The six cases on the left were cleaned using my old vibratory tumbler. The six cases on the right were using my new Thumler's rotary tumbler with steel cleaning media, soap and water. See how much cleaner the rotary cases are? I love how the inside and the primer pockets have no black left on them.

Definitely on my to-do list...

John

Which model did you buy?

looks like the best price now is right through the stainless tumbling website for the kit. Other than that there is one seller on Ebay for $199 shipped for just the machine. Thumler B looks like the one most use.

Thumbler B something, the one with the BIG drum. I'll tell you one thing, when I drained the water from the cases/media, it was black, black, black! The Lemi-Shine probably helped it do that.

Rotary , SS pins , dawn for dishes, and Lemishine. Best combo I've ever used.makes me wonder. What took so long? I've got the RCBS sidewinder, set the timer for 2 hrs and do something else.

Bella1,

With the combination you just listed, do you just air dry them or do you toss them in the over for a bit.

Thanks.

I also use the SS media and frankly IMHO, I don't think you can beat the results.
After well rinsing the cases I dump them out on a large baking sheet with the turned up edges and leave them out in the sun for a little while.
In the winter I put them in the oven set to 200 degrees for about 15-20 minutes
Either way,they don't take long to dry.
I've been using a medium size "commercial" type of rotary tumbler I bought to polish agates for our kids when they were young, now the grand kids are into it.

Well I'm kicking myself in the butt right now. After ordering some Lemi-Shine online because I've never seen it locally, was shopping for groceries at the Wal-Mart Superstore. There on a shelf next to other cleaning stuff, Lemi-Shine! For less per jug than I paid, and no shipping charge......DOH!

Have you done any bottleneck cases and if so, how is the media to get out of the case? Does it get jammed in?

Part of my load was .223, .270, and one 30.06 case. It was no problem getting the media out. The steel needles are mach smaller diameter than even the .223 neck.

Running my second load now.

You ss tumbler guys make me sick!

OK OK...you make me jealous...I fessed up and admitted it!

OK the stainless stuff makes it shinyier but how does it really make it any better in the real world?

Same here! And I thought I was about to slack off spending money......

I'm thinking that would just be the set-up for reloading ammo for my Garands that had been primed with corrosive primers.

Let me see.....how to rearrange things....hhhmmm...

Round 2

Before



After



Better shot of the cleaned primer pocket.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-6SOiWE8Hc

good info here

First time I heard about tumbling cartridge cases (1976) I had a small gem stone tumbler. I put six '06 cases in and tumbled for an hour. Was amazed they came out mirror bright.

Towel and a little space heater.

Not on the rifle. Had some jamb in on the 9mm.

You ever reload brass so many times the black caked on gunk in the primer pockets make it extremely hard to insert new primers? And look at the .270 Win brass....vibratory will never clean off that surface corrosion.

From round three. I let them run twice as long to see if the brass looked even better. Not enough better to do that again in my opinion.

Round two of some of that nasty .270. This time they were run for 15 hours. Wanted to see if a much longer cleaning time was effective.

Look what difference a better camera makes!

Works great on nickel plated, too.

Tag

Yeah, I made the switch as well recently, and sold my Hornady tumbler. Couple things I saw so far (from just doing a few cycles):

With the corn/walnut media way: Sometimes I would run batches through overnight 12+ hours to get that really super bright shine and make sure everything was clean. The insides would clean up reasonably well, and I tumbled with spent primers in, so the pockets was not an issue anyhow. I cleaned those separately. With the SS tumbling, I don't see that much more than 4 hours would be needed, except maybe for really bad brass.

The walnut/corn would leave that super fine dust stuck to everything. I don't know that it was a problem, but it had to be abrasive and dirty

So far, with mine, I haven't been able to really get that brilliant "polished gold" look, but I do know they are 100% clean, so it really doesn't matter. Maybe adjusting the lemi or detergent might help

Found that .223 brass and pistol cases such as 10mm don't mix. A few always get jammed together, leaving the base of the .223 and the inside of the pistol case uncleaned. Never had the problem with corn or walnut, but it certainly is not a big deal to run separate loads on cases that would sleeve together.

Overall, glad I made the switch, and won't look back.

I found that if you use too much Lemi-Shine, they don't get as shiny. Which is kind of strange, because you use the Lemi-Shine to GET them shiny. I was using a full teaspoon, but my last batch I used just 1/2 teaspoon, and they came out super shiny.

I'm considering doing a shorter (hour or two) cycle after sizing and trimming as well. I know it adds a few steps, but it also takes care of the case lube removal, as well as the primer pockets that were not exposed the first run if they were not decapped.

For removing case lube, I still have my old vibratory tumbler.