Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire tired of the high price of walnut media?

Yep, sandblasting places.... 50 pounds of corn cob( I never did like walnut) was often well under 20 bucks. 50 pounds is bulky.. goes a long way too.

Of course I could add, I never saw the need to polish all the brass all the time. Shot "dirty" brass in competition so many times before polishing and won so much stuff.. figured it wasn't anything but cosmetic.

Funny you mention that, I've gotten to the point where I just run a brush through the neck and wipe 'em off.

Dirty brass wears out your dies, and cleaning brass by hand takes a long time. I was stubborn for over a decade thinking a tumbler was an extravagance. Then I got one, and wondered why I was so stubborn.

If you place any value on your time, or your dies, then a tumbler is a must have.

I use walnut for military brass ( removes the anneal discolorations )
And corn cob for pistol cases.
I've used several tumblers at work but I finally broke down and bought the Franklin Arsenal kit from Midway.
And love it.
My son uses it as well

It's run 4-8 days a month and it's held up well for over a year.

Nah, I hope that the price of walnut media skyrockets so that my walnut media stock flourishes. T'ell with anyone who might be adversely affected by that - they should be smart like me and load up on walnut media stock.

Well lets just say that for about 14 years, I loaded between appx 14-20K rounds of 223 a year. Still using the same Redding die for sizing that I started with and probably 10% of that was tumbled. Must take one hell of a lot of rounds of untumbled brass to wear one out. Heck I figure if I wear a die out in 100K sizings.... I could afford to buy another.

Of course part of our problem was time... having to load 400-600 rounds at a time, sometimes with only a few days between firing and loading.... tumbling didn't do anything but burn time.

Clean brass gives me clean dies and no scratches. I also shoot some low power pistol loads that are accurate but smoke the case.

smoking the case hurts accuracy? Grins..

Lets just say that one of the deals with dirty brass, was nationals, Camp Perry, against the military shooters and civilians and dirty brass was the only one to shoot a perfect 200 on the 600 yard line that day. Certainly didn't affect that score or my dies.

This is a closley guarded family secret but i will share it with a few of you since it is so close to Christmas. the best media i have found is light test weight WHEAT or BARLEY. Put some polish in, run the tumbler a while & clean brass.

Thanxs for the link, we use two large "Shell" blasters in our work place - and all the crushed walnut-shell media just goes through the exhaust Roto-Clones.

I see they sell a 50# bag for $22.79 ... I'll see how that compares to the price we currently pay for the product from our 'Industry' suppliers - who generally charge at least 'double' than anyone else.

If that turns out to be a bargain, we'll probably order at least 20 bags to start with.