Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles What kind of medium do you use in your tumblers?

I started with crushed walnuts but now I'm using crushed corn cobs. The corn cobs take a little longer, so I just turn the tumbler on and then go to bed. Then I turn it off first thing in the morning.

Lizard Litter from Petco. Ground up walnut shells, and much less expensive than the same thing packaged for brass cleaning.

I would never use any other tumbler after switching over to the rotary style with SS pins. They come out looking better than new, inside and out. Saves some wear and tear on your dies too since they are clean.

Ditto.

I'm not making jewelry, I'm making ammo.
I use a 50/50 mix of walnut and corn cob to clean the brass. I don't really care about a high shine.
Many times I just wipe the brass of with a rag and reload. I haven't found any accuracy advantage in bright shiny brass.

I am not making jewelry either. Still I have grown to prefer the wet tumble w SS pins and Lemi shine.

Remove the primer. Wet tumble for roughly 3 hours. Rinse w warm water separate SS media. Roll back and forth in a towel to rough dry. then into the oven at 220 F to dry for 30 min.

Nothing wrong with your preferred method either, results in the end will be essentially the same.

The first batch of brass I ran using the SS pins was some once fired that had previously been through a vibratory tumbler but not loaded. Should have seen how dirty the water was, just from the inside of the cases. I think of it as similar to build up inside a chimney, and nobody wants that.

Walnut - if you have a Harbor Freight near you bulk box in the blasting media section is very cheap per pound. Tumble some cut up dryer sheets to get rid if the dust . You can use an ounce of liquid car wax every 5-10 tumblings if you want to get a bit of extra shine.

SS pin media does in one hour what a vibratory with aNY choices of media / potions can't equal in 5 hours. Its that fast.

Me too. That's why I don't tumble my brass.

Lyman Tuff Nut works good for me, hate to wait for brass to dry, at first I was put off by the red dust but it only is notable for the first few times its just rouge,

edited, guess I should check spelling before posting

What size grit?




P

I use that green Lyman stuff. Works beautifully and smells good.

Actually, I don't like to put a medium in my tumbler. She wouldn't fit easily and would probably make a lot of noise.

I use jeweler's rouge impregnated walnut shells. It gets the cases clean enough that they don't damage the dies, they shine enough for me, and I don't have to mess around rinsing and drying the brass.

in the late 1980's the place i worked at bought a
machine of some kind on a whim and it used crushed
walnut. they had several five-gallon buckets of that stuff
they threw away. i retrieved it and i'm still using on it.
it gets a shot of automotive polishing compound now
and then.
like others have posted^ ^ ^ ^ i don't tumble every
load unless the brass is dirty and would scratch dies.
even then i only tumble to clean it, not get a mirror
finish.
jmho- i never leave any electrical appliance running
while i sleep. i've already been through one house fire.

I have s timer on my tumbler, stainless pins work great.

There is videos on u tube using stainless pins. I have a thumblers tumbler. Amazing!!

I tried the SS pins and did not like it, several cases in a batch would have pins wedged sideways in the primer pocket. Also did not like the water and having to let the cases dry. I have gone back to tumbling with media, the current Lyman material I'm useing is a pain as more than 50% of cases have media lodged in the flash hole. I going to get some coarser media to take care of this problem. Also tried Iosso liquid polish and don't like it, I'm going back to Mother's mag wheel polish.

I tumble with the primers in. My case prep center has a primer pocket cleaner so I use that instead of tumbling.





P

Back when I used to clean my brass I used walnut with a couple squirts of Flitz brass polish.

Glad I dont do much of that any more.

I like clean and shiny brass as much as the next guy but I'll be darned if I'm going through the trouble of drying out brass. I've had great luck with walnut shell and a tablespoon of the Frankford Arsenal liquid polish added to the tumbler. Brass comes out of my old Dillon tumbler after about an hour that is so clean it is almost white in color. Use the pins and liquid if you want to complicate things and add a day to your prep timeline but if you are looking for simplicity stick go the vibratory/walnut/additive route.

I tumble brass in walnut from Petco before processing.

I tumble loaded ammo in corncob, also from Petco, to remove sizing lube.

I use SS pins and liquid for cleaning. Crushed walnut shell are a royal pain in the ass. Takes a lot of time to pick them out of the flash holes. I let my cleaned brass dry out on newspaper for a couple day after cleaning.

I agree with Dusty digging the kernels out of the primer pocket was a royal pain. That is one of the reasons I went to crushed corncob.

What kind of walnut shell are you using that is clogging flash holes? I have never in my life had to dig out a flash hole. I am using the lizard bedding from one of the pet stores in both large and small rifle cases with no problems. Before the lizard bedding I had an old bag of walnut shell that I bought from Dillon in the late 80s. I inspect my cases each time prior to priming and have not experienced this clogging issue of which you speak.

I've also been using lizard litter from the pet store but rethinking that decision after seeing some caked-media build up inside a tumbled case. I had to tap the case pretty firmly to dislodge it.

I like white rice.....
Pros.....
Cheap and dust free
Does a great job.
I only treat it one time and it lasts 15 to 20 batches.
Cons.....
It's a little too big for 243 and smaller
After punching primers make sure the flash hole is clean.

I don't know what kind it was, I threw it out when I switched to the corncobs.

Same here

I'll chime in here. I switched to SS pins from Guntap.com, they haven't gotten hung up in anything I've run, I final rinse with very hot water and place on patio table, in my dry climate they're usually dry in under an hour, and as already stated the wet process is a 1/5 the time of dry and cleaner. I hate the dust and digging cob or hulls outta the flash holes. YMMV

I would like to see the corn cob/lizard bedding/crushed walnut guys repeat my results I just had with my SS pins. I picked up some old brass that was over a year old at our local range here on the south end of baranof island. No overhead protection. Some of the brass I couldn't even read because it was so old. I could tell what it was though. My buddy and I knocked out the dirt/spruce needles and I ran them through my tumbler for 4 hours. I will take pics in the morning but they were spotless. 2/3 of this brass was badly miscolored and full of dirt. There were some pieces that were almost white they were so discolored. The SS pins got rid of all of it in 4 hours. I want to see one of the vibratory guys do the same.

I have them on a cookie sheet in my oven set at 170 with the door halfway open. They dry out super quick and it doesn't mess them up at all.

To each their own but I have yet to see any vibratory tumbler stack up to one using SS pins, especially when they are super dirty. I have used both.

I set mine out in the sun for a couple hours. Dry as a bone. Put in zip lock bags. I've cleaned thousands, only had one or two pins stick in a case.

Just to add a bit of levity: a little person who was a fortune teller was charged with some offense. Her size allowed her to slip between the bars of her cell and escape. The next day's headline read "Small Medium at Large".

I'm on the SS pins for quite a while. I can process more brass and get it much cleaner than using the vibe or ultra-sonic. Hated the stuck cob in the flash holes of 50% of the brass and the fine walnut I had would leave fine dust all over/in the cases which wasn't doing my dies any favors. I licked the stuck pin in the flash hole issue by using a rotary media separator like so.
https://www.amazon.com/RCBS-87076-Case-Media-Separator/dp/B000KKD1TW

The only thing I'm using the vibratory for now is moly coating bullets. I occasionally use the ultra sonic for small runs of 20-30 cases.

Lizard litter

For brass picked up, I use SS pins and rotary tumbler. For brass I've already cleaned, I used a vibratory tumbler with lizard litter with a cap full of NuFinish car wax.

Separating SS pins and water is a job that is better served outside on a hot day. In other words, it's a PITA to work with.

The key for shine when using the walnut shell is the additive. 2 Tablespoons of the Frankford Arsenal liquid added to the media every once in a while is all that it takes (1 quart will last approximately 2 lifetimes). I'm not sure if the walnut wears out or not but when it takes on a grey color I'll dump it out and start fresh - just because. I fish the brass out of the media with my fingers and tap the case heads together to clear the pockets/cases of media. It works for me. I purchased some "once fired" 300 WSM brass that looked like it had just been picked up off of the battlefield of Verdun. 2 hours in the walnut shell with additive and it looked better than new. I'm sure the SS pins work just as well (an even better for the pockets) but I don't see a need for dealing with separating wet cases and then drying the mess out. To each his own.

I'm still wondering about the need for "shiny" cases.
Clean, I understand.
Does shiny brass shoot more accurately?
If so you would think that all the Bench Rest guys would be buffing up their brass in between every bench reload.

One would think that the competition for the shiniest brass was a hobby in itself.

I use my tumbler to clean the brass. The fact that they get shiny is a side benefit. For years I would reload my brass before cleaning it. My lube pad became filthy. Now, after I tumble brass, my little pad still looks new.

Lizard Litter and MeGuiars fine cut polish. It will make the stainless pins look dull. And LL can be bought most anywhere. I have no clue where to buy SSP's.

Stainless pins with polish, does a decent job with the primer pockets.

I use the lizard litter walnut shells also. On most of my brass I resize with a redding body die which leaves the primer in then tumble in the walnut shells. Next I neck size with a lee collet die which deprimes them so no media stuck in the flash hole.

I though about the SS pin route but can't see going to all the trouble of drying cases for something that's purely cosmetic. If there was some functional advantage to it I might do it, but not just to get it a bit shinier.

Lagavulin