SS media to Brass Ratio

[Beermster1]

I'm in the process of designing my own tumbler and was wondering what the ratio is of the SS media to brass. Just for discussion, I have a poly drum that is 17" in diameter and 26" long. That's 20 gallons. I have a 2-5 gallon buckets of brass, do you think I could tumble it all together mixed pistol and rifle ??
Thanks for your help This is a great site. Seems like I spend more time here than I do with my girlfriend LOL Not sure if that good or bad

[Cheep]

Don't know an exact ratio but you will need to separate the different sizes of brass or they will engage each other and stick together. I have 5# of ss pins and will put 200-300 9mm, or 100 .223 and all is well.

[Corbin Dallas]

You might want to consider the overall weight of said tumbler when full. My big dog tumbler weights in at a hefty 70 lbs when full. This includes over 1000 223 cases, stainless pins and 2-3 gallons of water.

[pure3d2]

If it's all possible, you should make the sides on the inside of the drum form a hexagon or some other shape. In a completely round drum, the pins might not do their job as efficiently.

I'm using the thumler tumbler.

Total weight: 15 pounds
Water weight: 8 pounds (1 gallon)
SS pins weight: 5 pounds
Brass weight: 2 pounds

So going by those numbers, you should have a ratio of 2.5 pounds of media to every 1 pound of brass.

You can adjust this ratio, but then your cleaning efficiency might go down when there aren't enough SS pins in relation to the brass.

My friend runs his brass according to these guidelines (from stainlesstumblingmedia.com). When it's my turn to run brass, I'll experiment with using slightly less water with more brass.

I'm hoping I can find a ratio that will allow me to put in 50% more brass while adding an hour to the tumbling duration for the same results. This will cut down the number of batches/total time I'd have to run.

[stilly]

NEVER tumble differdent calibers together before first checking to see if any will fit inside of the others because if they can, they WILL and that will make several shells not clean and you will then waste time picking them apart and setting them aside. I find that mix no .223 or .308 with any pistol calibers for the most part. Even .223 and .308 will stick togetherand you WILL have to pry them apart at times. Its just the way it goes.

Start with 5-10lbs of SS media and see where that gets you.

[afrancke]

NEVER tumble differdent calibers together before first checking to see if any will fit inside of the others because if they can, they WILL and that will make several shells not clean and you will then waste time picking them apart and setting them aside.

This is solid advice. The absolute worst is 45 ACP and .223; there is just enough room on the outside of the .223 base if it sits inside the 45 ACP case for a bunch of stainless pins to get wedged in there nice and tight - very, very hard to get apart after tumbling for a time.

[M27]

What pure3d2 said is the recipie from STM.com

I like to use equal parts brass,pins,water all by weight. So for a 15 lb tumbler 5-5-5.

You can mix some brass but for the most part it needs to be separated by projectile caliber. So you can tumble 9mm with 380acp with 38 supper. Or you can tumble any brass that use a .224 together. So 223 with 220 swift or any .224 caliber brass. 45acp with 45 long colt. Do you get my point.

[stilly]

I feel like I got turduckins when I pull a .380 out of a 9 out of a 40 out of a 45...