Tumbler recommendation

[gsxr310]

want to clean a couple thousand 223 brass i saved up. and eventually get into reloading. what tumbler is a good investment? $250 budget.

[Clever]

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/3143115086/thumlers-tumbler-ultra-vibe-case-tumbler-110-volt?cm_vc=ProductFinding

[gsxr310]

thats the one im leaning towards. how about this one... http://www.stainlesstumblingmedia.co...-rebel-17.html

[khw9mm]

Tumbler recommendation

Any vibratory tumbler will do its job but if you want your brass to look bling, get the stainless steel media tumbler.





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[rsrocket1]

Depends on what you want. The bare minimum is to knock off dirt, grime and other stuff that could damage your dies or gun. For bulk processing, a vibratory tumbler will make short work of that brass in a few evenings. Get crushed walnut media from a feed supply store or "blast media" from Grainger. You shouldn't have to pay much more than about $50 for the tumbler and $15-$20 for 50 pounds of the media. Add cut-up used dryer sheets to trap the dust and soot and a lamp timer to stop the tumbler after a couple of hours.

Steel pin wet tumbling will make your brass shine and the primer pockets clean (if you deprime before tumbling). Then you have to dump that toxic waste somewhere and dry the brass. The brass is much shinier, but no better off than vib tumbling.

Finally, there is ultrasonic cleaning. True ultrasonic cleaning is very limited in how many cases you clean. With the Harbor Freight big cleaner and other cleaners that cost less than several hundred dollars, you can truly get ultrasonic cleaning of a couple dozen cases at a time. Ultrasonic cleaning is highly dependent on the mass of the items you are cleaning and the size of the transducer. The pictures of full baskets of rifle cases in a cleaner is misleading. You are not getting ultrasonic cleaning, you are getting nothing more than vibratory agitation and may as well swirl those cases in a bucket of Simple Green or Lemi Shine and get just as good a cleaning job. A used dentist's ultrasonic cleaner will probably be powerful enough if you can get one really cheap or free.

Anyway, for the best bang for your buck and simplicity, the vib cleaner is the way to go. If you are obsessed with shiny, the steel pins are the way to go.

[gsxr310]

Thx all for the info. With that said, I am interested in the steel pin wet tumbler. So before cleaning, I need to de-prime? If so, does the hornady lnl de-prime or do I need to invest in some sort of depriming tool?

[jetman624]

I use a the lee universal deprime die on a cheap single stage press (to keep the dirt and crap away from my nice press) and then tumble. Taking the primer out first is not necessary, but doing so will allow the primer pocket to get cleaned up as well.

This is my order of operations:
deprime
tumble 15-20 mins
resize
trim
tumble 15-20 mins (removes lube, brass shavings and provides extra measure of debur/chamfer)
prime brass
powder and bullet

To dry the brass I set the oven to its lowest convection setting, let it warm up, set the "cook time" for 2 mins, put the brass in there and let them heat up and then cool down with the oven for about an hour. Always come out plenty dry.

[khw9mm]

^^ +1 on the Lee depriming die.

[___M|9||___]

Depends on what you want. The bare minimum is to knock off dirt, grime and other stuff that could damage your dies or gun. For bulk processing, a vibratory tumbler will make short work of that brass in a few evenings. Get crushed walnut media from a feed supply store or "blast media" from Grainger. You shouldn't have to pay much more than about $50 for the tumbler and $15-$20 for 50 pounds of the media. Add cut-up used dryer sheets to trap the dust and soot and a lamp timer to stop the tumbler after a couple of hours.



Steel pin wet tumbling will make your brass shine and the primer pockets clean (if you deprime before tumbling). Then you have to dump that toxic waste somewhere and dry the brass. The brass is much shinier, but no better off than vib tumbling.



Finally, there is ultrasonic cleaning. True ultrasonic cleaning is very limited in how many cases you clean. With the Harbor Freight big cleaner and other cleaners that cost less than several hundred dollars, you can truly get ultrasonic cleaning of a couple dozen cases at a time. Ultrasonic cleaning is highly dependent on the mass of the items you are cleaning and the size of the transducer. The pictures of full baskets of rifle cases in a cleaner is misleading. You are not getting ultrasonic cleaning, you are getting nothing more than vibratory agitation and may as well swirl those cases in a bucket of Simple Green or Lemi Shine and get just as good a cleaning job. A used dentist's ultrasonic cleaner will probably be powerful enough if you can get one really cheap or free.



Anyway, for the best bang for your buck and simplicity, the vib cleaner is the way to go. If you are obsessed with shiny, the steel pins are the way to go.

No offense here but why do people say to remove things off your brass that can possibly damage your dies? I mean I can understand if had bits and pieces of diamonds on your brass and you resize and deprime then ok then I can understand you might mess up your dies but if it's bits and pieces of dirt or sand, do you really think it's going to do anything to your STAINLESS STEEL dies? Really? Just asking I'm not trying to argue with anyone here but isn't that just common sense?

[___M|9||___]

But to answer the OP, get the stainless steel media rebel tumbler.

[jetman624]

No offense here but why do people say to remove things off your brass that can possibly damage your dies? I mean I can understand if had bits and pieces of diamonds on your brass and you resize and deprime then ok then I can understand you might mess up your dies but if it's bits and pieces of dirt or sand, do you really think it's going to do anything to your STAINLESS STEEL dies? Really? Just asking I'm not trying to argue with anyone here but isn't that just common sense?

Who has stainless steel dies? I think my RCBS and Redding dies are all steel...

Either way, I don't think anyone is worried about a single piece of sand or dirt hurting a die, but over time, putting dirty brass in them could wear them a little bit and open up the tolerances. You have to keep in mind the tight spaces and tolerances we are working with here.

Of course this is all subjective. I don't know any one who has put several thousands rounds of clean and dirty brass through a set of dies and then really looked to see what happens. I personally believe that dirt and crud has no business being anywhere metal parts are moving against each other-- whether it be the brass in the die, or the ram in the press, I just like to keep it all as clean as possible and that means washing the brass before it hits any of the resizing dies.

[rsrocket1]

No offense here but why do people say to remove things off your brass that can possibly damage your dies? I mean I can understand if had bits and pieces of diamonds on your brass and you resize and deprime then ok then I can understand you might mess up your dies but if it's bits and pieces of dirt or sand, do you really think it's going to do anything to your STAINLESS STEEL dies? Really? Just asking I'm not trying to argue with anyone here but isn't that just common sense?

Go and reload a couple hundred .223 cases that fell into muddy soil without cleaning them off and tell me your stainless steel/carbide/steel dies are unaffected . I know, there are lots of folks who've done nothing more than wiped their brass off with a damp rag and that's fine. Half the time I don't even clean my 38/357 or bolt action cases because I know they've never touched the ground. But .223 likely did hit the ground and processing several thousand is probably best done in big batch mode.


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[___M|9||___]

That's common sense, but I guess sense is not so common nowadays.

[___M|9||___]

Good answers though, ok let's not thread jack here sorry about that.

[RR.44]

Wet tumbling is more thurogh, however standard vibratory cleaning is also effective.