratory rigs. I discovered spray cans of bed liner at Tractor Supply the other day and plan to line my drum in the near future, should cut the noise even more.
    *NuFinish......... that is now on my list to try.

    Welcome to the Forum!
     
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